August 2011 Game Design Showdown - "Convention Fever"
Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown.
The August Game Design Showdown is now over! The votes are in!
Not a lot of participation this month - I blame myself for that as I posted it late, and it was right on the tail of last months (which also ran late)... We had 3 entries this month, and only 3 people voted. The winner with 3 votes was SwagCon, by Wil Wade. Congrats Wil!
Shamble-Con by loonoly received 2 votes, and ZombieCon by Benj Hamilton (Yamahako) received 1 vote.
The critique thread is now open.
Main Design Requirements:
- Theme Restriction: Game Conventions
Many of us spend some if not all of our vacation time attending game conventions. There are the big ones with thousands of people, like Origins, Gen Con, Essen, and Pax, and there are smaller local cons like Stragicon, KublaCon, BGG.con, Ghengis Con, Neon Con, RinCon, WBC (not sure how big that one is), Oasis of Gaming, TotalCon, CanCon, EerieCon, Three Rivers Con, Dragonflight, Gamestorm, etc, etc, etc...
This month's Showdown could be about running a con, attending a con, or running a gauntlet of multiple cons - it's up to you!
Mechanics Restriction: None.
This month you're free to be creative and use whatever mechanisms you like in your game.Component Restriction: Board
There are a lot of games out there nowadays that don't really hold true to the Board Game form factor - played with player boards but no central board, or played with no board at all - just tiles, or cards. This months showdown must use a non-trivial board as a central component of the design.Component Restriction: Variety of pieces
For this month's showdown, your entry must also utilize at least 3 distinct types of player pieces, and they must also be non-trivial, central components of the game.
- Submissions: Tuesday, 2-August-2011 through Tuesday, 9-August-2011.
- Voting: Through Tuesday, 16-August-2011. PM your votes to sedjtroll.
- Voting Format: Each person has 6 votes to distribute any way they choose among the GDS entries with the following restrictions:
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- You may not assign any votes to your own entry!
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- You may not assign more than 3 votes to any single entry.
- You need not assign all 6 votes.
Comments or Questions: Comments and questions about this Challenge were handled on the Comments Thread.
- CRITIQUES: After voting has closed the entries will be posted for comments and critiques. Post constructive critiques and commentary about the entries to this Challenge in the Critiques Thread
- GDS Details: For more details on how these Game Design Showdown Challenges work, especially the details around the word count and graphics limits, visit the GDS Wiki Page.
Enjoy, and good luck!
-Seth
Shamble-Con
2-4 players 30+ minutes
You and your friends just wanted to play a game, eat some over priced food and get the latest game from your favorite game company. But when you got to the convention, THEY were there. They smell bad. They shamble. And they want your Gaaammesss! These aren't ordinary gamers, they are zombie gamers!
Overview
Players are, well...players visiting a game convention that has been infected with a zombie plague. Players are racing to be the first to reach their objectives and get back out of the con.
Components
200 zombie gamer pawns Gameboard:
15 objective cards:
Each player has in their color (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow):
- 4 gamer pawns
- 15 small discs
- 3 large discs (numbered 1 to 3)
- 1 six sided die
Setup
Each player selects a color, takes the respective pieces and places 1 of their pawns on their starting square. Separate the objective cards into their respective types (game room, company, and concession). Shuffle each stack and deal one of each to each player. Determine a start player. Place all 200 zombies on the board with 2 per small square and 4 per large area excluding the start areas.
Game Play
In turn order, players will be allowed to perform 2 actions with each of their pawns. The available actions are:
1. Knock 'em down.
2. Move 'em.
3. Make a hole.
4. Stand 'em up.
Alternatively, if all of a player's pawns on the board are in one of their objective areas, they may complete an objective using all of the actions from all of their pawns.
1. Knock 'em down
Thankfully, zombie gamers aren't very dangerous. They just get in the way. So you may temporarily knock them down. To do so, the player designates a zombie in their own square or one adjacent as the target and rolls their six sided die and adds +1 for each additional pawn of their color in the same square. The player to the left rolls for the zombie. The lower result loses and is knocked down. If tied both are knocked down. If all of a players pawns are knocked down, the pawns are returned to the last completed objective (or the start square if no objectives have been completed yet).
2. Move 'em
Players may move their pawns only if there is room for the pawn. Small squares have a maximum occupancy of 2 and larger areas are 4. This applies only to standing pawns (hence why you need to knock down the zombies). Players may increase this maximum by one in small squares by laying down small discs (see below in "make a hole"). Players may also move through a contigous line of small discs of their color, but must still abide by the maximum occupancy rules at their destination.
3. Make a hole.
Players may place a small disc in a small square if all zombies in the square are laying down. Each small square can only have one disc in it.
4. Stand 'em up.
If a player's pawn is lying down, that pawn may use an action to stand back up as long as maximum occupancy is still observed.
Achieving an objective
To achieve an objective all of the player's on board pawns must occupy one of their objective spaces. The player determines their die modifier by subtracting the number of their standing pawns from the number of standing zombies in their area. The player rolls the die and then physically modifies the result on the die by their modifier (maximum 6, minimum 1) and places the die on the objective space. This is the number of turns they will be skipped before the activity is completed. Once completed, place a large activity completed disc (in numeric order) on the objective space. Once an objective is completed, place an additional pawn on the board.
Stand up zombies
At the end of their turn each player may stand up a number of zombies equal to the number of pawns they have on board (remember maximum occupancy rules).
End Game
The game ends immediately once a player has achieved all three objectives and gotten all of their pawns back to their start square. That player is declared the winner.