Inspired by "The Incredible Machine" series of games, the game starts with a simple mat that has a Rube-Goldberg-esque contraption pictured. The players are divided into teams and want to either have a contraption follow through or not.
Players take turns playing up to three cards which can work together or separately to interact with machine parts. To avoid the game mat being too cluttered, red connectors (cardstock, of various lengths) are used to indicate that something is being destroyed by a played object, and yellow is used to indicate that something is tied together (a hammer on the end of a motor, a rope between a car and a lever, etc.
I've thought of having need to have electrical energy and gasoline power. This means that played outlets could offer you a solution, but your opponent could use them for whatever they want too.
Anything played is considered anchored in place, and will not move unless the player says so (as in a falling weight that lands on a plank to launch another object).
The idea is to get players to be creative with their ideas for interrupting each other by providing cards with a huge variety of items they use. Maye I'd even get silly with angry bulls, hot air balloons, rocket engines, fire, and laz0rs.
However, I'm having a hard time coming up with victory conditions, because the team that goes last will always win (I haven't made the game yet, so I don't know, but still, I forsee this issue).
Any thoughts on how to make this work? Should it be cooperative against one or two players? Should there be secret identities? should everyone be competing to make a contraption separately with their cards, but on one's turn you can interrupt someone else's invention?
Hit me.
