"WEFA" is a tile-based game (board is similar to a checkerboard, the pieces look like checkers, but are closer to chess pieces in function) that relies on a player-chosen "gambit", or objective to win. The tiles all have unique features, but we're having some trouble with the high skill floor that the game currently has, which is turning away new players because it just looks too complex! I was wondering what this forum would think of a few options that we came up with to ease this game into production/completion:
1) Cards with the tile picture and artwork with all the statistics and features of the tile outlined cleanly (in theory, something small and accessible, in practice probably something similar-looking to a Magic card) to give the players a better, quick-reference handle on their pieces as the game is in motion.
2) Special markers to set on the tiles as they interact with each other and the board (one of the tiles can create a wall, we were thinking of adding "wall pieces" that would look like Cataan or Ticket to Ride roads; some tiles can incapacitate others without killing/removing them from the board, so we were thinking of pieces that could be set on the tiles as a visual indication of immobilization/stunning, like a tile-sized "X", and a few others).
3) Special tile designs for varied Area of Effect features (one tile has a perpetual aura, so we thought about it being a normal-sized tile, with an extended square frame that aligned with the junctions on the board, to better keep track of the AOE); we worry about this one, because a fun part of the game is the ability to not know what pieces your opponent is using until they play them on the board, and this would take that anonymity away, as well as the ability to randomly choose tiles by turning them all upside-down and picking at random, but we figured we could have the cards play the role of grab-bag, and just shuffle them then pick your set from those shuffled cards, while the players just have to deal with having their tiles visible once they've picked their cards.
4) We have movement mechanics for in-game, but we're stuck on how to make the turns more energized because it's a large board and chess-like patience for opponents taking minutes to move one tile has resulted in 5-hour games before, which we certainly don't want. We considered having a "tiles per turn" table on the side of the board, or as a card to place in front of each player (see: Cataan build requirement cards) which could show a correspondence between tiles on the board and moves that you're allowed to make (1 tile=3 moves, 2-5 tiles=2 moves, 6+ tiles=1 move), or a sort of earlygame power trade-off (if you choose 5 moves per turn at the start, each turn you get less until you're at 1, then both players choose their moves again).
Another idea we had was to allow each player 3 actions per turn; some tile abilities count as an action, while moving a tile or attacking with a tile count as an action, and you can only use 2 total actions per tile, per turn. We thought about implementing this with point 5 (below), and reducing the amount of actions per turn at every round (round 1=3 actions/turn, round 2=2 apt, round 3-on=1 apt).
5) Finally, dice integration is something that we're very wary about; we don't want a dungeon-crawler, we don't want a chess-clone, but we need some method of deciding turn order; this is a 2-4 player game and we have been playing it by flipping a tile (similar to flipping a coin) for initiative, but we've never had more than 2 people playing at a time, so this would be problematic otherwise. We are considering, with the inclusion of point 4 that I've made here, adding a 6-sided die that has each player's color on 4 sides, then an option for players 1&3 to flip for it, and an option for players 2&4 to flip for it. This die would fit with the move table from point 4, because every time you would re-align your moves, you'd re-flip for turn order, and turns commence counter-clockwise from the player who won the die toss.
We're still ironing out the function of several tiles, so we're not within reach of the finish line yet, but your advice on these stalemate topics for us would be greatly helpful!
WEFA B&A
Interesting; how would you set up initial turns? Would it be you take one round of everyone taking one turn, then determine turn order at the end of every round in that manner?