I am trying to turn the concept of Bomberman into a board game. Obviously I cannot use that name, but it's the only word that easily describes my game, so I'll mention it.
In this game, 2-4 players move on a 9x9 board, 5+ steps at a time. During movement bombs are dropped, with the intention of destroying walls and eventually other players. The goal of the game is to be the last man standing.
When everyone has completed their movement, you must check if you are "under fire" (in range of a bomb that is about to explode). If you are, you must make a final push of 1-3 steps and try to move out from under fire. After your first step, your own dropped boms explode, potentially causing chain reactions.
When everyone has had their chance to move out from under fire (if it was even necessary), all the rest of the bombs explode. If a player is hit, they die. If a destructible wall is hit, it may drop a power-up (+1 bombs, +1 to explosion range or +1 to movement). A die roll determins whether/which power-up is dropped. Power-ups are picked up by moving over them.
At the end of a round, a first player token moves clock-wise.
There's also a real-time simulation variant which has different movement rules (1 step at a time, taking turns)
I will attach the rules (PDF) and a photo of the prototype board after set-up. On the photo you can see that I use Agricola components (what I had at hand) and the rules also refer to those by color, currently.
Let me know what you think or if you are interested in play testing.
I'm not thinking about publishing this game yet, but do you think I could get into trouble if I published it, even if I don't refer to Bomberman by name anywhere or try to copy its art style? Some aspects of it are pretty much directly from the bomberman video games: the checkerboard-like layout of the board, the types of power-ups, the way explosions and chain reactions happen.
I've tweaked the rules a bit since I posted that PDF, and currently am working on adding a 15 second time limit to the movements in Phase 1 (play tests have showed that there's a lot of boring thinking time).
However, I'm concerned that the time limits combined with the escape phase and the rules about "being under fire" are not very elegant.
Phase 1 -- you cannot voluntarily end your movement "under fire" (otherwise you could always get extra movement steps during Phase 2).
Phase 2 -- if you did somehow end up "under fire" (usually by bomb placed by other player), you can make an escape attempt and move 1-3 steps (but your own bombs will explode after the first step)
Now, add a time limit to Phase 1 and suddenly it becomes difficult to decide whether a movement that ends "under fire" is valid or not:
* it could have been that the player ran out of time in mid-movement and ended up under fire
* it could have been that the player pretended to run out of time in mid-movement
* it could have been that the player didn't have any other choice
* it could have been that the player did have another choice but they didn't see it quickly enough
It's especially problematic when ther are only 2 players left: each will have 2 consequent moves since the starting player token moves after each round.
How would you solve this?
One option I'm thinking of would be to drop the rule about not being allowed to end movement under fire:
+ call it "playing with fire": you must carefully select a position where you can escape with 1-3 steps (and your own bombs still explode after the 1st step). Other players see that you are in a vulnerable position and may be able to take advantage
- it will mean some kills will become too easy -- or too hard to preventm -- if you didn't have enough moves to block another player with a bomb and get out from under its fire, well now you do!
Another option is just to put the player who ended up under fire (and clearly had another choice) back to where they started or let them retake the movement (new 15 seconds)
Any ideas?
[EDIT] I uploaded a new version of the PDF (attached to previous post) that has a new section "Resolving Invalid Moves" with my current solution to this problem.