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Is my game mechanics stupid?

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Mon, 11/08/2004 - 16:15

Anonymous

I'm trying a new, simple, beer & petzels game mechanics, but I don't know if it's good enough. If anyone recognizes it from some other game, please respond.

Let's say that different pawns/characters in the game can have different properties, e.g. colors (I'll try to keep the example simple). So, let's say
that there are 12-20 characetrs in the game and each of them has 1 or more colors on it (and e.g. we deal with 4 colours only). So, some characters will be red only, some will be blue only, some will have red and green and a few will have 3 colours on them, the more, the better. Board is a matrix (e.g. 8x20) and all rows and colums have one of 4 colors. Players draw 4 characters from the bag and start from the beginning (let's say upper left corner) and move on the colorless column until they reach their colour. Each character can move only along the row or column of the color he has, so single color characters are limited, multicolor ones are better, and the ones will all colours can move freely on the board. Characters can be stacked, so then there is a new characetr with 2 or more colors which can move better then the single ones. But they can be stacked only at the center of the board, so individual characters need to crawl somehow to the middle section of the board (being just 1 field). And then, after first player manages to have 2 characters stacked, something happens and they need to race to the end of the board (maybe a monster enters the board or something, it doesn't matter). So, my question is whether this mechanics has been used before and if it's interesting at all. It looks mildly strategic and it can be fun with right characters and properties.

Mon, 11/08/2004 - 16:39

#1

Anonymous

Is my game mechanics stupid?

Sorry, I noticed an error in my post, it should be "middle section of the board (being just a couple of fields)" ...

Mon, 11/08/2004 - 17:38

#2

Oracle

Offline

Joined: 06/22/2010

Is my game mechanics stupid?

I like the mechanic of only being allowed to move on your own color. I'm not sure what the game is though. How do players move, what are they trying to do, why do they have multiple characters, and how do players identify their own pieces?

In the game Pacific Northwest Rails, the board is made up of rail lines from about 15 companies. There's an outer track that anyone can travel on, but when you enter the main part of the board, you can only travel on track if you own shares in that company. You can buy and sell shares on the outer track.

PNR is much more complicated than a beer and pretzel game and takes about 6 hours to play, so your game would be completely different. The limitied access to the board is a nice mechanic that I don't see used much.

Jason
Jason

Mon, 11/08/2004 - 23:58

#3

Torrent

Torrent's picture

Offline

Joined: 08/03/2008

Is my game mechanics stupid?

It does look interesting. The piece that seems a bit out of tune is the randomness of the characters.

If each player had a set of one of each colored character, then the randomness of one player pulling 'better' characters at the beginning is not so pronounced. Then depending on the theme/aim of the game there is a player decision of whether to combine their characters to give them more flexibility in terms of color, but fewer characters to move.

I haven't seen this exact thing, but you might look at Fish Eat Fish. Not exactly the same, but there is the stackable thing to it.

Andy

Tue, 11/09/2004 - 02:00

#4

Trickydicky

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Joined: 12/31/1969

Is my game mechanics stupid?

The mechanic itself sounds interesting. I would like to hear more about the players goals. What is this about racing back out to the outer edges.

YOu could do something with a delivery type game. Characters could hand the package off to each other and go separate directions on individual colors or combine so they can travel together. That way players would have to decide if it is better to have a few characters who can move freely or a lot of characters who are restricted. Just an idea, I would like to here what your original ideas for theme and player goals were.

Tue, 11/09/2004 - 11:21

#5

Anonymous

Is my game mechanics stupid?

OK, I'll try to explain what I have in mind. It's very simple beer & pretzels mechanics which should be possible to be re-themed easily (at least I did
2 more games with the same mechanics). But I don't know if the core mechanics is good enough and that's why I'm writing it here. So, the game is about McDonalds fast food, it can work for any chain, but let's stick to McD because everyone will know what I'm talking about. Pawns are mini fast food figures like:
1. Plain burger
2. Cheeseburger
3. Big Mac
4. File'o'Fish
5. Chicken burger
...
10. Small fries
11. Big Fries
12. Small Coke
13. Big Coke
14. McMuffin - Sausage
15. McMuffin - Bacon
...

So, I envision it as a game which pieces will be included in Happy Meals and each hamburger or drink will be a small rubbery action figure/character. Kids will be able to play with small Cheeseburger or Big Mac figure or anything that's server in McDonalds. Then, there will be a board and cards which are not neccessary besides for drawing, but they'l have a list of ingredients for each item and a picture, in case players don't know what goes in each burger. E.g.
Cheeseburger: beef, bun, cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, onions

Board will look like a 8x20 grid where first column will be an entrance food line and the rest of the columns will be ingredients, beef, onion, coke, fish, mustard and so on (I counted about 28 ingredients ;), so there will be coke creek, mayo river, beef trail and such) ... Players will draw 4 cards and that will be their characters for the game. In each turn players will position one of their characters at the beginning of the food line (upper
left corner) and then they'll move down the line until they reach the row with the ingredient which their character contains (e.g. beef or catchup).

Then they'll enter the grid and try to form a tray with 3 or 4 of their characters and then race until the end of the grid on a tray. Trays will be
available on the column at the middle of the board, when first item reaches that column, player will get the tray. If there are more then 2 items on the tray, tray will become more movable, because it'll use ingredients of all items on the tray (more items, more moving options, kinda stackable).

They'll be able to move characters along the columns or rows as long as their character contains the ingredients. So, no dice, just one move per turn (if it's possible to make a move, only one item can occupy 1 field).

Players should be wise enough to cross tray column after they have at least 2 strong items on the tray. When first player crosses the tray column, 2 food eating monsters (customers ?) will appear on the board, one at the bottom of the tray column and one at the beginning of the food line. They'll have different moving alghoritms:
1. Monster that starts from the beginning - let's call him Burgerzilla, will move 2 steps pre turn and it will go after nearest food item in sight ("in
sight" means along current row and column). After each step, moster will check if there is some items closer then the one he's chasing and it'll start
chasing the nearest one. This moving has been used in other games, but sound very logical as imitation of a hunter movement.
2. Monster at the bottom will have a McDonalds bag on it's head, so it will be blind (let's call him Blind monster, I'll need some better name later).
Blindy won't be able to see food items around him and it will move half randomly. Every move by any of the player will move him as well in that same direction, so the monster will move in every turn and he'll be much faster then the players. If he stops on the field with some food, he'll eat it.
The winner is the player that ends the race with at least one item or a tray.

So, I have cleverly balanced the rows and columns, so it's possible to play with any food item and have a decent chance to win. Rows that are the furthest from the bottom monster will have the rarest items (fish or chicken, found only in 1 burger). All other burger games involve either delivering or building better burger. And I like those 2 monsters mechanics so much, that I'm including them in 2 other games ;) ...

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