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Predator vs Prey African animal board game

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Thu, 01/14/2016 - 15:01
Okavango
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Joined: 01/06/2016

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jBC7bSGqSyPw3UajpmT_nyGj00uU3DX8wAM5...

I slopped this up last couple weeks out of boredom, wasn't sure what to think of it. It's a 2 player board game where each side has an "army" of African animals, with 9 different piece types on each side, each player with 24 pieces total on a 12x12 grid. The key mechanics include each side having one piece that can move other pieces as it moves, using dice to attack defend, and each piece having a unique ability in some way. Multiple predators can attack an piece at the same time, while the prey can group together for stronger defense. The board has a river flowing through the middle, which reduces movement attack and defense for each piece to one if the are on a water square.

I won't go into other specifics too much so I'm hoping the doc does most of the explaining. The wording isn't amazing, it's a pretty rough draft. Anyway, in its current condition the game seems to favor the prey, and I'm not really liking it, feels like there's way too many rules, nuances and exceptions to rules. Some things I'm considering:

- Completely getting rid of the dice and the assigned number charts for each piece, and come up with a combat/movement system to simplify the gameplay so it isn't bogged down with checking and making sure what pieces can exactly do what all the time.
-Truncating the number of pieces and types of pieces, for similar reasons as the last item listed (and some of the pieces could end up looking to similar).
-Ditching the packing mechanism, or maybe incorporate it somehow into the flanking mechanism.
-Truncating the board to a 10x10 rather than 12x12, assuming other changes are made, namely a reduced number of pieces.

I'm very new to this. Feel free to criticise, give opinions, ideas to improve, encourage/discourage, etc.

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Thu, 01/14/2016 - 15:46
#1
killerkilroy
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The link you posted requires

The link you posted requires permission to view. Check your sharing settings?

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Thu, 01/14/2016 - 16:46
#2
Okavango
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Joined: 01/06/2016
fix'd

Oh derr. Should be fixed now. New to that too.

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Fri, 01/15/2016 - 13:16
#3
harmon89
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Joined: 01/13/2016
I think it could be cool if

I think it could be cool if players could choose their starting positions at the start of each game rather having it always predetermined. I'd also enjoyed the layout of the board to change from game to game so that it is a different experience every time you play.

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Sat, 01/16/2016 - 21:35
#4
Okavango
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Joined: 01/06/2016
I think it could be cool if

Yeah I suppose you could do it that way to set up starting positions, not sure how much dynamic that could open up. Same with the different map options though that might require a lot of different game board pieces of some kind, and I'm sure some board maps would end up favoring one side or the other. But it would be cool in the other hand to see if both sides are balanced enough to the point where it matter very little which map arrangement would be thrown on the board.

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Mon, 01/18/2016 - 04:33
#5
Midnight_Carnival
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Joined: 06/17/2015
reminds me of a game

I can't remember the name (think it was "jungle" or something) anyway, you had different animals and a river, each animal ate another which was smaller than it, the smallest one was the rat who could "eat" the elephant by running up his nose. You controlled an army of animals and got them to predate one those of your opponent.

Your game seems to have more strategy though.

Ideas for battle which is not controlled by dice (purely random): There could be movement cards which could be played - you'd need to control parts of the board or go somewhere or something to get them but different animals could be more resistant to different types of attack and could use defence cards better - for example your rhino (if you have one) would be fairly resistant to a pounce attack but not be able to use a dodge card effectively.

The other idea was one which I developed from something someone suggested for my dinosaur game. The animals could have an attack and defense strenght, there could be other factors such as terrain or different stats which you could compare to influence the outcome, anyway you compare numbers and there are different possible results. 1) attacker wins and kills defender 2) defender wins and could kill or injure attacker 3) niether animal wins and one or both are injured.
When an animal suffers an injury you roll 'wound dice' there are six possible injuries which could limit the defensive, offensive or mobility/ability of the animal. You can't get rid of the wound dice unless you pay something, sacrifice something or send the animal somewhere.

Other sugestions: replace river with watering hole (although in the Okavango you'd get rivers and flood planes not watering holes) making the water a resource players compete over rather than an obstacle - in nature predators frequently wait around watering holes to ambush prey.
Have a way of staging a nasy undermining strategy involving your herbivores destroying the enemy habitat or something - as you have it it seems to me that only your predators can really 'attack'.

-just some suggestions, hope they help.

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