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Helio - board game

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Wed, 12/05/2012 - 00:44
drunknmunky
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Helio Playtest Board

Helio
Players: 2
Theme: Create a heliocentric solar system out of a geocentric one.
Object of the game: first player with one marble (planet) on each of their 7 rings (orbits).
Starting positions: the 7 light grey circles.

A turn consists of moving one marble along one of the green paths. (green only in the printed form so they are easier to see). One player is the left sun with red rings and the other is the right sun with blue rings.

You cannot move the marble your opponent just moved.

personal notes:
* picture is sized to print on a standard sheet of paper
* I used small cuts of paper in place of marbles. Use whatever you like! :)
* You cannot draw from as far as I can tell. The only lineup of marbles that will draw the game is having them straight down the center and in the process of doing that it has to line up on one players ring.
* I have one big issue. From what I can tell, if both players make perfect moves the game will continue forever. I can't figure out how to stop this from happening.

If anyone can figure out how to make the game end I would appreciate the input on that. I'm ok with great gameplay making the game go long, but it has to end sometime!

any questions please post.

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Wed, 12/05/2012 - 11:40
#1
bike
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Joined: 03/08/2012
Suggestions

First, nice board, and nice idea to have positions have different value for each player.

I have two suggestions:
1. Increase the room for error
2. Add something irreversible to the game

1. By increasing the room for error, the chance of an ongoing game is less big. One idea: give each player one planet of their own colour. Each turn they move two planets, the one of their own, and one of the other 5 planets. (Starting player can only move one planet the first time). It will be very hard to calculate the next move of the opponent this way.

2. Irreversible: At specific conditions add extra planets in the game. For instance a player with planets on 5 rings may place an extra planet (maybe of his color - see 1) in the grey area. The more planets there are, the harder it will be to avoid one of the players reaching all seven rings.

Even with those suggestions, it is an abstract with totally calculatable moves. The margin for an ongoing game would be smaller, but not disappear.

An unelegant solution would be to add an extra planet after every 20 moves. You need to count moves. That one will end the game after a finite number of moves.

Good luck!

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Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:33
#2
Orangebeard
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Joined: 10/13/2011
High Gravity Planet?

What about a single planet of another color with a rule that the colored planet can only occupy certain orbits or that the colored planet can only be moved to an orbit with no other planets?

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Thu, 12/06/2012 - 22:50
#3
Tob
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Joined: 09/13/2012
Has anyone played?

drunknmunky wrote:

* I have one big issue. From what I can tell, if both players make perfect moves the game will continue forever. I can't figure out how to stop this from happening.

Wouldn't perfect play cause the first player to win once his last marble is placed in his 7th orbit?

If you have a flaw in the game and the victory condition can't be met, you either have to change the game OR the victory condition.

Some playtesting might help discover where the problem lies.

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Thu, 12/06/2012 - 23:32
#4
drunknmunky
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Tob wrote:drunknmunky wrote:

Tob wrote:
drunknmunky wrote:

* I have one big issue. From what I can tell, if both players make perfect moves the game will continue forever. I can't figure out how to stop this from happening.

Wouldn't perfect play cause the first player to win once his last marble is placed in his 7th orbit?

If you have a flaw in the game and the victory condition can't be met, you either have to change the game OR the victory condition.

Some playtesting might help discover where the problem lies.

I agree. I'm just hoping I can fix it without changing the heart of the game. got a couple ideas. I'll post the tweaks next week after I playtest them some more. Any tweak ideas from the masses are welcome

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