Board Game Designers Forum

Ok, I originally started a thread on boardgamegeek.com with an idea, and then started another as a journal. Then someone pointed me here and said I should keep my journal at this site. So I'm going to repost those threads here, and then use this page to update as I continue with the game.

Hey all. I was watching Star Trek on the sci-fi channel while my fiancee was working the other day and a thought popped into my head. Anyone who watches the show (specifically the original series) knows that anytime an ensign (redshirt) went down on an away team, they bit the dust. I thought it would be neat to create a game based around that idea.

The problem is, I'm having trouble deciding on what the idea of the game should be, exactly. As of now, I have three thoughts I thought might be interesting.

1. Each player is an ensign on the ship, and the point is to make sure you're the only player that ISN'T selected to be a part of the away team.

2. Each player controls an away team already part of a planet mission, and the point is to kill off the other players' ensigns while managing to keep yours alive.

and

3. Each player controls an away team already on a planet mission, and the point is to kill off your OWN ensigns before everybody else.

and as I wrote this a fourth idea popped into my head, kind of similar to the third.

4. Each player controls the officers in an away team as well as one ensign in the other players' away teams. The point here would be to kill off the ensigns in your away team (controlled by the other players) while simultaneously trying to keep your own ensigns in the away teams of the other players alive.

I'm not that far into mechanics yet, but I know for sure it would have to involve cards of some sort to mess up the other players and assist yourself. A lot of the mechanics are going to depend on which of these options I end up picking. I just can't decide which idea I like the most, and I was hoping for some opinions as to which specific theme people out there liked. Thanks!

So, I posted in a previous thread (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/330008) that I wanted to create my first game and listed a few ideas I had for a general concept, asking for opinions. After going over that thread and thinking, I decided on going with option 4. I am going to use this thread as a kind of journal, to keep things updated for anyone who is interested in seeing what's going on without having to read through the entire discussion. What I'm going to do is everytime I have an update for the game, or where its progress is at, I will edit this main post. You can reply to this all you want, and I'll partake in discussions, but if you're only interested in reading how the game is going, this main portion is where you can look. That way you don't have to sift through anything else.

08/04/08--Decision made on concept to use
I've decided to go with the 4th option from my orginal thread. Each player will control the officers of an away team, as well as having a redshirt in each opponent's away team.

During my lunch today, I decided how to make use of the rest of the away team. What I want to do is have a randomly-build board. Not Catan-style though. I think this is going to be a build as you go game. Each player will start at the location they were transported to. There will be a pile of tiles to draw from, and each player will either have a hand of tiles, or lay one tile a turn. They will be able to either play off of their own map of tiles, or play on opponents tiles. Tiles will have potential hazards, some kind of bonus, or resources.

The idea I came up with in regards to resources is where the main portion of your away team comes in. You get resources from tiles you have an officer standing on, but not resources in the standard sense. They will be various situations/items that when combined properly can be used to build an elaborate death for one of the redshirts in your away team.

I'm also considering the ability to spend resources on building protection for your redshirts in the other away teams. I'm debating whether doing this part the same as above, or having your redshirts in the other away teams be able to hold their own tiles, and only the resources they gather can be used for protection. If I go with that plan, then I will have it where if a redshirt AND an officer are on the same tile, no resources are gathered.

That's my update for today, keep checking this thread as progress continues and thanks for reading!

08/04/08--From Home

I drew some concept art for a box cover. I also drew up some of the "resource" cards. They include Trip, Tiger Pit, Auto Turret, Laser System, Freak Avalanche, Blow Meant For Another, First Contact, Captain's Romance, and Mistaken Identity. There will be more to come, I'm sure.

I've also refined rules somewhat. I'm thinking that each player draws from a combo deck and spend resources to complete the card. For example, if a player draws the "You're Not the Pretty Captain!" card, the player would have to gather and play, in order, Underground Passage (a possible resource card), First Contact, Captain's Romance, and then Mistaken identity. This would net the player a certain amount of SpaceArmada Points. The first player to X SPs wins the game.

I haven't begun working on the Resource Cards that can be taken by RedShirts yet, but they're probably up next. I just realized a few of my mechanic ideas (not mentioned here yet) contradict each other a bit, so I'm going to smooth them out as well.

That's it for all, thanks for reading!

08/05/08--From Work

So I was thinking last night and had an idea where there could be mission cards as well as "kill the redshirt" cards. For example, there could be captain's romance, where you had to lay down the cards necessary to be able to play the captain's romance card, and that would net you some SP. This would also give the possibility of some other player, not wishing the captain's romance to succeed, playing the Mistaken Identity card, and sacrificing a Redshirt in the away team to prevent the points.

Ooh, just hit with an idea, so this is kind of stream of consciousness, may not pan out into anything. I may add something that allows players to beam down more redshirts if their redshirt dies in an away team. If I did that, I would have every redshirt death subtract a SP, and then maybe I would have mission objectives for the away team proper. Just a thought.

08/06/08--From Work, possible major changes

Well, I'm sitting here at work processing claims, thinking about how perhaps my ideas are becoming slightly convoluted, when of course another idea pops into my head. This one, however, would change how I've been thinking of the game entirely. This idea would still have each player contribute to building the board with hands of tiles, but it would almost be a separate game. Before actual play starts, players would draw hands of tiles and take turns placing them upside down to form the board. There would be more than just simple randomness to this as will be explained below.

Once the board is built, each player draws an away team from their deck of officers (possibly based around the amount of players) and "beam them down" to the starting tile. At this point there are no redshirts in play. Players would then draw a goal for the away team from a common deck of goals.

The members of the away team may then move, flipping over tiles they come into contact with and may then beam down RedShirts. This is where the strategy of board-building may come in. RedShirts may only be beamed down to tiles either touched by, or adjacent to, officers of your opponents' away team. You also only have so many RedShirts to beam down, so if they're all in play, they would have to be beamed up and then back down to the new tile you want resources from....grrrr, getting busy at work and hitting a mental road block as to where I was going with this. Be back later to clarify/fix this update.