I've been working on a new design for about six months, and am vastly indebted to this community for help in refining the mechanics along the way. I'm finally ready to unveil the first few pieces of artwork and an overview of the core mechanics. I've only been able to run three play tests so far, so I've got a ways to go in that area, but I'm hoping to be able to post an updated draft of the rules for review in the next few weeks (Yeah for grad school summer classes delaying that process). I would sincerely appreciate any and all feedback on the artwork, mechanics, names, anything. Apologies in advance for the long post.
In Galactic Forge, each player takes the role of a starship manufacturing company. Players compete to earn fame by completing contracts, and the first player to amass 20 Reputation Points wins the game. The game proceeds in turns, divided in four phases, in which all players are equal and simultaneous participants. Here are the four phases:
1) Mining Phase - In the mining phase, each player rolls dice to have a chance at collecting the four resources (metal, fuel, gas and plasma) from their company's mine.
2) Market Phase - Galactic Forge includes a stock market where the prices of all four resources constantly change. Each turn, 5 cards are revealed from the stock market deck, with each card impacting the price of one resource (i.e. Metal +2, Gas -3). At three different points as cards are revealed (after 3, then 1, then 1 cards), players may buy and sell resources at their current market prices. Positive and negative cards are balanced, but the deck is reshuffled before being completely revealed, so there is a good deal of variance in pricing over the course of the game.
3) Building Phase - In this phase, players work toward improving their infrastructure and building starships. Each player has 3 production buildings which can be upgraded for cash in this phase. The building are:
- Mine: Used to produce resources in the mining phase. Upgrades allow players to roll more dice and to receive better returns from those dice.
- Factory: Combines resources to produce components (hulls, engines, weapons and shields). Upgrades allow more components to be produced each turn, as well as reducing the resource cost for components.
- Shipyard: Combines components to produce starships (fighter, transport, frigate, battleship). Upgrades allow more starships to be produced each turn, as well as unlocking new types of ships to build.
In addition to upgrading buildings, players use their factories and shipyards in this phase to produce components and starships.
4) Contract Phase - At the start of the game, the Contract deck is arranged to ensure that easier cards are placed near the top of the deck, while more difficult cards are placed further down. Then, three cards are revealed from the Contract deck. Contract cards come in two varieties, contracts and jobs. A contract represents a purchasing order for a player's starships. It lists the required ships and the rewards for completing the contract, including cash, Reputation Points, and a number of Favor cards (similar to Catan development cards) which a player can draw, simulating connections made in the business world as a result of the transaction. Each contract also lists a preference of the purchasing company, which serves as a tie breaker if more than one player desire to complete the same contract on the the same turn. During the contract phase, if a player wishes to complete a contract, he or she gives up the required combination of starships and receives the rewards of the contract. The contract card is then discarded.
The second type of card in the Contract deck is a Job card. These represent tasks which players can deploy their starships to complete, such as escorting a supply convoy or attacking a pirate base. Each job lists the required ships, along with a cash reward. Jobs are rental contracts, so ships sent to do a job are not consumed. A job may be completed once each turn by each player as long as the card is on the table.
At the end of the contract phase, if less than three Contract deck cards are on the table (as a result of contracts being completed), cards are drawn from the deck until three cards are on the table. However, if three cards are on the table, the card that has been on the table the longest is placed on the bottom of the deck and replaced by a card from the top.
After the contract phase is complete, the next turn begins with the mining phase, and play continues until a player reaches 20 reputation points.
The attached images include a picture of a fleet of the game's ships (just to showcase the art work), a sample card from the stock deck, and a sample contract card. Thanks again for your input and reading through that long post.
Comments
Wow.
I like the sound of this a lot and would love to see this in action. The starship graphics remind me of some of the computer games I played when I was younger. They're not my personal flavor but they're well done, I think. The mechanics seem sound and the game comes off as being very well put together, in my opinion.
I was wondering if the resources that the player sells have any impact on the prices in the stock market. Also, do any of the favor cards allow for getting extra cash when selling? What about screwage? Is there any of that going on or is the game more of a multiplayer solitaire experience?
Thanks for the feedback
Thanks for the feedback, feNix. I played with several systems for working supply and demand into the market mechanics, but landed on a system where player buying and selling did not impact market prices. The supply and demand systems I tried tended to fall into two camps. Some were completely reliant on supply and demand, which led to unsustainable inflation, since the market is primarily a resource acquisition mechanic, and players should do far more buying than selling. The other option were those that used a mechanic to independently adjust market prices, with smaller modifiers inserted based on player behavior. My sense was that these systems involved too much book keeping for the bit of added realism gained by the mechanic. In my early play tests, there is enough going on in the market phase that players don't want to worry about additional price fluctuations.
Regarding the favor deck, it breaks down as follows. About 40% of the deck contains "screwage" cards, which allow players to destroy or steal other player's materials. Another 40% contains cards which allow players to interact with the market. Although there aren't cards which directly allow players to get more money (unless they steal it), the market cards can shift prices in a favorable direction, or even grant players foreknowledge about where the market is headed. The final 20% are a mix of defensive cards (cancelling harmful favor cards) and other neat effects which I thought players might enjoy but I didn't have a good category to put them in. I should note that in light of recent feedback, I'm strongly considering reworking the favor deck at this time, including the possibility of starting each player with a hand of favor cards. Any thoughts on good directions to take this would be wonderful.
Hmm.
Starting a player with a number of favor cards could be used to represent that the player is already somewhat established in the ship building world. Having made contacts in business school or something of the sort.
Once players have become familiar with the game, perhaps this could be used to represent the age of a company. A veteran player will play a young company with only a few favors while a newer player could take the reins of an older company that is already established somewhat and has made contacts throughout the ship building world. Or it could even be the manager. The younger manager, fresh outta school has a few contacts while the older manager who's been around the block already knows who to talk to when he needs that shipment of triptanios hull plating.