Board Games

[Stupot]

Does anybody here have any experience designing board games?
What kind of game was it?  How complex did you go?

What are the best home-made board games you've ever played?

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The reason I'm asking this is because I'm in the middle of designing a board game based on an idea I had about 4 years ago but never got around to doing anything about it.  Now, I've written a preliminary set of rules and will have a preliminary game board mapped out very soon, and I was wondering if anyone is interested in helping me 'beta test' it.  I'll send you a copy of the board and the rules and let you play it with some friends and family for a while, then you can get back to me with comments and suggestions.

I was also wondering if anyone who is good at art would like to take a break from AGS and help me out by drawing the game board and making it look sexy, once the design specifications are set in stone (which won't be for a couple of weeks or months yet).

Please PM me about these things, because I want this thread to be reserved for discussion about home-made board games in general.

[Scarab]

I made one when I were but a lad, coming up on 6-7 years ago now.

The premise was, if I recall correctly, was to send creatures or monsters to the the opponent's 'Base' and attack them, causing them to lose life points.

The play-field was split into two linear paths which both led to the opponent's Base (just think of a linear path with a monopoly board slapped on top).

The board was split into two Zones, (a Mountain Zone and a Swamp Zone IRIC..) the border being the midpoint of the board, and this gave advantages to certain creatures in battle.

There were several castes of creatures, including:

• Guardians
            These were of low attack and defence, and were needed to Escort Eggs to the opponent's Zone. Escorting meant that the two pieces could occupy the same square and move together.)
  
• Beasts
            These were of medium attack and defence, and had much more mobility in their own Zone, the Eagle in the Mountain Zone, the Wurm in the Swamp Zone.)
  
• Eggs
            These initially had no attack or defence, and had to be Escorted to the opposing Zone by a Guardian, where they would then Hatch, and receive attack and defence points based on two respective rolls of a die.)
  
• Disasters
            These had the maximum attack points (6) and no defence, so their lives were short, but they were very good for defence. Disasters could not venture out of their own Zone.
  
  So the players took turns to either move or spawn a unit, and of they collided in the field, a battle would take place, just pitting their attack and defence points against each other. There was also a limited 'Bank' of Creatures, so you could only summon a limited amount of one creature at one time, less for more powerful Creatures.
  
  The board has long since been thrown out, and it was probably heavily inspired heavily by Magic: The Gathering, which I was quite into at the time, but it was fun to play, and I hope this answers most of your questions.

[Jim Reed]

Actually, I do that reguralry come winter, when there is nothing better to do =) I mean, with half a meter of snow outide, football is out of the question (except snow football, which is fun, but painfull). =D

My bes design was actually when I tried to mix Risk with Settlers of Catan.

The premise was to have a modular map, made from hexagonal tiles, with added combat. Depending on what tiles you had under your control, you'd get certain resources (ore, wood, iron, gold etc.) which you would use to buy units and cards.

The game would be pretty dull, was it not for the cards that you could put in play, which make the game interesting.
Some of the cards included anti-propaganda (take away enemy soliders), propaganda (get free soliders), food stock poisoning (moving half of the opponents army to his castle - ie, they need to see a doctor), crop burning (crop tiles don't give resources for 3 turns), forest fires (wood tiles don't give resources plus kill half of the soliders on wood tiles), spymaster report (see enemy cards), kidnaping prince (opponent must pay ransom) etc.

I also used 4 type of soliders (infantry, archers, cavalry, catapults) and two figures (king and prince) which added +2/+1 to the attack roll respectfully, when they were with the attacking army. You could soround the prince and capture him that way, making the other player pay ransom, or be unable to play the prince. Doing that with the king would mean that that player lost. There are numerous other twists you could add, and that I frogot to mention. Also, after making a few table games, I realised that the best game design was one where you didn't have to note anything down on a piece of paper, as that quickly becomes cumbersome if you don't have pre-made sheets for it.

[Wonkyth]

I've had a few nice ideas, but I ultimately killed them with over-complexity. 

[Stupot]

Jim and Scarab.  Both your games sound great.  I never really got into stats/strategy based board/card games (despite enjoying RPGs on the computer).  I was always more of a Cluedo/Monopoly kind of man.

Oh, I might as well share what I've got so far:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ARi4Vvjmz7BqZGM4ajIzY2ZfMmN3ZzVncnN4&hl=en

[Jim Reed]

Hahaha! Nice game! LOL!

[Wonkyth]

...Now that's just peculiar!

[Jim Reed]

On a side note, the game is simple, which is not really my taste, (but you know what they say about tastes), maybe you can adda thing or two more and still keep it simple. Like a "wild party" card that makes you use three Jims when you pick it up, and a way to keep track who had the most sexual encounters s you can award him the golden Jim, for being so easy or something.

[Chicky]

A board game for the chavs! Both enjoyable and educational 

[Stupot]

Agreed it is a bit Sex-ed, which I don't really want.

A friend suggested I swap the family planning clinic into a seedy back-street abortionist, and that got me thinking about ways of making it more of an adult game involving prostitution and crime.

I'm thinking of adding in monopoly-style money - each player is a hooker and you get different amounts for different sexual favours you provide... And on every pass of the board you have to give a certain percentage of your earnings to a pimp.  But I'd have to change the focus away from the pregnancy thing and make that an extra objective - avoiding pregnacy and aids.

Instead of an abortion card, you have to pay for an abortion using your hard earned money... but you have to save up enough money.

Drugs would have to play a role in a game about prostitution.  Im thinking of just having cards in the pile that say things like.  "You just bought a bag of heroin. Pay £100" (I'd have to do my research obviously:P) or "you just sold some heroin. Take £100"... I could make it well complicated where each player has a stash, which they can buy or sell to other players for different values (perhaps a die or spindel could determine the "current street value" when needed), but i'm already over-complicating things and will end up doing a Wonkyth.

Any other ideas?  It wouldn't surprise me if something like this has been done before, but fuck it.

Possible title : 'The Game: the game"?

[bicilotti]

We could playtest @ Mittens, if you give us a .pdf copy to print.

[Stupot]

Good plan Bici.  Cheers.  I should easily have something ready then.