I recently thought of a game mechanic in which, instead of controlling your army (or faction, or whatever) you instead control the board. Each player's army would have a preset action conditions (i.e. conquer the adjacent area with the most gold, etc.) and players would take turns manipulating the conditions on the board to change each army's behavior.
Now, the first thing theme wise that came to mind was Mold. Each player would play as a scientist attempting to toy with the growth of several mold colonies. I am thinking that the game would use Commodity speculation, and each player would bet or invest on a particular mold to do well. As the game progresses, there could be several payout rounds in which the success of a particular mold is gauged and a score is determined for each player based on how well the mold has done, times the initial investment.
Now I am just thinking about rules for the behavior of the molds and the ways the players can interact with them (or the board). Any suggestions or input?
The I choose mold over using a medieval conquest, etc. is because mold is different and new. You could play a medieval conquest game (which you've played many times before) or a game about mold. It's just so crazy it just might work.
Thanks, Clever Mojo Games. You and I seem to be on the same page. The growth medium placement is what I was thinking about, though the "to the left of" and "to the right of" are different. I was thinking about giving mold "food" that would cause different behaviors, i.e. produce spores, expand, fight mold, create colony, etc.
More input welcome.