I am brainstorming a game themed around exploring/excavating ruins, catacombs, etc. for lost treasure, and I'm not sure which direction to take it. Here's what I'm thinking about:
Several mechanics are on my mind. The most obvious is a tile-laying "exploration" aspect, similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill, except perhaps with multiple sites. Next, it occurred to me to have "challenges" (i.e. traps) in the exploration — this mechanic would be similar to the pet needs mechanic of Dungeon Petz. If both of these mechanics were used together, the challenges would likely be marked on the tiles (but see below?).
Third, I enjoy worker placement/management, and I wonder if this could be used here. Perhaps exploration itself is performed by workers, but there would need to be other things for workers to do — collecting resources needed to deal with challenges, perhaps, or should there be a trading system? I like dynamic scoring, like Science in 7 Wonders or the cards in Stone Age — perhaps there are treasures that compound for scoring — hence the incentive to trade. But trading may introduce a political element to the game, and I'm not sure if I want that.
Finally, I have recently become immersed in deck-building games — I might wish to incorporate a deck-building component to the game. Perhaps treasures and some solutions to challenges are held in the deck — or perhaps, whereas needs are held in a hand of constant size in Dungeon Petz, the challenges in this game could themselves be the deck of cards players deal with. Acquiring cards would certainly be a possible use of workers.
Obviously, this game is still very much in the planning stage. Any ideas others have would be appreciated (mechanics I have overlooked, mechanics that obviously shouldn't be used together, other directions the game could go, etc.).
I've decided to make the each player's deck the methods they can use to surmount various challenges, together with the tools necessary to execute these methods. For example, a fire trap could be disarmed, doused with water, leaped through, dug under or around, etc. Not every fire trap will be conducive to each of these methods (a fire trap at the base of a wall needing to be climbed will be difficult to leap through, and a fire trap blocking access to a bridge can't really be dug around) — hence the variance in the methods available in a player's hand at any given time.
When encountering a challenge, a player will gain a card of that type — a method of dealing with that type of challenge — and then be able to play a method from hand. Depending on the method, the player will also need the tools, resources, etc. to execute the method. Gaining a new card gives more options for dealing with that type of challenge in the future, which represents the archaeologist's experience with that type of challenge.
(If a player encounters a challenge for which they have no methods in hand, this represents the character being at a loss for how to pass the room.)
Thoughts?