A card game for 3-6 players.

Components:

The game consists of an action deck for each player, a special goal die, resource tokens (2 * Number of players), and tokens that represent gold/victory points.

Each action deck consists of one copy of each type of card. Each card represent an action that a player can do.

The goal die has 6 sides. Each side has a primary and a secondary resource goal that ranges from 0, 1 or 2. The values are 0/1, 0/2, 1/0, 1/2, 2/0, and 2/1.

Actions:

• Farm – All players gain a resource (max 2).
• Tax – All players lose a resource, if able.
• Steal – Take one resource from another player who has at least one resource.
• Gift – Give one resource to another player with less than two resources.
• Gamble - Discard top card of active player’s action deck.
• Build – All players collect gold based on resources and the resource goal die is rerolled. 2 gold for each player that has the primary goal number of resources, and 1 for each player with the secondary goal number.
• Mirror – Copy the effect from the top card of the active player’s action deck.

Setup:

At the start of the game each player is given one resource token and their own action deck.

Players can then sort their action deck in any order they’d like, and then place the deck face down in front of them.

Once every player has decided the order of their deck, the resource die is rolled.

Gameplay:

Each player must reveal the top card, and only the top card, of their action deck at all times.

On the active player’s turn they may choose which action card they would like to use from the revealed cards of each other player. A player may not choose the action card from their own deck.

After the player makes their choice, they perform the action listed on the card and discard it from the other player’s deck.

If any player has no more action cards in their deck, there is automatically one more “Build” round and the game ends. If not, the player whose action card was selected last becomes the active player and the game continues.

The player with the most gold at the end of the game wins.

Example Play:

PlayerA’s top action card is Farm, PlayerB’s is Build, and PlayerC’s is Gift. They each have one resource. The die currently shows 0/1.

On PlayerA’s turn he can choose between Gift and Build. He picks Gift, and gives his resource to Player B. PlayerA discard’s PlayerC’s Gift card, and PlayerC reveals the next card from his deck.

Because PlayerA used PlayerC’s card, it is now PlayerC’s turn. PlayerC has to choose between Farm and Build, and choses Build. PlayerA has 0 resources, which matches the primary goal, and gain 2 gold. PlayerC has 1 resource, which matches the secondary goal, and gains 1 goal. PlayerB has 2 resources, and gains 0 gold.

Play continues with PlayerB.

A Handful of Knowledge is a trivia game, where questions are distributed among all players, as well as three clues that will help answering. Further, there's some piece of information available that tell which clue is connected to which question. 2-4 players.

Every game has its own unique deck of cards. Vice versa, one card deck is one game.

PARTS

A deck (shuffle together and deal all): 20 question cards, one card has one question; opposite side red. 20 cards, 3 clues printed on each of them; opposite side yellow.

A game board with crossword. Actually board is only one sheet of paper, where you can see the empty crossword (no clues).

Plenty of letter tiles, letter side up on the table.

A electronic device. Player can check a connected pair at a time (which clue number is connected to which question number). Or player can verify if his or her letter tile was correctly placed on the board.

A customised dice. Sides (actions): draw and use the device (2), draw twice (2), use the device twice (1), skip (1).

PLAY

On his/her turn player tosses dice once. He/she does the action, that came up. If action is draw a card, player blind draws one card from other players hand and gives one card exchange.

After the two actions player is always ought to lay five letter tiles on the board. Player is allowed to scatter tiles how he/she wishes.

Player then must use the device to check whether each letter is correct. If letter was false, it is returned to stack. If right letter was in right place, player scores points. If a word was finished, player scores a bonus.

A Card- and Token-based game mechanic for altering the order of play. (The rules describe a game of Area Control, but can be easily altered to work with any game that uses action sequences as a game mechanic).

Setup:

Each player receive 5 Tokens, 10 meeples, and 3 Cards. 3 meeples are placed in any 2 or 3 Cells within the Players starting Area. The remaining tokens are put in a Bank pile. Place the Actionmarker on the first Action.

At the beginning of each round of play (Turn), Players use Tokens to bid for the opportunity to either become the Starting player, or Reserve one of the Actions for himself. The winning player pays his bid to the Bank and all other players pay 1 Token. A tie is won by the player closest in play order to the latest Starting player.

Tokens are used to pay for Actions and to skip one or more Actions in the list. Cards (worth between 1 and 5 Token each) are converted to tokens or used to Attack other players.

Each player in turn either plays the current Action or skip any number of Actions (paying 1 Token per Action skipped) to reach and play the Action he prefer this Turn. (See Reserved Actions).

The next player, going clockwise, then starts on the Action following the one just activated. The Starting player begins on Action #1 in the first Turn of the game, and on ’the next Action’ every following Turn.

Actions:

The Action list is printed on the game board:

1. Draw 1 Card (or pay 3 tokens and draw 2 Cards)
2. Trade 1 Card (for the number of Tokens printed on it)
3. Expand to an adjoining area (the cost in Tokens is printed in the Area)
4. Fortify 1 Area for 3 Tokens (Fortified Areas can not be attacked)
5. Combine 3 Cards to attack an opponents Area
6. …
7. …

Reserved Actions:

If the player who won the Bid Reserved an Action, he skips to that Action on his turn (regardless of where he would otherwise have started), and no other player can use that Action this Turn.

A Reserved Action need not be skipped, it ‘does not exist’ for the other players during the entire Turn.

Attacks:

Only adjoining cells can be attacked.

Both players select 3 Cards, and compare the sum of Token values. A draw means the Attack failed. On a successful Attack the Attacker replaces the other player’s meeple with 1 of his own. The removed meeple goes back to its player. The Attacker always removes his highest Attacking Card from play. Cells with 2 meeples are Fortified and can not be Attacked.

Winning:

The game ends when any player places his last meeple in a cell.

Victory Points are calculated by summing up the values of cells with meeples, and adding the Token values of any Cards the player have. Remaining Tokens have no value.

Turn! Eat! Move! Who’s gonna be the biggest fish in the school?
a game for 2–5 players

Parts

• 25 fish tiles (5 red, 5 blue, 5 green, 5 yellow, 5 orange)
• 20 ocean tiles
• 1 shark tile

The tiles should have rounded corners for easier handling!

Goal

Each player selects a color. The goal of the game is to get the biggest fish possible in your color! A fish gets bigger by eating other fish, creating stacks of fish tiles.

Setup

Place the tiles randomly in a 7×7 grid. Make sure that the facing of the fish tiles is randomized.

Rules

Check which player’s fish are threatened by the most enemy fish. A fish threatens another fish if it’s orthogonally adjacent and facing in the direction of the threatened fish. That player goes first (youngest if tied). Play then proceeds clockwise.

During your turn, select the order in which everyone must do two of the following three actions:

• Eat!
• Turn!
• Move!

Do this by shouting the words in sequence, e.g. “Eat! Turn!”

Each player, starting with you and going clockwise, selects one stack of fish (of any color) to perform the first action. You can’t select a fish that’s previously done that action this turn. Follow the same procedure for the second action.

If this reminds you of the behavior of shoaling fish, that’s exactly the point!

Eat!

When eating, move one fish stack on top of another, orthogonally adjacent stack in the direction that your fish is facing. You can’t eat a fish that’s bigger than your own (same size is okay). The shark can eat any fish regardless of size; no other fish can eat the shark.

Turn!

When turning, you can freely change the orthogonal facing of one stack of fish—or the shark. You may elect not to change the facing of any stacks at all if you don't want to.

Move!

When moving, move one stack of fish—or the shark—as far as you like (min. 1 space). You must move in a straight, forward line in the direction that the stack is facing.

• Your move must end on an ocean tile.
• Your move may cross other fish stacks.
• Your move cannot cross murky water (empty spaces).

The shark can cross murky water, but it still needs to end its movement on an ocean tile.

No moves: If no available fish can do the required action, you must simply pass.

Murky Water

Whenever a round is over and there are 25 or more empty spaces on the table, you may remove any one ocean tile from the game. Night is approaching!

Winning

The game is over when every stack of fish has been boxed in between murky water, with no other fish within possible reach (the shark doesn’t count). The player with the biggest fish wins!

(If there’s a tie, compare the second biggest fish, then the third biggest, etc.)

The idea I have in mind is a space conquest game. The players are fighting over a small region of space, and must make important decisions about what actions to take.

The phases of the game are Combat, Trade, Development and Income. Each phase has a corresponding dice(d6), and at the beginning of each turn all four dice are rolled, and then placed in order from lowest to highest. This is the phase order for that turn. Any dice that match have their phases at the same time, which can lead to some hectic situations.

The rest of the game is a space game that would rely heavily on the interactions between the phases.

• Income is where resources are earned from the planets.
• Development is where those resources are spent, on building ships or improving planets.
• Trade is where resources can be traded with others.
• Combat leads to redistribution of resources as fights are won and lost.

Possible situations:

• If income happens before combat, then combat becomes a smash and grab affair, where everyone is trying to get all those delicious resources from their enemies in order to spend them later.
• If Trade/Development happen next to each other, then the player has to plan what to spend, and what to keep for trading. The risk is that anything kept could be lost in combat.
• If combat happens first, then the rest of the turn will be peaceful, but the next turn will be unknown.
• If development happens before combat, then the fleets will be stronger.
• If two combats happen on consecutive turns without a development phase in between the fleets will be weaker.

Other possible rules:

All players get their own 4 dice and roll them. This would lead to players taking phases in different orders each and would be utter chaos.

Add an upkeep phase where players would have to discard half of their resources and ships. This would prevent stock piling and encourage spending.

Conclusion:

The phase dice rolling mechanic is simple, but would lead to unpredictable resolutions every turn. Half of the challenge would be trying to plan around the possible outcomes.

In this dice game, players will be playing leaders of social groups arising after much of the earth’s surface has been destroyed through non-conventional warfare. This destruction thwarted the evil Dr. Heatdeath’s ultimate plans so he has set up another devastating bomb on a time delay that will devastate the earth.

Players need to cope for survival and hope that they can provide their little communities with enough shelter from the coming barrage (being a bit of an attention seeker, Dr. Heatdeath thoroughly menaced all of humanity with ample warning)

Each turn players will roll their available dice and make choices with them. After rolling the dice, players will choose which dice they will use for their actions and which will be used in the course of these actions. Any 6’s rolled will be returned to the scrap pile and will remove a time counter from the time bank that counts down Dr. Heatdeath’s ultimate death machine. (the previous nuclear devastastion has made the countdown erratic)

Players will pick any number of the 5 actions (salvaging, building, harvesting, raiding, storing) to place dice that have the corresponding number onto their board. Then they will use dice that they haven’t placed executing those actions.

Example:

Max rolls 10 dice: 1,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6. He immediately pitches the 2 6’s to the scrap pile. He decides that on this turn he will salvage and harvest. He places his 1 and places all three of his 3s onto his board. He’ll then use his 4s and 5s as workers to execute those actions.

On following turns, dice rolled will not include the dice used for actions on the previous turns. The dice will stay on the board, marking which actions were used, blocking them for use on the following turn.

The game is intended as a fast game of important decisions to make best use of what opportunities are available to the player, and using the varying actions motif to try and predict what you won’t want to deny yourself in future rounds.