I've heard a lot of stories of designers that have thought of a really cool mechanic, and make it the heart of their next game. But how the heck to you get from something like a neat mechanic to a whole game idea with scoring and everything?
A good example is Stefan Feld's newest game "Macao." He had a mechanic where you roll 6 dice, each corresponding to 1 of the 6 resource types. You then secretly choose which 2 dice you would like to use (multiple players may use the same die). You then put the number of resource cubes of the appropriate types corresponding to the dice you chose in the corresponding numbered slots around your wheel. For instance, if I chose a yellow 4, I would put 4 yellow cubes in my 4 slot around my wheel. Every round, the wheel is turned one place clockwise, so that all of the cubes move down 1 slot. So in the example, the 4 yellow cubes move down to the 3 slot. You may only use cubes when they become available, which is past the 1 slot on you wheel. You may only use cubes for one turn, any leftover ones are discarded.
Then he built the rest around that mechanic. Boy, how do you do that? Basically, I have lots of ideas for cool mechanics like the above, but fail to do anything with them because I do not know how to build a game around it, or incorporate the mechanic into the game.
Help?
Seems like it's a lot more intuitive than I thought. Good show!
The waiting 3 days thing is tough, because you think the mechanic is so brilliant you want to make it a game this instant, but I see the value of what you say. I will use it more often!