Hello everybody
I've been working on different ideas for boardgames, but now it's time to present one of the ideas here, so that I can get some feedback. The theme is far from being innovative cause it's another dungeon crawling game. But I had an idea for an special board mechanic and this theme is just the easiest to fit with that. But maybe somebody has another idea for a matching theme...
Nevertheless here's a short description of the basic ideas (and sorry for the bad English):
Working Title: "Crawling for Glory"
Players: 2-3 (maybe 4)
Short Story: The King has his elite soldiers at his roundtable and there is one open spot. So the applicants for this honorable job have to go on a Quest together through different parts of the kingdom and whoever gains the most fame will be the new member of the roundtable.
So the heroes are in the same "team" and can't fight each other directly, but a little bit of sabotaging, stealing etc. will be helpful to be on top at the end.
Board: The Board is supposed to simulate a classic 2D-Video Game, where the heroes are walking through the level not by really moving from one end to the other, but the board is moving underneath them.
The board is made by 6 stripes each with 6 quadratic fields arranged as a 6x6 chess board. Every round you take one new stripe, put it on the top end and push it down until the board is on the same position as before. So every stripe moves 1 row down and the lowest goes out of the game. Everything placed on the stripes is moving with the stripe and this is how the walking through a level is simulated.
The heroes are only allowed to move around in the first 3 rows. So they can see what is coming in the next rounds from the top and have to be in good position to collect the valuable things first or avoid other stuff. Also they have to take care not to fall of the board, cause that means there we're too slow and that costs them a penalty of fame points. No King wants slow soldiers :)
Levels: Like in the classic Videogames like Super Mario, there are Levels with special characteristics and of course bosses at the end. So the Levels description says how many rounds (=new stripes) this level has and what kind of monsters and objects will be placed on the new stripes. So there are landscapes like lakes or mountains, villages, monasteries, merchants, treasures, caves etc. and of course the monsters. The board is supposed to be filled by objects, so that’s kind of a labyrinth and you have to make a plan for the next rounds, like " there're treasures coming on the left side of the board, I've to get there before the lakes in the middle are blocking my way…..and also try to keep the other players on the wrong side. (see Player interaction) "
Goal: Each hero tries the gain the most fame by killing monsters, finding artifacts or solving mini quests. Also they collect gold, new equipment, better weapons and also gain experience, which can be used to train new abilities. The game ends when all levels of the scenario are cleared and the final boss monster is killed.
Fighting: Cause the gameplay should be fast, there is a simple fighting system. The heroes have no attributes at all, not even health. So there is no need to keep track of that and no calculations etc.
The weapon you use says how many dices to roll and what numbers do damage. Also the monsters are using this mechanic to prevent damage. Pretty simple. The monsters attack little different since there is no health you can lose. They can inflict players in range different kinds of injuries, which can reduce you're movement, attacking etc. until you heal by potion or at monastery.
Player interaction: So far you're heroes are in the same area and are trying to collect treasures first, get the final blow that kills the monster and gain the experience etc.. Of course you can also trade with other players, but stuff you can't use, is maybe very useful to them, so be careful. You can also be mean to them, for example you can try to push them away from a field, what could bring you in a better position or maybe the other player will fall of the board and gets a penalty. And there are more abilities planned to be able to interact or to get advantages.
I have a lot more details already worked out, but this description should give a short overview.
I'm curious what you guys think of this idea, so thanks for feedbacks!
Cheers
