A little bit ago, I had Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on my mind, along with the Horizon franchise. I was thinking that lost technology is such a cool concept, and I was musing on bringing it to a board game. Now, I could just make some deckbuilder or something and simply theme the cards or the board or the tokens around lost technology, but I bet could do something even MORE immersive!
If the theme was "forgotten technology", then what if the technology was actually forgotten? What if there were advantageous maneuvers or powerful resources that needed to be remembered by the players in order to be utilized? The players themselves would represent societies, and they would feel the shock of recovering information they once had. Information that they did not mean to lose.
But how could this be done? It can't be forgettable rules because then they couldn't be played by, so it must be forgettable resources. A concealable significance, i.e. the front of a card. They need to be positioned in such a way where they are accessible without being readable, i.e. face-down on the table. If cards are resources, you must limit how many can be collected, i.e. you only get a few per turn.
And then it hit me: this game already exists. It's Concentration. Pick two cards if they match you get them. They make this game for babies using Sesame Street characters.
Sorry for the novella
I didn't mean to imply this, but I'm not working on anything using this idea. I just saw the "New Game Ideas" forum and I thought, "Hey! Let's jog up a little conversation." Still, I'm happy with the results
wooooaaaaah
That's a great idea. That's really cool yeah. It makes me want to grab some playing cards and start experimenting. Call it "Lost Kings" or something and you need to hold the Kings with certain conditions...
I'm imagining a really low number, like 4, and that this game would be played with normal playing cards with many cards removed. Deck size of like 26
I hate Clue, so I didn't like the idea at first, but now I'm warming up to it. However, I suggest a separation of the action cards and technology cards, and let the technology cards all start in the hands of the players. It would BE Clue, but it would be an enhanced Clue because of the action deck. We could even make action cards super strong if we deregulate the technology-card-reveal process: if we allow players to show each other their information cards semi-freely, then we don't have to feel bad about letting action cards steal information cards or swap cards with the secret-in-the-envelope cards. I also like the 1900's archaeologist theme
Now THIS idea would be really cool with X3M's idea. You could have a deck of cards, and players would draw from it and be required to put cards back into it. The cards IN the deck are rare, scoring cards and plenty of deck-navigation cards. Those deck-navigating cards would have to be combined with player memory and deck-tracking to get them the scoring cards they want. Bonus: totally playable with normal playing cards. Exciting!
Personally, I'd prefer to limit the number of actions per turn, or to have the card which grants the search be consumed. I dunno, I like to minimize components.
I just got here and you already know me too well lol
I don't feel this is unique enough to have "memory" stand out as an aspect of this game; all games with unique cards are played better by memorizing the cards. But again, it's not like I'm working on anything, just having fun talking about ideas
He has no clue what idea he's about to have. This suggestion doesn't entirely match up with the theme of "Lost Technology" because these mechanics could just as adequately describe the invention of NEW technologies. But look at this:
Yes! Now THIS has me excited. The Future is the draw deck, the Past is the discard. The Future is unknown, face-down, the past is known, face-up, but it's out of reach. It's known, but not practiced; it's deprecated. This mechanic very well explores the effect of time on technology, and I think it's really cool
Unfortunately, I don't see how it's compatible with the idea of replacing cards into the deck and using cards to search through the deck, which is also what I was excited about. Well, they could be two different games
Similar idea: players are permitted to draw randomly from the Future or take their choice from the Past, and these cards are added to their hand. Each player's hand is the Present, and each player's hand has a restrictive size limit. The cards in a player's hand can help them draw from either deck, affect their hand limit, or help them score points, and that's using only this mechanic. You could throw in battle or an economy or birds or something, and this idea could go many places.
This last idea I'm not sure I understand. Do you propose having a table which represents cards, and that cards, when discarded, cause the table to lose a cube? I imagine that the cards and table are categorized (e.g. farming technology, medicine technology)? If this is the idea, how is this better than the cards representing themselves? Unless there are fewer cubes on the table than there are cards of a category, in which case it would still be possible to draw cards of a category without being able to play it, but I don't see how this could be used.
Anyways, I'm so happy to see what you all have to say. It's certainly reminding me that I like game design, and it's given me some ideas to try with my decks