Entry #1 - High-Flyin’ Tail Waggin’ Dragon Kite Fight!

by bluesea

Players are Dragon Kite Fight Handlers. This is a game of both combat and a manoeuvring race game. It is played out on a pyramidal board representing the limit of the battle-sky above. (Imagine this as a vertical cross section through the sky.)

MANOEUVRE CARDS

Players are dealt seven Manoeuvre Cards. (Number and distribution of cards TBC.) The cards are numbered 1-6 representing Manoeuvres of your kite through the air. Movement direction is determined relative to the bounding hex of the Kite. (See illustration below). For example a No6 card moves a Kite up, while moving down to the right requires No2 card. If a player’s Kite cannot move, he discards his cards, moves the Kite down two spaces, draws four cards, and ends his turn. Dragon Cards are wild for movement but have zero value in a Kite Fight (see below). The top of the Kite points in the direction of movement: A diving kite (Manoeuvre Nos 1,2,3) points downward.

WIND DIRECTION

The game begins setting +1 Movement Track on No1 and Zero Movement Track on No6, i.e. until the wind changes, movement in No1 direction gains a +1 and movement in No6 direction is forbidden.

The wind direction changes whenever a Manoeuvre Card is played with a wind symbol on it. To change the wind roll 1d6. (If two Cards with wind symbols are played the same turn, only roll once). The result is the direction of the wind indicating the direction of +1 movement. The opposite movement space is blocked, i.e., no movement is allowed directly into the wind. Place the GREEN +1 Wind Marker on the Wind Direction Track; place the BLACK No Movement Marker opposite.

KITE HANDLER TRACK

The Kite handler track represents the player moving along the ground to manoeuvre his kite. The track is marked with a Wind direction and Bonus movement points (e.g., 6/+2). If a player’s Kite Handler is on a space on the track and plays a card of the same wind direction, he may move additionally the bonus number of spaces (any direction).

ACTIONS SUMMARY

Players do ONE of the following: 1. Play one card and move one space OR play two cards and move two spaces. (Apply Wind +1 Bonus and apply Movement Bonuses from the Kite Handler Track). 2. Move the Kite Handler along the track max. two spaces. 3. If a player holds less than seven cards he may draw any number of cards from the draw pile. A player may hold a maximum of seven cards. You may not move and draw cards on the same turn.

KITE FIGHT COMBAT!!

At the end of a kite movement if two kites occupy the same bounding hex they MUST engage in combat. Combat is resolved with cards. When two kites occupy a bounding hex a Kite Fight begins: 1. If the player with the defending Kite has at least two cards in his hand, he can choose to retreat using typical movement rules. If the defending Kite retreats upwards, the attacking Kite is awarded two points, if downwards, one points. 2. If the defending player fights each player must play one card face down from their hands and reveal them simultaneously. The winner is the player with the higher valued card. The winner is awarded the difference between the two cards in points.

Notes: If a player only has one card he lays the card down. If a player has no cards, the opposing player still lays one card down and damage is determined as if the player with no cards has played a “zero” card. If neither player has cards, each player loses one point.)

VICTORY CONDITIONS

1. If a player reaches the purple Apex of the board, he wins the game, no matter the score.
2. In the middle of the board are three Dragon Tokens. If a player collects all three tokens he wins the game, no matter the score.
3. Otherwise, the first player to reach the end of the scoring track (12 points scored) wins. Scoring tracks run up the side of the board.

So players can win through artful manoeuvring or inflicting damage to his opponent.

DESIGN NOTES:

1. Kites may have modifiable/designable properties in a version of advanced rules, e.g., speed, line strength, climbing bonus, diving bonus, etc.
2. The pyramidal board is meant to limit the “real estate” on the board as the kites ascend so as to encourage and force kite fighting. The board may be too small/confined: Play testing required.
3. NB: The shared components are the Wind Direction Tracks which affect the movement of both players.
4. High cards will lift the Kites up the board, but playing them weakens the player for combat.

Entry #3 - Fruit Flies

by Johana Goerner

(Johana ... please send me a private message if you would rather have your BGDF login name listed here)

Use the wind to take over your opponent's fruit fields before you loose all of your own crop. Be careful, things can get messy when fruit starts to fly!

