How to represent the advance of Bad Weather on a board game

Hello @Tim... So I thought long and hard about what your Dad was saying as having more "bits" and here are some of my ideas about "managing" the climbing in a "interesting" way.

So the idea is that "The Climb" is a fixed climbing section which has 5 levels... It's similar to what you would expect from "Snakes & Ladders" but playing is a bit different.

The idea is that your first climb is 7,000 feet in the 1st week. Players would choose how many "sherpas" are going to assist in the climb. Each player has a POOL of "sherpas" based on the amounts surviving the previous climb and various effects from resting at "The Camp".

Let's make some assumption, each player (and there are 4 of them) plays 5 sherpas each (5 green, red, blue and purple).

This means that each PAWN has 5 sherpas to HELP in making it the 7,000 feet to climb. There are 5 levels, each worth 1,000 feet. Now here is where the "Weather" comes into PLAY: the 5 weather cards determine the rolls that can be made by the players. So each Player has a pre-determined set of ROLLS based on the random 5 weather cards. For example "Sunny Day: +2 Rolls FOR ALL PLAYERS" So this means that on this day, the weather is nice and it allows ALL players the chance to roll +2 which means 7 rolls instead of the 5.

Much like in "Snakes & Ladders", each Player rolls normally and can CLIMB to another level, FALL to a previous level and WALK normally from one square to another.

So a player rolls 1 die. He gets a 3. It means he can WALK 3 squares out of 10 for that level (100 feet each square). But he has 5 Sherpas (as mentioned above) since this is first (1st) ROLL, he must choose a NEW Sherpa and make him WALK 3 squares (for a total of 300 feet). On his 2nd ROLL (remember we said 5 rolls +/- depending on the weather) he rolls a 2. Now either he can play another Sherpa which allows him to WALK 2 squares or move one of the earlier Sherpas already in "The Climb"...

Before Rolling, the current Player decides which Sherpa he wants to "move" or play another on the board. Let's ASSUME that on square "5" (3 + 2) there is a CLIMB. And it makes one sherpa go up 1 level to square 18. That means 1,800 feet (instead of only 200 feet). And a sherpa is now on LEVEL 2 (going upwards of 2,000 feet)...

So the goal is to use sherpas to move around and try to HIKE to the top which is +5,000 feet (if a sherpa makes it all the way). The goal is to CUMULATIVELY climb 7,000 feet in week #1... This is combining all the scores of each Player...

The more Players, the less amount of Sherpas per Player. The weather affects climbing both positively and negatively, players can use equipment too available to them to climb FASTER, etc.

Something like this... I don't think the DESIGN is "perfect" but it introduces a lot of "Bits" (Sherpas) and up to 6 Players... Maybe this could be a START for you to work from...

Cheers!

Note: Personally I could picture something like this! I know this is just some "general ideas"... Anyhow if you don't like the ideas, feel free to ignore them. I'm just presenting you how you can take a "dumb" Roll & Move mechanic and add a HUGE amount of variance and strategy that is not present in most Roll & Move games!

I also failed to explain that during "The Climb" players can use Equipment cards like "Oxygen Tank: WALK +500 Feet (5 squares)" or "Alternate path: Roll +1 die", "Safety Line: Prevent a FALL", etc. Bunch of stuff you can think up, etc...

Would be EPIC (IMHO)!!! Just my thoughts...

I imagine gathering clouds overhead, warning of impending snowstorms. Or sunlight that precipitates avalanches. Or even bracing winds that slow progress and damage equipment. Could you have a chit-pulling mechanic of some kind, and then the board becomes crowded with "lots of little bits" that indicate how soon a specific weather event could occur?

For example, there's a "weather" area at the mountain's summit, and at specific times the players draw a chit and add to the weather area. When three of the same chit are revealed, the weather event occurs, is resolved, and then all chits are returned to the bag.

The chits will allow players to see, consider, and prepare for impending weather events with a reasonable amount of success (and forewarning). I can imagine meeple tokens to illustrate this: clouds or snowflakes, sunbursts, and gusts of wind.

Hope this is useful, at least. :)

Will your game focus on a round trip, or just a one-way race to the summit? If it's both there and back again, I caution you against leaning too much on the "sinking ship" idea you refer to. Maybe you want to consider the "vanishing paths" of Forbidden Desert or to a lesser extent Forbidden Island: the former more so than the latter, as Mt. Everest won't be hidden forever by these weather events.

You could look at other games with these theme, such as Assault on Everest (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3642/assault-mt-everest)

The board game "K2" (and its expansions) have a weather factor included in them. Works like a charm. See: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/73761/k2

One idea I thought about would work if your board can be ordered into vertical rows.

Basically, you could represent the blizzard as a long piece that extends from one end of the board to the other. The Blizzard starts at the summit, and moves down by 1 row each turn, leaving snow in its wake. Any pieces caught on the Blizzard row are caught up in it, and move down with it as it advances down the mountain. Thus, the climbers would literally get "caught up" in the storm. They would be unable to move while in the Blizzard until they are deposited in a safe camp.

This would be a very physical way to represent the Blizzard, with a literal storm wall descending down in all its intimidation.
As for how to trigger the storms, you could figure that out.
Another advantage is that, because the Blizzard starts at the summit, the time it takes between the storm triggering and it hitting the players would decrease as they advance up the mountain, resulting in an increase in risk as the game progresses.

If you did want to do a switchback "snakes and ladders" style, this would work very well. Players would have to think about where they place base camps, because they would want to position them in such a way so that they might land in them when they are swept down by the Blizzard.

*please stop here if you want the opportunity to create your own ideas, I get way too far ahead, and may have accidentally created a game for you*

I may be getting too far ahead here, but I'm also picturing an alternate way to place Camps, where you start with a limited number of Camp tokens, and you may place them wherever you want. However, if you place all of yours early, you no longer have any protection against the storm in the later heights, and will have to rely on safe spaces. Camp placement could also become strategic, where you want them spread out across the rows in such a way that you have less of a chance of being swept down all the way to the bottom by the Blizzard.

If you wanted, you could add another level of depth, with ways to bribe other players into allowing you to use their camps as shelter.
I won't help you make your game. I realize I'm probably suggesting a different sort of game as you or any of the other players here are envisioning, but what I'm suggesting is sort of Snakes and Ladders on steroids.

The board could be covered in Safe Spaces to protect against the Blizzard, Dangerous Spaces that perhaps require a successful dice roll to cross successfully (snakes and ladders, of course), Cliff Spaces that could be scaled with a die roll (although, being caught on top of a Cliff while in the Blizzard could be very dangerous), Snow on spaces to slow progress (increasing the need for scalable Cliffs), competition for Camp placement, and to top it all off, a shop with gear to assist in scaling cliffs, crossing dangerous spaces, predicting the patterns of the weather, moving faster, clearing snow left from a Blizzard, and even impeding other players.

I see the opportunity for a brilliant game here. Please use any ideas you find helpful. I can see a lot of potential in this game, so use ideas well and make the game your own.