"X-Marks the Spot" Or the Pirate themed post

Nottice: I am feeling very piratey today and as such will be in character for this post.

Arrrrghhh mateys are ye bold enough to brave the seas to find the treasure?  Then ye must play me game "X-Marks the Spot" a race to the island where the treasure be burried.

The rules be very simple even for ye land lubbers and even simpler for a pirate.

X-Marks the spot game rules

1.       Roll a die to move ahead.

2.       Each player starts with as many map tokens as there are players. (ex.: 4 players=4 map tokens each)

3.       At the start of the game each player rolls the die highest number goes first then goes around clockwise.

4.       You can skip your turn if you want, but you must take your next turn.

5.       When you land on a space with another player a duel must commence.

6.       To duel each player rolls the die, highest number wins.  In the event of a tie just roll again.

a.       Loser must forfeit one map piece.

b.      Winner takes one map piece from the loser.

7.       The first player to reach the Goal Island is the winner.

a.       You must have at least your starting number of map tokens to get to goal.

8.       You cannot move backwards.

a.       You can’t move backwards in or out of the fog.

9.       Each space has a different effect except for blank spaces which are ordinary spaces.

a.       Got Lost space: go back to the nearest blank space.

b.      Ride the ride space: Ride the tide in the indicated direction.

c.       Troublemaker space: send any player back to nearest cove.

d.      Storm: Lose a turn.

e.      Doubloon: Get an extra turn.

f.        Navy Attacks space: roll a die and go back that many spaces.

g.       Whirlpool: Swap places with any player.

h.      Cove: safe spot, while you are in that space you cannot be dueled, switched, or sent back to start.

10.   While in the fog if you do not have enough map pieces you must circle through the fog until you have at least your starting number.

 

Now we shall resume normalcy.

Designing the game at the start was much harder than I thought.  I had so many ideas they got stuck and started bottlenecking on the way out.  It was mainly a matter of getting the idea from my head out onto paper but after a few hours of throwing ideas at the wall and recalling my childhood faveorites: "Candyland" and "Chutes and Ladders" I was able to at least scribble an idea out.  My idea was a "race to the finish" game with a little twist barrowing from my earlier tooth fairy game. 

The main requirment as stated in the above rules is that you need at least your starting number of map peices and if you don't you have to circle around in the fog until you do.

The first pass went fairly well and through play testing I was able to polish the rules and was a little less sadistic with the effect spaces and proved more normal spaces for players to land on and changed the rules to allow for quicker gameplay. 

Since it was a paper prototype I was more concerned about gameplay than how it looked.  In fact the color was added in at almost the very last second just to "brighten" it up a smidge.  If I go back to this game it most likely will undergo another total makeover and this board might get wadded up and recycled-or not.

 

Paper Prototype Game Rules

Paper Prototype of: X-Marks the Spot

Rules:

1.       Roll a die to move ahead.

2.       Each player starts with as many map tokens as there are players. (ex.: 4 players=4 map tokens each)

3.       At the start of the game each player rolls the die highest number goes first then goes around clockwise.

4.       You can skip your turn if you want, but you must take your next turn.

5.       When you land on a space with another player a duel must commence.

6.       To duel each player rolls the die, highest number wins.  In the event of a tie just roll again.

a.       Loser must go to Recovery Island and forfeit one map piece.

b.      Winner stays where they are and takes one map piece from the loser.

7.       The first player to reach the Goal Island is the winner.

a.       You must have at least your starting number of map tokens to get to goal.

8.       You cannot move backwards into the goal area or recovery island.

a.       You cannot go to Recovery Island from the start spaces.

9.       Each space has a different effect except for blank spaces which are ordinary spaces.

a.       Got Lost space: go back to the nearest blank space.

b.      Ride the ride space: Ride the tide in the indicated direction.

c.       Duel space: pick any player to duel.

d.      Troublemaker space: send any player back to start.

e.      Storm: Lose a turn.

f.        Doubloon: Get an extra turn.

g.       Navy Attacks space: roll a die and go back that many spaces.

h.      Whirlpool: Swap places with any player.

i.         Cove: safe spot, while you are in that space you cannot be dueled, switched, or sent back to start.

 

Game/Lesson Number One Is...

Most people tend to think that you can't learn anything from games and that in fact they rot your brain.  They couldn't be furthur fromt he truth.  Games have been a way to learn since prehistoric times.  In fact the phrase "It's just a game" often implies that the "Game" is just practice for the real thing.  For example back in the stone age a game of tag might help children ready themselves for hunting.

Puzzle games are a good example of how you can learn from playing games, they often teach you logic and critical thinking.  In Tetris you have to think quickly to be able to place the blocks accordingly to fill the empty space and when I play Professor Layton I have to pull out my entire mental capabilities to solve the puzzles I ecounter from math to slider puzzles.

Playing a game or a simulation allows us to experience a particular situation in a safe manner such as the Red Flag Missions used by the U.S Air Force to provide the first ten missions for new pilots in a realistic simulation.  In a simulation you can "die" as many times as needed and still come back armed with the knowledge of your previous mistakes.  In the real world if you lose, that's it you're dead.

Games may not teach you math or philosophy but they do teach you some basic skills and then give you a problem in which you figure out how you use those skills in a variety of ways from aiming atraight in a FPS game or rescuing the princess in an adventure game.  Games have been a way of teaching life skills for all species since the dawn of time.

Game session, Wendsday Jan 30

Sorry!

Sorry! A board game we've all played before which ensued into a night of alliances and cutthroat revenges and sabatoge.  While the game is fun and engaging, the rules can be quite confusing at times and the conditions on the movement cards can either cripple some players or give them a slightly unfair advantage over the others.  The rules rgarding teams were the most confusing and during my gameplay session we often spiraled down into a free for all and ever one for themself.  So while we did have our fun, we had to refer back to the rules a little too often for our liking which led to our gameplay taking too long.

Fluxx!

This was my first time playing Fluxx! And it was one of the most enjoyable card games I had ever played.  The game begins with a set if basic rules but once gameplay begins, those rules go right out the window in favor of new rules that pop up with the cards and the goals kept changing as well.  The most amusing being that if we had been playing in a public place and someone came along to ask what we were playing we all had to draw fromt he deck.  Though at times gameplay did get confusing it was very enjoyable.  The strangest card that came up was the "Radioactive potato" which prevented a player form winning which made me wonder if the inventor of the game had come up with Fluxx! at four in the morning on some insane impulse. Gameplay didn't take as long as Sorry! did largely becasue the rules made more sense and we had them at the ready in case we forgot after a rule change card was played.

Overall,a game can be as fun as it comes but sometimes it's the rules that can make or break it.  If the rules of play don't make sense or don't provide a level field of play at the start, the game won't be as much fun for everyone.  In addition how long a game can take can affect this as well.  Some games are fun when they take a long time because they are meant to take a long time, but most board games usually take about less than an hour, any longer than that and the game will start to feel rather tiring.