CGD1 Brainstorm: Spelunking

I love this idea!

Perhaps the goal would be to score by discovering as many parts of the caves as possible (confirming FL's tile placement idea). You could also gain points by discovering special things.. I.E. underground river / pool, bottomless chasm, natural bridge, abandoned gold mine, cave paintings, etc etc. I also like FL's idea about needing certain equipment to pass certain obstacles. This would be sort of a cave version of Goldland.

Cons - Tile laying games are very difficult to plan well and oftentimes require a great deal of artwork. Overly complex.

-Darke

I must admit that I like this idea too.
However, finding an "end condition" may be tricky.
It's rather dull just to say something like "when the last tile is drawn" (assuming this is a tile game), or "when the last cave is entered", since sometimes it's the getting back again that is potentially the most interesting part (cf my Heist design for a similar example.)

I love the Jules Verne trip too - although it could be taken that step further and you include everything that appears in those sort of stories: secret Tibetan masters, lost Nazi training camps, super-villain hide-outs and all that jazz.

That's a sweet idea. Since we have so little information on the mechanics, it could be anything!

I like the Journey to the Center of the Earth theme. If we follow the book, it gives us some distinct phases for the game (for example, find the water before entering the cave). The book is also public domain, so we can borrow from it freely without worrying about getting sued.

If i am scoring this right 3pts for first choice vote, 2pts for second and 1 pt for third. Spelunking has won by a large margin :!:

It seems that most who have contributed to this section have their harts set on a tile laying game. Being that this looks like the game we are making has anyone thought out a tile laying system for this.I think if we can strap together a tile system that will avoid the pitfalls like lack of game play consistency then the rest will be easy to do. We can wrap the theme around whatever mechanism we come up with.

Could I just make the observation that a tile-laying game is going to be very difficult to design "collaboratively"? The best choice would probably be a card game, because then, it's easy for us to all have access to the card mix, and to say which cards we like, and which we don't. A tile game is going to require lots of visualization, it's going to involve deciding what *kinds* of tiles there might be, etc...

I am sure a tile game can be made to work, I just think it's likely to be more difficult to make that kind of game as a first try at what is already likely to be a difficult process...(since we don't really know how it's going to work...)

Just my thoughts...
-Jeff

Yeah, I know, I just selected your quote to respond to as it contained the phrase "tile laying games"...

A card doesn't, in general, have a graphic component as a vital element. For example, for Seth's game, we can understand the game fully by looking at his card lists, and we could say "Seth, that Ad is too powerful, this Show is very well done, this Modifier isn't strong enough", etc.

Whereas a tile-laying game has a visual element that is crucial to the design, and would be harder to tackle via a text-based discussion. Imagine trying to design Carcassonne in a discussion group like this. In principle, it could be done, but the barrier in describing in words essentially visual information like "ok, tile A has a city that opens on two sides, and the other two sides of the tile are field; tile B has a road that bends in an elbow on two sides, and a city on one side, and the fourth side is open; the open side is to the "right" of the city, and the road exits are opposite and to the left." Yes, it can be done, but don't you see what a nightmare it will be?

So I'm not saying "let's do a spelunking game with cards rather than tiles", rather, I'm saying a game where visual information is an important component of the design, and where we're especially looking for a random board every game, will be very difficult to pull off, and is very ambitious for a first try. Why not a simple game design to start, like "Cheating at Vegas", for example? Something where we can focus on the process of doing a collaborative design, rather than trying to do a difficult design, with an untested system for doing that design...

Just my opinion, take it or leave it!

-Jeff

Here are some thoughts I've been having about this game idea...

what do you think of a thing where you draw a tile and it has Rock and Open space, and you place it (like carcassone)... then there'd be symbols on some spaces and either when you lay that tile or when you move your piece onto it you draw the appropriate card (maybe just one draw deck)... if it's a treasure you keep it (maybe there's a way to steal from each other) if its Bats or Rats or something they scare you and you have to move to another room or something without drawing any more cards in this one... If it's a tool (key which opens doors, or knife which fends off Rats or Lantern which gives you a bonus as to where you're allowed to place tiles or whatever) then you keep it in front of you.

I'm now envisioning a simplistic version of Carcassone (as far as the actual tile laying is concerned), but with the tiles making up a board that you move on (ever played Spy vs Spy?)

I would not mind the poll being open over the weekend so we could at least get a majority of our voters to vote. Remember in a pool of 22 your vote is 4.45+% of the total.

As for design and production. ( a few thoughts )

1. Fastlearners four basic tiles are good with a possibility of having a few one of a kind tiles thrown in.
2. Hexes are cool and much harder to produce without professional equipment. Square tiles will be adequate for the game.
3. Cards or tiles? If you are laying them on the table side to side to form a map it seems all the same.
4. Yes this is ambitious. We could have it together some time in 2004 if Fastlearner doesn’t mind cracking the whip now and then.

Can I say that I am not commenting in any of the game threads because we haven't decided which game we are going with yet!

I am enjoying this conversation, but I feel that it is straying a little too far into specific design ideas too early - indeed, there even seems to be a consensus forming about the underlying basis of the game.

I want to stress that I am not opposed to any of these suggestions (hey, they're not far off what I would have been talking about too) but merely that it seems a little too soon to be getting so specific.

Unless you're all planning on stuffing the ballot, of course :)

I still don't see a problem with discussing these ideas before the vote is done. In fact, I think it could be beneficial. Suppose you didn't really think a Spelunking game could be any fun, and would therefore not vote on it. But then during this convo you start to like the idea and see some things you hadn't thought of before, and decide to vote for it after all. I think that's a much more informed decision rather than blindly voting for something.

Scurra- if you see discussion I urge you to pipe in with whatever comments you have- this is a collaborative effort!