I have an idea for a board game. Theme is some sort of spaceship travel game, through a field of black holes, with the power to alter the strength of black holes.
The map is hex grid, in the shape of a hex and is 2-6 players. Each player has one game piece that represents their space ship and should be differentiable from the others. the map is soccer ball-esque, with a black hole hexes surrounded by six normal space hexes. If it helps the visual, each normal space tile will have exactly two black hole tiles adjacent, excepting the border ones. Apart from the board and ship pieces, there are also an assortment of black hole tiles. These tiles are shaped to fit right on top of a black hole hex and have a number (possibly like from 1-4?) on them. At the start of the game each person sits on one corner of the map (spread out as best as possible) and puts their ship on the cornermost hex. The goals is to get to the cornermost hex of the opposite corner first. Play goes clockwise. In reverse order, each player takes turns putting a tile drawn at random onto a black hole hex until they are all placed, then each player draws 3 that are not revealed to the other players and are kept in their hand. On each player's turn, they move according to a formula. Look at both black holes adjacent to the player's current tile. Subtract the smaller number from the larger one. The player moves that many spaces clockwise around the black hole tile with the largest number. If the two black holes are the same, the player does not move. After moving, the player may put a tile from their hand onto a black hole space anywhere on the board. the old one goes to the pile and the player randomly draws a new tile to their hand.
I was going to do reach the center tile first, but math conspired against me and I can not get the black hole pattern to work with a central goal tile. Two players will unable to move from start position. I am thinking of a base 7 hex map, but with a row shaved off a pair of opposite sides. Even though this makes it uneven, I counted optimal path for opposite corner from each starting point and they would actually end up being the same amount of spaces. Another benefit is each player starts with the same surrounding squares configuration. The bad part is if this one had a central goal space the paths would be different lengths for each player.
With the central goal I was going to do space pirates racing to a treasure, which fit well with players being able to sabotage other players. I can't think of a space theme to go with trying to get to opposite sides that also encompasses the race and sabotage aspects.
Can anybody think of fixes for the getting stuck problem with the first map?
Can anybody think of a way to get the paths to the center in the second map the same for each start point?
Overall, what do you think of the game?
EDIT: If I'm going to stick with getting to the opposite corner instead of center I will make the board base six so a black hole is in the center space.
Map images are attached.
