Skip to Content
 

Advice needed on randomizer

5 replies [Last post]
gambitt
gambitt's picture
Offline
Joined: 01/17/2018

Hi,

The game I'm currently working on is meant to be fully handheld. In the sense that it is going to be an A4 size frame with cardboard tiles inside which the player will choose at game setup. 1 tile is the map, 1 tile is the player card, 1 is an item stat etc. All tiles will have holes for pegs which the players uses to mark everything.

The theme of the game revolves around exploration and hunting for artifacts. Players travel around the world performing different types of actions.

There is no point in going deeper into the gameplay itself but what I'm looking for right now is some kind of randomizer. A game like this needs to have some radomized factors like "if I go to this city I need to pay 1 extra gold before performing any other action".

Do you have any idea about a randomizer that can work on a flat surface? No dice rolling, no card shuffling.

FrankM
Offline
Joined: 01/27/2017
Not quite flat

It's not quite flat, but a spinner might fit your needs.

freelix
Offline
Joined: 06/15/2014
Building on that spinner

Building on that spinner idea, and depending on how much space you can allocate for this vs how often it'll be used, how about something like the decoder ring used in the Exit games? Essentially a multi-tiered spinner.

gambitt
gambitt's picture
Offline
Joined: 01/17/2018
Hmm. I've never played EXIT

Hmm. I've never played EXIT games. I'll have to look into it. Thanks!

Fri
Offline
Joined: 09/06/2017
Hidden tiles.

The spinners seem like a really good suggestion to me.

You could also add some tiles that can be revealed when needed. I am thinking something like the production tiles in San Juan.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/64238/san-juan

FrankM
Offline
Joined: 01/27/2017
Spinners

I took a quick look at the EXIT spinners, and I'm not quite sure why it needs so many different concentric rings of symbols. About eight labeled in a thematic fashion should suffice for "beat this threshold" mechanics, slightly higher or lower depending on what numbers figure into the theme. A higher number of sectors could be used for "match one of these symbols" mechanics.

Off-the-cuff example, search an area:

Eye or notepad symbol: find a treasure
Hand symbol: find a treasure only if you have special ability X
Tree, water, fire or cloud symbol: find nothing
Animal track symbol: encounter

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut