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Strange mishmash of mechanics-- does it work?

9 replies [Last post]
Mon, 05/22/2017 - 20:42
mcobb83
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I had this idea for a game, but it really feels more like two games in my head, so I wanted to throw the concept out here and see what you all think about it.

Its based on Jurasic Park. The game has two distinct and very different phases. I have concepts for both cooperative and competitive game types, but since coops are my favourite, I will use the coop idea here.

Players work together to build Jurassic Park by playing buildings and tiles (something similar to Arkadia, or maybe Carcassone) and filling them with dinosaurs of various types (set collection from a deck of cards). The idea is to build the park to generate revenue, tracked by points. If a certain number of points are scored in the first round, players move to the second round. Obviously dinosaurs and enclosures are worth a certain number of points, and players are trying to hit point targets. Carnivorous dinosaurs are worth more points. to encourage players to favour those in phase one. This is important for phase 2.

Phase 2 happens after the power goes out. The dinosaurs break loose and the game moves from tile laying and set collecting to figures on the board, dice rolling, and general mayhem similar to Zombicide or other "shoot 'em up" type games. The players have to escape the park they built by crossing the board and getting to the boat, without getting eaten by the variety of hungry creatures.

What are your thoughts?

My initial concern is that phase 1 and phase 2 are essentially very different games, and that might turn players off. On the flip side, Phase 1 could be regarded as an entertaining way to setup phase 2...

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Mon, 05/22/2017 - 21:00
#1
let-off studios
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Minimize - Maximize - Metagame

This is essentially a "zombies overrun the farmhouse" game, where players know a zombie attack is coming so they optimize what happens in Phase One in all cases, so that Phase Two has a snowball's chance in coming out as a win for the players instead of the overwhelming zombie force.

That's what it sounds like to me, anyway. Does it sound like two separate games to me? Not quite.

As you describe it here, I predict that players will plan Phase One with the expectation that they will make it to Phase Two and maximize their chances of winning the Phase Two challenge. Additionally, players playing against themselves in two halves of the game will likely reduce replayability.

If you want to continue with this idea, you may want to consider the following for the second phase of the game:

- Incorporate a "traitor" mechanic so that there's one player who secretly wants the dinosaurs to win, and will plan the park with lots of inherent weaknesses that throw wrinkles into a perfect play of the second phase.
- Add in some serious randomness to what happens to set up Phase Two, as well as throughout the phase.
- Establish a ruleset that indicates overwhelming odds against players in Phase Two unless players are really, really good at setting things up in the first half of the game.

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Mon, 05/22/2017 - 21:51
#2
FrankM
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I'm with let-off

I have the same concern that let-off does, that Phase 1 will just be a long prep for a cake-walk in Phase 2. I like the idea of serious randomness in Phase 2.

Suppose instead of a dino park (which could cause IP issues), it's a sci-fi zoo/amusement park with various alien critters and other attractions. As in the original concept, dangerous critters make for better attractions.

Each round of Phase 1, the attractions bring in some guest tokens. The players fill in the areas around the attractions (critter enclosures and rides) first, and only get to put guests in the revenue-generating areas (restaurants, gift-shops, carnival games, etc.) when the attractions are full.

The players need workers and/or robots to operate parts of the park. Some of the workers/robots can be security and some can even be armed security, but too much security depresses guest turnout.

Random events can grant you free workers, free robots (testing a brand new experimental model, what could go wrong?), free guests (marketing), free critters, etc. But there are also some Bad Things shuffled in there.

A Bad Thing starts Phase 2. Each possibility would have its own board AI. The players' goal is always to evacuate as many people and critters as possible.

Critter escape: basically the original Phase 2. Critters try to eat everyone.

Robot uprising: the robots start to attack the guests.

Worker uprising: the workers start to attack the guests.

Alien purge: a force posing as guests tries to kill the critters. Whether they start inside or at the gate depends on the security.

Terror attack: a force posing as guests tries to kill the other guests. Whether they start inside or at the gate depends on the security.

AI malfunction: the park's primary AI closes all the doors are starts to shut down life support.

There may be others as well. But the players won't know which assets will be helpful and which will be harmful until the Bad Thing is drawn.

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Mon, 05/22/2017 - 22:15
#3
mcobb83
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I had worried about the

I had worried about the cake-walk aspect of Phase 2 as well, but I had decided that would be something I would deal with down the line in play testing, by making Phase 1 harder, or increasing the scoring power of dangerous attractions (in addition to the obvious dinosaur park IP issue)

However, I like the idea you propose FrankM, of having the players need to accumulate assets in the park and then having one (or more) of those assets turn negative suddenly. This is something that I think I can work with. I may not be able to flesh this out right away -- I have a lot going on with my big project Defenders of Wessex right now -- but it will have pages dedicated to it in my notebook, to say the least.