Needed to play

• The Game Board
• Fruit Cards (10 of each fruit, 40 total)
• 12-sided dice
• 6-sided dice

Game Set up

1. Separate the fruit cards into four piles: Apples, Oranges, Pears, and Bananas
2. Choose two types of fruit you would like to play with. All fruit is the same; one is not stronger than another
3. Put one type of fruit in each field in three spaces, one must be left blank to start
4. Keep the rest of your fruit in a pile to the side, you will need more of each fruit throughout the game
5. Each player choose a side, either East or West

How to Win

• There are two ways to win
  • Get at least one of your fruit types into each field, this only requires one card of the fruit in each field including your own fields
  • Destroy one of the types of fruit your opponent has, in other words destroy one of their crops. E.g. Get rid of all their apples

Direction of the Dice

0=No Wind 1=North 2=Northeast 3=East 4=Southeast 5=South 6=Southwest 7=West 8=Northwest 9=Tornado, you must destroy one of your crops

Example Turn

1. At the beginning of each turn, you must rotate your fruit in one of your fields clockwise - you must alternate fields each turn
   • If your field is full and there's no empty spot, you must destroy one of your own crops
2. Role the 12-sided dice to see what direction the wind is blowing, if your roll a 0, your turn is over
3. You may pollinate the field that corresponds with the direction of the wind
   • Example: If you are the player on the East side and the wind is blowing Southeast, you may move one of your crops into the empty spot. You may also attack one of the crops of a different type - you would do this to get rid of an opponent's crop or to move one of your crop types into your other field.
4. Attacking To attack a crop, roll the 6-sided dice. If you roll a 5 or 6, the crop attacking succeeds in ousting the other crop. If you roll a 4 or below, nothing happens
5. If you are successful in placing a crop in your opponents field, turn it face down for one turn. See below.

Further Rules

• You can only control your own fields, if you have a fruit in an opponents field it it theirs to control. This means that you cannot pollinate an empty space in your field with one of your types of fruit by using it fruit from your opponents field.
• When you pollinate an empty space, simply take another fruit card from your pile and place it in the space. You do not loose your crop when you pollinate.
• If you're invading your opponent's field and there is a crop where you want to go, you must attack that crop. Same rules apply for attacking as above.
• Any opponent's crop stays "dormant" (face down) for one turn when it first invades your field. This means that you cannot attack this crop at this time.

Entry #5 - Leaves in the Wind

by ilta

A breezy 20 minute game for 2-6 players aged 8 and up

Once, the Gods of Wind controlled so much – trade, harvest, even the very fates of nations! But man’s steady technological progress has robbed the Gods of their power. Now there is but one way that they may demonstrate their superiority over one another: in schoolyards, where they blow leaves hither and yon, into the waiting arms of favored children.

Object

As a God of Wind, help your favorite child accumulate the biggest, most colorful collection of leaves! Of course, you control neither the leaves nor the children – only the wind itself. Out-guess, out-maneuver, and out-score your fellow Gods by collecting the best leaves, completing sets, and achieving your secret mission.

Components

• One board, a 10x10 grid, marked with the cardinal directions (N-E-S-W).
• Six” children,” pawns of various colors
• A pile of leaf tokens, showing a variety of shapes and colors (a Ticket-to-Ride-like patterning system helps the colorblind tell them apart). Each token is also marked with a number from 1 to 4, representing leaf size.
• A small deck of Secret Mission Cards, which confer a scoring bonus if completed by the end of the game. Examples: Canadian Pride: collect four maple leaves – 10 pts; Mulch: all your 1-pt leaves are worth 2 pts; Allergy: don’t collect any sycamore leaves – 6 pts.
• A larger deck of Wind Cards, each showing a value between 1 and 6 and a cardinal direction. Players will select one of these from their hands during gameplay to move the leaves around the board.
• A canvas bag, from which the leaf tokens will be drawn at random.

Set-Up

1. Whoever can hold their breath longest goes first. Set-up (and play) then continues clockwise.
2. Players place their pawns, in turn, on an unoccupied square of their choice.
3. Take five leaf tokens from the bag and drop them, one by one, from about a foot above the board. Tokens that fall off the edge of the board or land on pawns or other tokens are re-dropped until all five lie on otherwise unoccupied squares.
4. Deal out five Wind Cards and one Secret Mission Card to each player. Players should look at their Missions, but will not reveal them until the end of the game.
5. Put away the unused Mission Cards, unseen, while keeping the undealt Wind Cards close at hand to form a draw deck.

