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theme involving a "pit stop" before advancing

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Mon, 04/11/2016 - 13:56
NewbieDesigner
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I have an idea in mind where players control four pieces that are moved on four different tracks. There will be 3-4 pit stops that requires all four pieces to reach each pit stop before all four pieces can move again. The goal will be to move all of your pieces as far as they can go with a player's last place piece representing your final score (Knizia like).

Can you think of an interesting situation where people or things have to wait for their slowest member before continuing to advance?

Thanks in advance.

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Mon, 04/11/2016 - 15:24
#1
let-off studios
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The first things that came to mind were chain gangs and wagon trains/caravans. Expedition groups: jungle-trekking or mountain-climbing expeditions. Anything dealing with logistics/manufacturing (which experiences bottlenecks if one component is slowed/depleted).

You can apply some kind of fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, dystopic future setting on top of those and come up with something novel or interesting, I imagine.

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Mon, 04/11/2016 - 16:13
#2
Gabe
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I agree with the chain gang

I agree with the chain gang idea. A prison break game could be quite interesting and a really good one hasn't been designed yet (imo).

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Mon, 04/11/2016 - 21:08
#3
NewbieDesigner
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I actually thought of the

I actually thought of the mountain hiking idea with stopping along the way. Does anyone know any specific historical examples of team exploration and meeting up at specific locations from time to time? Or how about something that involves checkpoints where teams have to check in before they proceed?

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Mon, 04/11/2016 - 21:31
#4
Gabe
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That's what people do when

That's what people do when climbing huge mountains like Everest. Could make for an interesting theme.

You could also take it in the direction of exploration and go with a Lewis & Clark type theme.

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 00:48
#5
Tedthebug
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racing games?

I think some races have daily checkpoints, when they all start the next day they leave at the same interval as they arrived the day before. They aren't physically linked together but this procedure creates an artificial link between them.

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 04:18
#6
ElKobold
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Kickstarter

So you have 4 pawns traveling 4 different paths.

- Gamedesign
- Visual design
- Marketing
- Production

KS launch is your pitstop and you score as much as your lowest ;)

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 05:43
#7
gilamonster
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For a humourous whole-family

For a humorous family game or a kid's game, what about centipedes, caterpillars or inchworms? Each pawn/counter is a segment of the beastie, and the front can race ahead for a while, but the tail must catch up...

Edit: I forgot about the multiple tracks requirement - I suppose you could still have a sideways centipede race though.

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 08:11
#8
let-off studios
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Death Race 2000

Not sure if you'd ever seen it, but there's a 1970's grindhouse movie called "Death Race 2000" that may match up with what you're trying to achieve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atSyNC0aP3Y

...It's pretty bizarre, but it has it's charms.

There are a few other in a less-violent strain, like "Midnight Madness" and "Cannonball Run." Look those up too if you're thinking of a multiple-path race with checkpoints at the end of a day's run.

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 08:21
#9
NewbieDesigner
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Mountain climbing is a really

Mountain climbing is a really close fit with starting at a base camp and stopping at huts along the way to rest and sleep. But I feel the theme is a little played out with games like K2 and Everest.

Right now I'm looking for animal migration patterns to see if animals will wait for family members like elephants at a watering hole or something like that.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far and keep em coming. :-)

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 11:32
#10
Gabe
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For migration, what if you

For migration, what if you did dinosaurs? People love dinosaurs, and we don't really know their behavior, so if your game says they would wait for each other, I can't really argue.

They could be escaping the ice age or maybe a meteor's destruction.

You could give it a "Land before Time" feel.

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 12:09
#11
Zag24
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Gabe wrote:For migration,

Gabe wrote:
For migration, what if you did dinosaurs? People love dinosaurs, and we don't really know their behavior, so if your game says they would wait for each other, I can't really argue.

They could be escaping the ice age or maybe a meteor's destruction.

You could give it a "Land before Time" feel.


IMHO, This is your winner. Great idea!

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Tue, 04/12/2016 - 13:05
#12
NewbieDesigner
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Nice idea, I'll research to

Nice idea, I'll research to see if there is evidence of dino ("Dino DNA") migrations.

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Wed, 04/13/2016 - 04:39
#13
gilamonster
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I think I recall there being

I think I recall there being some evidence for dinosaur migration: trails of large numbers of footprints of one species of dinosaur, in different sizes (i.e. many different individuals - so a herd of them, on the move). Also, the same species were sometimes found vast distances apart, even taking into account continental drift.
Anyway, there have been successful games with much more implausible and ridiculous themes. At worst, dino migration falls well withing what I'd consider well-founded plausible speculation - I say go for it!

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