Hey all,
Here's the overview for a co-op/competition game.
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There's a house full of zombies (typical setup). Players are working together to try and make it through the house or accomplish something.
Each player gets a turn to move their pieces on the board. After a round of the players taking a turn, one player plays the roles of the zombies. The more damage that player can do to the other players, the more points the zombie player gets. Then the players get their turn again to try and get out of the house (including the one who was just the zombie player). When it's the zombie players turn, the next player to left of the previous zombie player gets to be the zombie player and earn points.
The game winner is the player with the most points while they are playing the zombie character (only one winner). However, everyone is a loser if the players can't get out of the house in time.
(Notes:When it is the zombie player's turn, there is a mechanic that makes the zombies attack the player's characters, but the current zombie player can make this even worse for more points. This prevents the zombie player from totally going easy on the other players.
There is also a mechanic which makes the players move their pieces trying to get out of the house automatically as well. This prevents them from impeding the game to not allow one player to win. However, the pieces that need to get out of the house can faster with the help of the players.)
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There are real rules if anyone would like to make this game. There are here: http://flaatgames.com/?p=96
What do ya'll think of this game theory?
I’ve worked on some co-op/competitive designs in the past. One of my big stumbling blocks is overcoming the whole “we’ll since I can’t win I’m just going to make us all lose” stance that the player in last place is likely to adopt. Have you considered any way to overcome this?
I'm really currious because I've got a semi-solid design sitting in a box because I'm not sure how to deal with this...
The way I was thinking of to not sabotage the game, is that the mechanics of the game have to push the players each turn. This can be done by having it so if one player wants to sabotage the game, they are only given a little bit of power to sabotage with. Also, even if all players want to sabotage the game, the game mechanics keeps the game going. I really like thinking about it in numbers so let's put it this way...
The game mechanics push the players through 80% of the game.
The players need 90% to win.
They will work together and probably work past 90% to 95 or 96%.
Each player on any given turn may only have .5% of power to really change the game. By the time the player knows he or she wants to sabotage the game. His or her plan will have too little effect on the game.
Even if all player's work together, they could do about 2.5% of damage on their turn to prevent one player from winning, but that probably still wouldn't be enough to stop the game.
Another way to help prevent this is hiding the points that players are competing over. Especially by making it a lot, players won't be able to keep track of everyone's points (if player's only get 5 in the entire game, then it'll be too easy to keep track).
Those are my ideas so far! Hope that helps!