Gameplay

1. INVOKE THE WIND. On his turn, a player plays a Wind Card from his hand, FACE DOWN, in effect “cuing” a future wind. Then he draws a replacement Wind Card from the deck. On the first turn of the game, skip the following two steps and proceed immediately to the second player.
2. THE WIND BLOWS THE LEAVES. Players then flip over the card the PREVIOUS player played and move all leaves the direction and distance indicated. A leaf hitting the edge of the board stops; any further movement is ignored. Leaves may blow through – or end up in – squares with pawns or other leaves in them. The card is then discarded, and the card just played is moved to the side to make room for the next player’s play.
3. THE CHILDREN CHASE THE LEAVES. Beginning with the pawn of the current player and continuing clockwise, all pawns move one square in the direction of the closest leaf, moving diagonally if that is the most efficient route. If there are equally efficient possible routes and/or equally distant leaves, the order of priority, highest first, is N-E-S-W-NE-SE-SW-NW. If a pawn is “blocked” by another pawn – that is, the square it would move to is already occupied and there is no equally efficient route available – it does not move. A pawn also doesn’t move if it’s on the same square as a leaf.

Collecting Leaves

If, after step 3, a pawn and one or more leaf tokens are in the same square, the child collects the leaf (or leaves). Place the token(s) in front of that player.

After collecting the leaf, draw another token at random and drop it onto the board. As before, the leaf must be re-dropped if it ends up outside the board or on an occupied space.

Game End and Scoring

Once the bag is empty of leaf tokens, the game ends.

All players get a base score by adding the numbers on their leaf tokens. Bonuses are awarded to the player with the greatest number of colors, and the player with the greatest variety of species. Finally, players reveal their Secret Mission Cards and score bonuses if they completed their mission.

The player with the highest score wins, and all other Gods of Wind bow before him!

Entry #7 - Valley of Winds

by awakener76 ... Co-Winner

A great sandstorm has blown in from the desert and through the valley revealing the entrances to ancient tombs. Archeaologist rush to the site to explore the tombs and recover the artifacts within.

The players play Archeaology Professors who send their teams of students into the tombs, but the sandstorm could return at any time, revealing new tombs and burying others. Wll your team of students be buried before they can get out with the artifacts.

Valley of Winds in a push-your-luck, trick-taking card game.

Setup

There are two types of cards, the 55 tomb cards (11 each of 5 colours, numbered from 1-5, three 1s, three 2s, two 3s, two 4s and one 5 per colour) and the 20 wind cards (these include instructions such as "add sand counter to an opponents tomb", "add sand counter to your tomb", "bury an opponents tomb", "bury your tomb").

The two decks of cards are shuffled and placed, face down between the players. Piles of sand counters and artifact tokens (coin, poker chips, glass beads or similar, in two colours to represent sand and artifacts).

Gameplay

At the start of a players turn they draw a tomb card, if it has a sandstorm icon they immediately draw a wind card and follow the instructions on it.

If their tomb is not buried then they may try and discover artifacts. This is done by playing sets of tomb cards. These tomb cards score as follows:

1 Artifact Token Combinations 4 of same colour Three 1s Three 2s 3 in a row (123,234,345) any colours

2 Artifact Token Combinations Three 3s Three 4s Four 1s Four 2s 4 in a row (1234,2345) any colours 3 in a row (123,234,345) all same colour

3 Artificat Token Combinations Five 1s Five 2s Four 3s Four 4s Three 5s
5 in a row, any colours 4 in a row, all same colour

If a tomb is buried (either by a bury card or by attaining 3 sand tokens) then the player discard their hand and cannot draw any cards until they are "dug out" by the digging team.

The Digging Team

The digging team is used to dig out students trapped in a buried tomb. When a tomb is buried the player must discard their hand and cannot draw any more cards until they are dug out. At the end of a turn each player who is currently buried must bid for the services of the digging team. If there is only one player currently buried they pay 1 artifact token and are immediately dug out. If there are more than 1 players buried they must bid artifact tokens in order to gain the digging team's services. The winning bidder is dug out whilst the other must wait until the end of the next turn to bid again.

Going clockwise from the first player, each player makes a bid and the next player must either beat the bid or drop out of the bidding.

Winning the game

When there are no more tomb cards the game is over. Players can claim artifacts for any combinations they have in their hands. The winner is the player with the most artifact tokens.

Entry #9 - Winds of Magic

by simons

A game for 3-6 players.

Wizardry school has taught you the basics, how to channel the Winds of Magic to cast powerful spells. Now, it is time for you to get out there and make a name for yourself.

Object

Impress your fellow wizards by earning gold.

Components

5 dice, 6 wizard tokens, 6 spellbook cards, 1 board, 1 monsters deck, 1 missions deck, 25 spell tokens, 25 gold tokens.

Setup

Each player is given a spellbook, 2 spell tokens, and 1 gold token. Players must choose which three spells they begin with (see: casting a spell). Each player then places their wizard token on the Wizard’s Academy (on the board). Shuffle the monster and mission deck. Place a Monster card, face-up, on each board location marked with an Encounter. Draw a number of mission cards equal to 3+3/player. Place the first 3 face-up, and leave the others face-down. Discard remaining Mission cards.

The Turn

At the start of each turn, if there are any Encounter locations with no monsters, draw a Monster card to replace it. If you are out, reshuffle the Monster deck. If there are fewer than three face-up Mission cards, then draw enough Mission cards until there are three. If you cannot, then the game is over. The player with the fewest gold tokens (if there is a tie, the youngest player) makes the Winds of Magic roll, by rolling three dice.

The player with the fewest gold tokens may choose who acts first. She may cast between 0 and 3 spells. When she has finished, play proceeds counter-clockwise, until each player has acted.

Casting a Spell

To cast a spell, each player must draw power from the Winds of Magic. Each dice from the Winds of Magic roll indicates the power of each spell. Spells have a casting cost. If the cost is a number, you must use at least that much power. If the cost is X, the player may use any number. For example, if a 4 was rolled, it could be used to cast Luck, or Teleport (4 spaces), but not Fly. Each player may only use each dice once, however the roll stays the same for each player (i.e. all players use the same three rolls during their turn).

All characters can automatically cast Teleport. They begin the game knowing two other spells (one must be a combat spell). To indicate which spells a character knows, place a magic token over each spell on your spellbook card.

Teleport (X)

Move your wizard up to X territories. You may not move through a space with a monster. If you have more than enough movement to move through the monster, you are stopped. You may use a later teleport to retreat away from a monster, but may not move through it without defeating it.

Luck (4)

The next time you cast a spell this turn, add +1 to the number on the Wind of Magic dice for determining power.

Shield (4)

If you fight a Wizard’s Duel this turn, add +1 to your roll.

Fly (5)

You may move through any Monster card this turn without stopping. The monsters are not discarded, nor defeated during missions.

Combat Magic (X)

There are three types of combat magic: Dark, Fire, and Life Magic. Each counts as a different spell. Whenever you encounter a monster, it will have a Defense against each type of magic. In order to defeat the monster, you must cast a spell of at least that power. Afterwards, discard the monster, and move 1 space. Some tough monsters require that multiple spells be cast. Both spells must be cast by the same player on the same turn.

Missions

Each mission card lists where you must go, and what you must do. Missions include transporting items and defeating monsters. Each mission lists an amount of gold, collected upon completion.

Wizard’s Duels

During your turn, if you move to the same space as an enemy wizard, you may challenge her to a duel. Both players roll a dice. If either character wins by at least 2, her opponent loses her next turn, and the winner may choose to steal either one gold or item (including items for a mission).

Buying Items and Spells

If you are in the Wizard’s Academy, you may spend 1 gold to purchase any new spell. If you are in the Marketplace, you may spend 1 gold to purchase a magic item.

Winning

When you are unable to replace the missions cards back to three, the game ends. The player with the most gold wins.

As mentioned in the News Announcement, congratulations to awakener76 and to stubert for tying with the highest number of votes.

To see all of the voting results, jump to the Voting Poll.

Now, go give your fellow designers some proper feedback in the Critiques Thread.

I hope you all enjoyed the Challenge! Watch for the April GDS Challenge announcement over the new few weeks ... and see you on the other side. ;-)

-Bryk