Hi all,
I've been lurking around these forums for many years, dropping by and catching up on what's happening now and again, but haven't posted before.
I have a game I made a prototype of about a year and a half ago, but then I moved from New Zealand to Australia to live here for a couple of years. I've been flat out, and now want to pick up my game again where I left off (my sister is visiting in two weeks, and will bring my prototype over). But before I do, I thought I'd run the concept past you all, to see if anyone knows of any similar games I should check out to make sure I'm not duplicating something existing?
It's called Hindrance at the moment, but that may change if theming is added.
Basically, there's a hexagonal grid board, in the shape of a larger hexagon (the current version of the board has 8 hexagons along each edge, but I'll be testing it at various sizes during the next round of playtesting). There is a bag of hexagonal tiles (exact number still to be determined and will depend on what size board works best), which fit into the hexagons on the board. Each tile is a portion of a maze; as in there are different routes through each hexagonal tile. In addition, there are 6 starting tiles (the game is for two to six players) and 1 goal tile, which are 'open' on all sides and are laid out on the board in a format agreed by the players - the 'standard' setup is with the goal in the centre and the players starting at the edges of the hexagon, but there will be variations included in the instructions for different numbers of players and different playing options. Each player is represented by a small token (I've been using single lego squares of different colours) who starts on their starting tile. The player is the first to create a maze across the board and move through it to the goal.
Each player draws a certain number of tiles (again, specifics will be determined by playtesting different setups, but I've been using 3 or 4). They keep these in their hand; scrabble tile racks work well to hold these. On their turn, each player does three things - place a maze tile anywhere on the board, move their token as far as they want within the maze, then draw a new tile from the bag.
If everyone just builds a maze from their starting tile to the goal, then the game is boring and over in a few turns, but the real enjoyment is when, as per the game's name, you place tiles in the way of the other players and "Hinder" their progress, turning them in directions they don't want to go or forcing them to backtrack to a different branch of the maze.
I hope I've explained it fairly clearly - I'll be able to upload a few photos in a couple of weeks once my sister visits. In the mean time, I'm working on some tile ratios, board layouts, and so on.
So, if anyone has any thoughts or, more importantly, if you can think of any similar games I should check out, please let me know!
Thanks,
Simon
I'll check out those games - I remember playing tantrix when I was younger, but haven't pleayed the others.
And I agree that there needs to be a benefit to hindering other players - in two player games it works okay, because a hindrance to the other is essentially a benefit to yourself, but more players, means people are reluctant to play such moves. As I said, when people just play straight to the goal, ignoring others, then the game is over very quickly (and is very boring). I'm trying to come up with some ways to provide a benefit - one I thought of was having an 'explosion' tile which you can play onto a tile which is already on the board and then either relocate that tile anywhere else and/or replace it with another tile from your hand. I'm thinking something like that would allow players to hinder others and benefit themselves, as they would be either removing a bad tile from in front of their token, or stealing a tile they want from in front of someone else.
Obviously I'll need to have a few games with some of these rules, additional tiles, and so on, and see if any work.
Thanks for the thoughts,
Simon