Graphic design student to create bgame

Your idea is a good place to start. Remember that ideas are the easiest part of making a game. Now to make it work and be fun at the same time.

When designing a game I ask myself these basic questions.

Who is going to play this? Children, Adults or a mix of both.

How many people can play at a time 2-4, 3-6 or just 2.

How long should the game take. 30min, 60 min, longer could be a problem people get board easily.

Knowing the who and what ahead of time will make decisions about the game easier as you develop your idea further.

The actual game.

What is the board going to be like? I see a map of the US with highways connection the states. Better than the old tired go around in a circle board.

You’re going to need to determine how the players move. Good games give the players the chance to make useful decisions so let’s forget the simple roll a die and move that many spaces. What are the other options?

Action points – Players get a number of actions each turn that can be used to move, pick up your memorabilia or to affect other players.

Dice pool – A group of dice is rolled and each player in turn gets to pick one. This sort of thing works best with a rotating starting player.

Card driven movement – This could be a matter of collecting sets. 2 of a kind allow you to move 2 spaces, three of a kind to move up to 4 and so on.

There are many other ways to do this but this should give you some ideas.

Obstacles

If you have ever traveled you know it’s not just as easy as getting in the car and driving. To keep with the theme I suggest you add in some obstacles for players to deal with that they can relate to. These might include but are not limited to; running out of gas, speed traps, and construction.

Since your game already has a goal; picking up memorabilia; I won’t make any suggestion for that.

I hope this gives you enough fuel for your trip. Good luck.

As a fellow BG design novice, I would ask what is your current gaming lexicon? What games do YOU play/like? Then maybe others can see more where you're coming from.

As a suggestion, I'd say look into the boardgame Ticket to Ride (maybe it's just the map of America, but this was the first image that came to me) in which players are competing to build railroad lines across the U.S. It has simple, yet satisfying rules/mechanics and may inspire you (clearly it has a different goal than your game, but maybe just seeing the map - since you are a graphic designer - may help.

Another good resources if you havent already found it is www.boardgamegeek.com

On this site there is a listing for Ticket to Ride if you're interested: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/9209

Best of luck! =)
(this is a great place for inspiration/ideas/encouragement)

What if you tweaked the mechanics a bit and made it more of a scavenger hunt rather than just a "Go to this place and collect what you can along the way" type game?

Link the states via highways to limit normal state-to-state movement, as was suggested. Have a specific item associated with each state as was your idea, but have 3-5 cards dealt to each player at the begining of the game. Their goal would be to acquire their items before any of the other players.

As far as travel, I would keep it simple. Limit a player to a single state per turn or some such. Also, major airports may be a consideration, though I would limit these to Alaska, Hawaii, and one on both the West Coast and East Coast. This would give additional options to the players sort of like the hidden passages in "Clue".

Hi Steph, and good luck with yuour assignment! Here's what comes to my mind...

Map with a web of interconnected cities as has been described (see that Ticket to Ride map that someone linked).

Make 2-4 unique items for each location (or each "major" location anyway), and as someone else said, deal out cards to give each player a combination of items they want to collect.

Allow players to move about the country picking things up, trading them to each otehr for other items ("I need the Hollywood sign, you're in California, I'm near the east Coast... would you pick it up and meet me in the Midwest to trade for, say, the Liberty Bell?")

I can also see some game resource - probably money - which would be used to get around the country. Taking a bus might be cheaper than flying, but it takes longer... could be worth it if you're low on cash, or if the airports are too far away.

If there's cash in the game, there would need to be some form of Income... an idea is a deck of cards which players draw from and use during the game. These cards would require players to bring certain items to certain locations (in order to get paid) "The governor of Texas is jealous of the Space Needle, go get it from Seattle and bring it to Texas and there's 100K in it for you"... or something. So players would be trying to collect items for their goal, or for their action cards (to get income, or a free ride somewhere), and then players score points at the end for how much of their goal they obtained. (mid-game there could be some scoring opportunities on the Action cards).

Of course, each player would only be able to carry 3 things or something.

That's off the top of my head, maybe you can use some of the ideas. I was amused by the idea of the items people collect being larger than life - the Liberty Bell, the Hollywood sign, the Space Needle... maybe add a silly kind of fun to the game.