Thanks for your thoughts, both of you. Of course I still welcome any input from other sources!

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Mon, 05/22/2017 - 22:39
#4
Rick L
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Bonuses for greater risks

Two quick thoughts I had were 1: similar to FrankM, have bad things able to happen virtually any time during the game, so that phase 2 isn't a distinct change, but a gradually accelerating snowball that could begin at any time. Maybe even a couple false starts and a moment of "everything is ok now" before things really get bad?

2. If you know predators are eventually going to cause trouble, you need incentives to have them, more than just getting more visitors in phase 1. What about bonuses for how many predators you can contain by the end of the game, or something. In other words, some mechanic that gives you a potential bonus for creating a more volatile & risky phase 2.

That could also be a basis for a competitive version. Try to out score each other by making a more dangerous phase 2 and surviving it, as opposed to a less rewarding, easier phase 2.

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Mon, 05/22/2017 - 23:14
#5
FrankM
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Dangerous critters... why?

I was thinking that the players might "accidentally" release a Xalthasian Acid Beast when some enemies were near its enclosure. Obviously all of the details need some more thought, like whether guests get trapped on rides, or how the board AI deals with armed guards. Unfortunately, history tells us that a small number of armed guards becomes the first target in any pre-planned attack...

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Tue, 05/23/2017 - 08:55
#6
spaff
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As a side note

The park building portion of this has been recently done here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pandasaurus/dinosaur-island-1

"dinosaur island" which is basically Jurassic Park the board game, minus the breaking out/surviving aspects you are talking about. Might be worth looking at for inspiration, at least on the park building portion of your idea

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Tue, 05/23/2017 - 09:19
#7
spaff
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Building off

Also I feel this idea would work best as competitive

To build off what Frank and Rick have said-

Everyone is building onto a communal park and getting points for their individual actions. More dangerous dinos give the higher point values, etc. But there should also be extra points for having a diverse park to incentivize something other than spamming velociraptors.

Bad stuff happens randomly (like was stated) vs a set Phase 2

The premise of the game COULD be- you want to score the most points AND stay alive. If you die, you lose.

So you're given a couple major decisions as players. 1: i want to get the most points, which means including the most dangerous dinos, but the most dangerous dinos ALSO add more bad and/or more frequent random events, so how do I balance that? And 2: how long do I want to stay in an increasingly dangerous park?

That last part you could EITHER allow anyone to leave at any point OR have the random events crescendo to a final "ALL DINOS BREAK OUT" or "POWER GOES OUT" or whatever moment- which could also be random?

Maybe that's also the trick to not having people prepare for an easy cake-walk escape. You could have different disaster events that effect the need to escape differently. Dino's escaping/power going out/traitor/etc.

It adds a couple push-your-luck mechanics.

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Tue, 05/23/2017 - 09:38
#8
let-off studios
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Random Events and Causes

FrankM wrote:
I have the same concern that let-off does, that Phase 1 will just be a long prep for a cake-walk in Phase 2. I like the idea of serious randomness in Phase 2.
[...]But there are also some Bad Things shuffled in there.

A Bad Thing starts Phase 2. Each possibility would have its own board AI. The players' goal is always to evacuate as many people and critters as possible.

Have you ever played Betrayal at House on the Hill? What if players didn't know what the bad thing was going to be, when it was going to occur, or who was responsible?

FrankM's comment and numerous good suggestions made me think of that game, and how each scenario plays out differently, but it also encourages players to do their best leading up to the pivot point.

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Tue, 05/23/2017 - 11:48
#9
Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
let-off studios wrote:Have

let-off studios wrote:
Have you ever played Betrayal at House on the Hill? What if players didn't know what the bad thing was going to be, when it was going to occur, or who was responsible?

LOS beat me to it. This game could definitely have some of the same feel, in a very good way, for the two phases aspect.

I also like the park-building concept. The first phase of 'Betrayal' is not as fun as the second phase, and there's mostly the suspense of when and how you'll trigger the second phase that keeps it interesting. I think that your game could definitely have more going on in phase 1.

My suggestion:

1. Players are not allowed to reveal exactly what cards they have, but there is a card that one player can play which allows him to ask a yes/no question of another player about that player's cards. (Having such a mechanic will make the players more serious about not letting info drop "accidentally.")

2. While some points are gained from each card played, the best points are gained by making combos. For instance, if you can make one section that has red, blue, and yellow carnivores, plus a carnivore food purchase stand, that's worth a lot of points. This is why there is a desire to know other players' cards, so you can set up combos that they can finish. Once a "section" is started, there should be a limited number of turns before it is "complete," forcing players to cooperate to make combos.

3. The number of points you acquire before the phase change is "spent" on getting equipment that helps you fight off the coming struggle. This gives a real incentive to maximize the points.

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