1/9/17 Nano card contest

I saw on boardgamegeek.com that there is a contest running for a 9-card nano game.

So now the gears in my head are turning. I'm thinking about a Holi-themed game, somehow. A whole game in nine cards is challenging! (Some components can be used also)

1/4/17 Dancers

And 24 hours later I've got a game. Don't know yet if it's any good but it's playable!

Here are the rules as I've got them so far:

This is a set collection and worker placement game about putting together an Indian dance performance (bharatnatyam) for four players.

Components:

·         Board

·         Deck of Practice Cards

·         Deck of Guest Teacher Cards

·         Three clock pieces per player

·         First player marker (ankle bells)

Set Up:

Place the practice deck on the “deck” space and put out three cards. Place the guest teacher cards on their deck space. Give each player their colored clocks.

Goal:

Score the most points. The main way to do this is to make complete sets of dancers: a head, torso, and legs. These can be mixed and matched, but you’ll get more points for sets of the same color. There are also additional points available from some of the bonus cards. The third way to get points is with the publicity space. The player who puts the most tokens into publicity over the course of the game gets an additional 10 points, the next most gets 5 and the third most gets 2 points.

How To Play:

Randomly determine a first player. On your turn there are four places you can put clocks. You can place one on “first player” to get the first play in the next turn. You can place one on the Guest Teacher space to pick up two of the bonus cards and pick one to pick, shuffling the other back in (don’t perform these actions until everyone has placed all of their clocks for the round). You can place as many clocks as you want into the publicity space. And you can get cards.

The first player to go to the practice deck space must place two clocks. The second person to go there places one and the third person to go there places one. When it is time to resolve actions the first player to go to the practice deck space gets first choice of the three cards that are face up. The second player gets second choice. The third player can either take the card that is left or take the top card of the deck sight unseen.

Once everyone has placed all three of their clocks, actions are resolved. People getting practice cards place them in front of them in sets of head/torso/legs. (The guest teacher deck has one each of these in wild, making them any color).

Mark how many clocks each player put into the publicity space.

Remove all clocks and begin again with the new first player (whoever took the first player space).

Game End:

Game ends when the guest teacher deck is gone. Complete the actions of that round and then move to scoring.

Scoring:

·         +3 points for each full set of dancers

·         +3 additional points for each complete set of the same color

·         Points for the publicity space

·         Points from the guest teacher deck

Image attributions:

By Medha.org (http://www.medha.org/photo.html) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Harinie Jeevitha (http://indiandancer.org) [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Arian Zwegers from Brussels, Belgium [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Bharata Natyam dancer of Sri Devi Nrithyalaya Bharatanatyam school in Chennai (the image licensing info is on that page too).

Persian Silk Brocade - Paisley - Persian Paisley - Seyyed Hossein Mozhgani - 1963.jpg

1/3/17 Bharatnatyam dance game

The theme for the 24 hour contest for January at boardgame geek just got announced. The theme is discipline. After some thought I decided to try creating a game about dance probably with a worker mechanic or a rather a worker placement mechanic. So I have 24 hours to get a workable game created. Off I go!

1/2/2017 Exile In The Forest

I'm having to make some changes to Exile In The Forest, but it's not for play at all. It's because of components. I wanted to make a modular board that would be different every game, but I the only way I found to do that with The Game Crafter made pieces that are just too flimsy.

After trying a few times to play with them I finally acknowledged that I have to make a static board. While I'm at it I decided to increase the font size on the cards too.

Waiting on BoardGameGeek

I've submitted both Exile In The Forest and Grill Time for the boardgamegeek.com directory. It's taking weeks to get them listed, though. I had to do some revising of the listings and wait again and I just don't know how long it will take.

I'm excited to upload all the images and files and materials. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting!

12/22/2016 Exile In The Forest

Life stuff has been getting in the way of game design BUT I got my copy of Exile In The Forest came!

It looks so beautiful. I did a couple of videos to show you:

Wed 12/14/16 Hunter/Gatherer

Okay, I'm going to see if I can explain my idea for this trick taking game. It will be good practice towards writing up a rule set.

The twist in this trick taker is that there are two tricks happening at the same time. You can play either to the hunting trick or the gathering trick. There are three suits in each (and one of each is a trump suit).  

At the end of the game you get positive points for one type and negative for the other. So if you have more gatherer cards you'll get one positive point for each of those and one negative point for each hunter card and vice versa. If you manage to get exactly equal you get a point for all cards. 

You have a hand of six (4?) cards and you draw back up at the end of your turn. 

The game has an uncertain ending. In the last third of the deck there will be a winter card and when that is drawn the game ends instantly.  

If you want to play on the hunting trick but you don't have the suit, if you have the suit for the gathering suit you have to play that one, but if you don't have either you can play whatever you want on the hunting trick. You can play a lower number card of the correct suit to avoid winning the trick.  

A trick is scored once there are as many cards in it as there are players, but since there are two tricks that isn't necessarily one round. If there are four players there will be eight slots to play. So you can play on the same trick more than once to force it to score. The person who scores a trick starts the new one. 

I've tested this out a bit solo but still not sure how well it's going to work. Going to try to get it played with other people soon!