Hi everyone!
I'm new to the forum, and new to design; I'm working on my first game. I got stuck on my last few ideas, but I think I might have something with this one so I'd love some objective opinions. Bear with me, these are early-stage ideas.
Dungeon Trader is a bidding game at its heart with a splash of deck building for good measure. Players assume the roles of merchants doing business in a dangerous dungeon. As heroes pass through to buy and sell loot, players try to make the best deals that they can to accumulate the most victory points (in cards and coins).
-- Hero Deck --
The Hero Deck is made of cards that represent items being sold by heroes to the players, or items sought after from the players, and forms the basis for the game's auction mechanic.
The card backs show a name and portrait of the hero doing business as well as the game stage the card belongs in. The card faces show either an item being sold, or an item that a hero wants to buy. For an item being sold, the card shows a name and portrait of the item along with a victory point value and ability if there is one. For an item being sought after, the card shows a generic type of item such as "sword".
The Hero Deck is created by stacking the shuffled Stage 1, 2 and 3 decks (think 7 Wonders). As the game progresses, the items being bought and sold become higher level and so are worth more points and have better abilities.
-- Buying Items --
Heroes will return from their quests with loot to sell. These items will have a victory point value printed on the card. Starting with the first player, the traders bid on the item until everyone passes. The hero will then sell the item to the highest bidder.
Because players normally will not bid higher than an item's victory point value, some items will have abilities that will allow the owner to break the rules in certain ways. I hope that this addition of a minor deck building mechanic will keep the bidding going.
-- Selling Items --
Contrary to buying items, the heroes will only buy an item from the trader who offers it for the lowest price. Thus when a hero wants to buy an item, a reverse bidding process starts with the first player and continues until everyone passes.
Furthermore, a hero will not buy an item that he sold earlier in the game.
This selling process scales up with the game. Unless a player is desperate for cash, he will not sell an item for less than it is worth (in victory points). Say Player 1 has a sword worth 4 VPs and Player 2 has a sword worth 2. If a hero wants to buy a sword, 1 offers his for a price of 6 gold (hoping for a profit of 2) but Player 2 can offer his sword for 4 gold. Player 1 will not sell unless stealing business from Player 2 is worth more to him than his card, and Player 2 sells for 4 and makes a profit of 2 gold.
In this way, selling items acts as a balance mechanic by letting players who are behind (with lower value items) catch up with those in the lead.
-- Extra Ideas --
I like the idea of having a small deck of traders that players can choose from at the start of the game that grant minor abilities in the same vein as 7 Wonders or Cosmic Encounter. I'm not sure if this would be too much or not.
Also, I love the idea of drafting items in groups like in Zooloretto or San Marco. That way, bidding would always be exciting because players can set up groups of items to be bought or sold and I'd avoid the problem of no one wanting a particular item. I think this should definitely make its way into the game.
Anyway, I know this was long so thanks for reading if you're still with me! I really appreciate any feedback that you guys leave. I'm more excited about this idea than the last few I've had, and I know I've got a long road ahead of me, but I'd love to hear what you have to say. Thanks!
- Nick
Thanks for the feedback!
I like the idea of having both trader characters as well as guilds, I see that being really fun and increasing replayability as you said.
As for the Hero deck, I was originally thinking of having something like 4 heroes. That way, the hero could be printed on the card back and players would be able to identify who they got their items from as heroes continued to come back with more items.
Do you think it would be better to have a core set of 4 or so heroes or should the deck be filled with lots of heroes? Now that I'm thinking about it, more heroes probably means a more varied game unless I can think of a reason to have fewer.
I thought of adding stats to the heroes as that would add more depth to the auction step. I'll definitely be playing around with this.
Again, thanks very much for the great ideas! Seems to me that the hard part is going to be coming up with all the cards/abilities/stats. I'l going to get working on it, but I'd still love any advice you guys may have!