I've Been brainstorming for a game my friends and I would enjoy playing, and have quite a few ideas, but having trouble focusing them. We're all interested in the prepping movement (no, we're not End of the World Tinfoil Hat types), and thought a game poking fun at the stereotypical End Times survivalist types would be fun.
Overview:
The board game has the humor/pop-culture references like Illuminati:NWO. It's a semi-co-op, turn limited game. The End of the World As We Know It or SHTF or Worst-Case Scenario, etc. Each player selects a character to keep alive over the course of a year. The scenario would be randomly drawn from a deck of scenario cards and would include dirty nuke, chemical spill, terrorist attack, weather event, etc. Characters chosen by the player.
Game Mechanics of Interest:
Game limited to 12 turns, one 'month' per turn, and the months are organized by seasons. Game starts in Spring when resources are easiest to acquire. As months progress, resources are more scarce and tension between players increases. (ex. 4 resource cards max may be drawn in the Spring months, while only 1 card may be drawn in the Winter months.)
I also like the idea of each player choosing a 'character' from a deck of character cards, as each character has a different skill set and victory condition. Eliminating the other characters may not be the only way to win. So, Granny Smith might get bonus starting resources because she canned and stored food. Billy Tacticool might start the game with a 9mm. Each character would have a special ability as well.
Moving Hazards: These would include roving gangs, gas clouds, radiation clouds, zombie mobs, etc. Being able to move them about the board would make an obstacle for resource gathering. Perhaps the first thing a player does on his turn is move a hazard X number of places. The hazards are dependent on the scenario. I also thought about 'zone control'. The hazard might be represented not by one token, but by two or even three. It might break up or it might stay together and affect multiple spaces on the board.
I think my biggest problem right now is what the board game represents. A town? A region? The U.S.? A building? I may just start by building a board with spaces and 'locations' and leave the theme of the board completely out. I envision characters moving about the board gathering resources and items to survive, but that's about all I have related to that.
Comments and questions welcome! Thanks all!
