My new project, dubbed the ever-so-clever "Superhero Game", is pretty straightforward. You are a superhero in a big city. You want to be the best of the best. You do this by saving people, stopping bad guys, and doing other superhero-y stuff. You win by getting 10 glory (points).
There are four sections of the city, each represented by a deck of emergency cards. Emergencies are resolved through dice rolls. Your hero has three resources (strength, speed, and smarts), and these resources are spent to roll dice. If you don't resolve an emergency by the end of your turn, it does bad stuff to you.
After you complete an emergency, you collect glory. Back at headquarters, however, you have the opportunity to cash in your glory for fame (money), allowing you to buy upgrades. As the game continues, emergencies get harder, so upgrading is generally a good idea.
All these systems work well. However, the glue that holds the game together—action selection—is lacking.
There are two types of actions, ones that you can use in the city (C) and ones that you can use in your headquarters (HQ). You perform one action per turn:
• TRAVEL (C & HQ): Move to a city section or to your headquarters.
• SEARCH (C): Discover an emergency at your current city section, gain 1 fame, but encounter that emergency immediately.
• ENGAGE (C): Encounter a discovered emergency at your city section or fight with a player in your section.
• REST (HQ): Restore all of your strength, speed, and smarts at your headquarters.
• SHOP (HQ): Purchase any number of upgrades at your headquarters.
• BOAST (HQ): Exchange any amount of honor for an equal amount of fame at your headquarters.
The game is intended to be fast. Take one action, go to the next player. Resolving emergencies takes the longest of all actions, but even that is finished within 20 seconds (or however long it takes someone to total two or three dice). While having quick actions reinforces the fact that the game is a race (10 glory first), I'm wondering if there's something better.
Maybe action selection could work like Puerto Rico / San Juan where after the action is taken that round, other players must select a different action (but are given some benefit from your action). Within the same vein, maybe it could operate like a worker placement game where being on a space (city section, shop, hospital to rest) gives you an immediate bonus and prevents other players from doing the same as you, though this would slow things down. Maybe actions aren't the way to go at all and instead it would be better if your turn consisted of phases (move, encounter, shop, etc.), though, again, this would take significantly longer and slow the pace of the game.
While the action selection does work, I'm really hoping to make it stronger. Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
I've only playtested it a handful of times, but so far all games have been very close. As a player, I usually hand my VP in so that I can get the best stuff and take down the big emergencies (there are also supervillains that you can fight to get a big boost in points, but they're strong).
During the last game that I played, I traded in all of my glory from emergencies and tried to go for villains instead. I defeated one (5VP), and then missed defeating another villain (also 5VP) literally by one dice pip. The player after me won, but did so with only three items (I had maybe seven) and by only resolving emergencies worth 1VP and 2VP.
I think you are right, though. Trading in your lead for a better position later can sometimes be annoying. It's certainly a system that needs more testing.
However this would introduce a semi-cooperative element and may detract from the "race for glory" feel you're looking for.
That's an interesting idea. How would you count the intervals? Would it be each emergency loses "time" per player turn, or would you suggest doing it in more of a round structure?