Board Game Designers Forum

Losing the big heavy negativity of my own design, trying this as a piecepack game.

Initial thoughts:
the board is laid out in a square, with the center left empty (make sure tiles are well-mixed):
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2-4 players.
Each takes a corner and suit to start. In games under 4 players, a true-neutral takes the reamining suits: they roll/move, but can't buy-out.

The coins are randomized and an equal amount are given to each player. Players roll1d6 and move in a continuous path + no / or \. When they stop, they reveal the tile they've landed on if it's face-down. When the tile is revealed, if the player has that rank and suit in a coin (blue 3, e.g.) they can "buy out" the square, putting it on their side, safe. If they have one or the other in a coin-- either a rank or the suit (3 or blue, e.g.) they can Bid on it; other players can bid another of the same suit or a higher rank. If Bidding occurs you can also Snatch, or buy-out the tile as you would be able to on your own turn. Buying-out, Snatching, etc. are not compulsory; you might need to hoard your coins for later. However, if you choose not to buy-out or start a Bid on your turn, you have to Tribute your lowest-ranked coin to the Well at the center.

The game ends at Doomsday...when one of the following conditions is met:
1) a player has no coins remaining.
2) all tiles have been turned face-up.
3) three or more of a suit are face-up and not bought out.

The winner is usually the player with the highest total points in their suit from their safe tiles.

However, if your buying out and bidding ends up giving you more in th winning player's suit than they have, you instead are the winner, a situation called Fool's Victory.

For example, Abe and Barb are playing. Abe has taken Arms and Barb Moons; Abe's total of Arms is 4 (0-1-3) and Barb's total of Moons is 5 (1-0-4). If Abe had 7 moons, he would win by Fool's Victory because he managed to beat the winner in their own suit.

ATTACKS: after you control a minimum 3 safe tiles, you can use these attacks once per turn. Each attack can be used one time, meaning if you use a flush that particular "all the same suit" group is turned face-down on your side; it still counts when the points are totaled, but you can't reuse the flush tiles each turn.
-- Flush: if all your safe tiles are of the same suit, you may return one target safe tile to the board from any player.
-- Straight: if your safe tiles are in sequence 0-1-2, 3-4-5, etc., you can switch one of your coins for any in the well.
-- Wild: if your tiles are from at least three suits, you can turn one face-down safe tile face up.
-- Travel: if you control three of the rank-5 tiles, you can roll another d6 for movement in the turn.

The True Neutral
To speed the game along, a "true neutral" can be used. This is a "ghost player" who can roll, move, and reveal tiles but cannot buy-out or use Attacks and who has no coins. Bids CAN happen on the TN's turn and start at the face value of the tile (0-5).

The Dice
-- If you don't have arm/moon/crown/sun dice, use any standard d6 instead, with 6 counting as the null.
-- If you roll a null for movement, your turn ends.