Board Game Designers Forum

Last time I created a journal for Yeti Mountain I was feeling like the game had turned into more of a cat and mouse game than a pick up and deliver/trading game which is essentially what I wanted it to be. After breaking down the elements and letting them simmer for a while hopefully I'm closer to achieving my goal. Here's a breakdown of the changes:

Fixed layout: previously the mountain was imagined as being discovered by laying cards-either randomly from a deck or from a hand of cards. I've since decided to go with a fixed layout with the mountain broken into eight levels-a base level, three slope levels, three yeti levels, and a summit level.

Yetis want more items as climbers get higher: in order to ramp up the difficulty as the game progresses the first level yetis only want one item on their list to let climbers pass while the second level yetis want two items and the third level yetis want all three items. This will hopefully increase the depth of the game and slow down players with a strong lead.

Events are determined by a dice roll: previously there were layout cards to determine if a player was blocked by an avalanche. Now when the player rolls a die to search for objects the same die roll also determines if an event happens. On a d6 roll if the player rolls an odd number they find nothing. If they roll an even number they find an object and draw one as a token randomly from a bag. If they roll a one they get stuck in a chasm and they loose a turn while they free themselves. If they roll a six they still get an object but they also trigger an avalanche which knocks them down a slope level or to the base level if they are on the first slope level.

Number of objects: I did a playtest a few days ago with the fixed layout and with fifteen yetis and fifteen unique object tokens there seemed like there should be more than one of each object for when multiple players need the same item so I now have to tokens for the fifteen objects making a total of thirty. I'm not sure how this will work yet but we'll see with some more play testing.

Artwork: it's not fancy but I started putting some artwork on the cards to add some atmosphere. I'm still noodling around with how the yetis should look.