Hello fellow Designers,
I am looking for some "ideas" or alternate uses for "cubes" in my game.
Let me sum up game play and explain where I need some help!
So player play cards in a grid and when a card is conquered it offers up some "loot" which can be gathered by the players. This game works for both a 2 player and a 4 player version.
There are three (3) types of loot: Red, Yellow and Blue.
Purple = Chaos Gems and once all 3 are revealed, the game ends. The player with the most Chaos Gems is the winner.
This leaves Green and Orange cubes. Green cubes indicate "traps" and when a green cube is picked, that tile's "loot" is ALL trapped. To gather loot, a player must roll 3d6s: two white and one black. A mixed pair results in +1 loot and a white pair result in +2 loot.
LASTLY which leaves me to where I need some HELP: the orange cube.
Currently this cube means that the person who conquered his opponent may NOT gather "loot" from this location.
I don't know if this is a good idea... Or maybe some other purpose for the "Orange" cubes...
Any help would be much appreciated! BTW this is for "Monster Keep"...
I'm at a point with the design that I am "experimenting" with alternate methods of play. I only presented the combat aspect, because I didn't have any additional layer...
But Kingsburg introduces an interesting aspect with the dice: selecting whom you will use your dice to "control".
I was inspired by this concept with a variation. Sort of a blend of Kingsburg and Catan where each tile used "Dice Values" to be able to collect "loot" from that location.
For example: If the "Fighter" is conquered, you flip over the card to reveal "The Barracks". "Loot" is randomly chosen from a bag according to the "Fighter's" stats. What happens next is that to CLAIM any "loot" from "The Barracks", you must roll a "1 Black" (1 die) OR "> 5 White" (2 dice).
Collecting "loot" would cost nothing but on each turn you would have 3 Action Points and therefore three (3) rolls of the dice that allow you to have better odds of being able to collect "loot".
So you might see SIMILARITIES with Kingsburg and Catan... But neither are 100% exact, my game would have it's own "unique" type of "looting" mechanic inspired by those two (2) games.
Getting back to "Orange" and "Green" Cubes. So there are SIX (6) "Green" cubes and I have decided that "Green" means the Cube of your choice (Red, Yellow or Blue). Meaning when you collect a "Green" Cube, you choose if you want Red, Yellow or Blue. Sort of like a "Wildcard".
Secondly there are THREE (3) "Orange" cubes and what I believe is that they are "FREE to claim" resources. You would use ALL remaining Action Points for this but not need to ROLL the dice ... as they are "FREE" and may be claimed requiring no dice rolling. You could only claim one (1) resource per turn... It's kind of like a "2nd runner-up" option. So IF an "Orange" cube is in play, it means that the WORST case, you will ONLY collect "1 resource" this turn.
For those who know (like @Fri), Cubes are drawn from a bag when a unit is "conquered" on the battle field. The number of Cubes depends on the stats of the conquered card. Those stats dictate how many items to "loot" are made present at that location.
It's not a very complexe game. I wanted some dice rolling to ensure that the game was NOT purely "deterministic". I dislike games that ONLY rely on stats. I feel like dice rolling adds a luck factor ... but in this case rolling ADD "strategy" in so far that dice allocation means that only one (1) player may be at a "location" at any given point in time.
I've got to work on a prototype and see IF this new "method" of collecting "loot" is FUN and "efficient". It seems promising thought TBH...