So last week I pitched an idea for a minecraft game and we started going back and forth about what the game would need to work. Originally I was thinking about doing a simple card game with a minecraft skin but it felt like I was cheating the system and just slapping a license over something that already exists.
So I sat down and started to think what would a minecraft game be like? Would it involve building? Can I include player interaction? What about the mob, could they be added in a balanced way?
The answer to the above is yes, yes, and yes!
Minecraft is a board game in way. The game is about collecting resources, staying alive and showing off your creativity but there's one more thing...time management.
What if the game board was tile based and instead of collecting resources from multiple different hexagons like in Settlers, you only could collect 1 resource at a time because you could only be in 1 place at a time.
Here's the idea:
There are multiple hexagon shapes, each representing 1 resource much like how the game's world is laid out (though in the actual game some areas like the forest you can collect wood and grass but ignore that for now).
In this game each player has 30mins to take their turn. These 30min are broken up between day and night. These minutes are not in real time but a way to pay for the collection of resources. Steve (you) can only collect resources from 1 hexagon at a time and collecting these resources takes time. Each resource has its own set time so depending on what you're collecting, you could get a lot or a little done before your turn is over.
While players use their time they begin to lose daylight. Once night hits. the mobs come out. The mobs are represented by 3 dice: 1- Spawning (what areas the mob will spawn on), 1- Mob type (the type of mob that will spawn), 1- Temperament (how the mob will act). Night only lasts for the last 10 minutes of a player's turn. After 5 minutes the mobs will spawn once again allowing mobs to affect players up to twice in a single turn.
Players can save themselves from mobs by sleeping in a house but this means they'll have less time to gather resources. Also they'll need to build a house and be on the same resource space as the house in order to use it.
How are resources represented?
Each resource has a 30 tile deck to go along with it. A player draws a tile for each resource they are able to gather. Some tiles may come from a different resource much like when a player digs downward in the actual minecraft game.
Note: There are actually 90 tiles of each resource but only 30 are loaded at a time to keep players moving between resources.
How do you win?
The game ends when a player gathers 20 victory points or when a player builds a Nether Portal (at which time all players add up the victory points they have currently gathered to decide the winner).
How do earn victory points?
Crafting items
Killing other players
Killing mobs
What I'm not sure of:
I know I want the board to use hex tiles to represent different resources but how do I make the board? If I go the settlers route I run the risk of losing resources behind water thus crippling player's ability to construct objects, also the land could be laid out unnaturally (sand between stone and grass with no water near by).
The other option is to make a flower shaped board with 6 hexes on the outside and 1 in the middle, each representing a different resource. The problem with this is it doesn't leave much creativity when it comes to setting up the game and I want each game to feel different much like how each minecraft world is different.
So what do you guys think?
I do have villages, animals and plants which are represented by individual tokens placed at the start of the game.
Jungles/forests are on a single resource hex
mine-shafts, and dungeons are not in the game because the game is 2D and focuses 90% on the resource gathering aspect of the game. A shaft or dungeon would just be a hollowed area of an already existing resource so while I would love to include it, there are some things that given this design would just over complicate an already complicated game.
Anything players build will be on the surface and exposed at all times.
What I am thinking of doing is allowing all players to take their turn at the same time. Using the 30min rule to control the length of the round.
I wonder how that would work? Would the game get to chaotic? Have other games done that?