I am finishing up on my game idea, Mercantile, which is a game centered around the economic system of mercantilism.In the game you and up to 3 other friends are competing nations trying to increase national wealth and use colonies to your advantage. My mechanics idea involves the international trade portion of the game. I was thinking of having a little board of to the side that represents how much money each item (resource or product) is worth during that turn.i want the price to fluctuate throughout the game so I was thinking a deck of event cards that is drawn from on everybody's turn would help the market fluctuate well. i was wondering if these cards should be kept in ones hand, to be used when a person wants to change the market; or should be played immediately, which would cause the market to fluctuate greatly and often?
Also I am completely new to board game design and I need some ideas on what to do next. I have almost finished my game design and I am wondering what to do now. should I write out some rules or should I have a group play test my idea? I am an awful artist, I would like to try to avoid that so how much art should be done before the board game is published? how much of the board game should be done for play testing?
-ThePurpleBotanist
Thanks,
that really cleared things up, now i can really focus on playtesting. The game is on a board that is a map of a world (not ours but a fanciful one). It is takes place in a situation simalar to that of euroupe after america was discovered. the powerful monarchs of the time are triyng to use their colonies to there advantage by selling goods produced in those colonies. they are also trying to gain economic wealth which is the object of the game. The nations are on an island towards the center of the of the board each owning about a fourth of the island. in the center of the island is a small land locked country. this country is like the bank in catan, it isnt a player but its someone to trade with if no one else will accept a trade you need. there are small islands scattered around the board. each has its own type of reasource(which is placed randomly using tiles in the beginning. on those tiles there is also a number which tells you how plentiful the reasource is how plentiful the reasource is.). you get three free colonies to build in the beginning of the game. instead of building modes of transportation like (boats and trains) you pay captains(for boats) and rail companies(trains) to ship goods and from your homeland and the colonies, as well as transfer goods for trades with other nations(or when you buy something with currency form your oppnent or the bank country, you have to buy trains to ship it to you).At the end of the game(ten rounds) you will take all your reasources and sell them at market value(this is where the mechanic would be most prevalent but it will be used throughout the game as well) and who ever has the highest score wins. I hope that clears things up.
-thepurplebotanist