Changing the working name to PRODUCTION

I looked up "Production" in BGG and there weren't previous games called that. Its not that sexy but it works for now.

I have been working on the other half of the game, the Production phase. This is how I see the production phase working:

Production Phase -

Board Member benefits: If you are on a board you may take up to 3 raw materials from your dock.

Production Round - Players continue to take turns doing these rounds untill all have opted to end the round.

During your turn you must do one of these three actions:
- Change what a factory is producing. Change the raw material that a factory will deliver. This automatically starts a truck too so that you are guaranteed the factory will produce at least one batch goods for you. You can not do this if there is a truck en route.

- Start a truck. Place a truck chit en route to the dock with 4 time cubes placed on it.

- Advance a truck. Remove a time cube from the truck. If you remove the last cube then remove the truck and place 8 raw material cubes on the dock. The type of material is indicated by the factory.

Then, take up to three resources from any dock or combination from docks.
Now you may remove yourself from the turn order list taking a new place
for the rest of the round. If there are no resources you have to remove yourself.

After the first person removes themselves the remaining people can no longer do the first three actions.

Once all players are done -

Players simultaneously and secretly build gizmos from their raw materieals:


When all are done building gizmos they reveal what they have built. Then they will modify the Potential values of the companies on the values board.

At this point players have to return all unusesd materials keeping at most four for next turn.

BUYING STOCK
Players may now buy stock in the new turn order. Players take turns buying up to 3 stocks of one company or passing. As you buy stocks you must display them in front of you.

Board member - If a player has more stocks of a company than anyone they become the new board member and recieve the indicator of the correct color. If somone else already is the board member you must beat them in number of stocks to take the indicator from them.

THINGS TO DO STILL
I need to work out what happens when you sell stock and you were a board member? If no one else has it you keep the status untill you drop to zero stock.

I still need an end to the game

PRODUCTION Board

I made the production board and truck chits:

Production board


Truck


I have decided that players will play with the stocks they own in plain view. Also if you have the most of a company you then sit on the board of that company. You will have to beat the current board member to take the board seat from him.

During production board members will get an extra turn at their factories and docks before the normal production round starts.


The name of the game is no longer appropriate so I thought about changing it to "Speculation" which I like alot. BGG proved that there have been many other games with that name. So I don't like that name either.

I have no mechanism for ending the game yet. My only thought is ripping off Noblemen and having something where the players have to choose to move toward the end.

I have begun to hobble together some parts

I currently like the idea that there are 6 compaines and 3 different High tech gizmos. Two compaines per gizmo.

So I asked Mike K. to come up with some other high tech gizmos that people could build during that game and this is what he came up with:

MIND CONTROL DEVICE
DIMENSIONAL PORTAL DEVICE
GRAVITY GUN
GIANT DEATH RAY
ROBOT WORKERS
EMP BLASTER
NANO-BOTS
HOLOGRAM GENERATORS
BUGGING EQUIPMENT

Some cool ideas there especialy since he doesnt know a whole lot about the game.

I took a few passes at the Market Board:



I have the cubes for the gizmos and the "Market bag"

I still need a Production board and some screens. I also need to finish
painting small cubes for the raw materials.

I also glued together some cubes to make the sliders.

After playing aroud a bit with these pieces (half the game) the flow of the game has changed a bit:

Before round 1 turn order is determined. The deeper you are in the turn order you will need to be a bit compensated.

Produciton -
Raw materials -> Gizmos (this is the other half of the game and will be fleshed out soon. Players will change the turn order here.)

Players convert in secret and do a simultaneous reveal. Then they figure out which companies potential value will move.

The company with the most produced moves down 5 levels; 2nd most 3 levels; 3rd most 1 level; all other companies move up 2 levels.

Buy Stock -
Players buy stock in turn order. Going first gets you cheaper stock but going last lets you see where the stock is going.

Value sliders move toward potential. They move 1 per stock bought after each player is done.

Market -
Players ship gizmos (put some from behind their screen into the market bag) Since this is secret turn order is not important.

Someone pulls out X (10??) cubes from the bag to see what the current "Demand" is. These cubes then go out of play changing the ratio in the bag.

The potential sliders move again. The company of the highest demand move up 5; 2nd most up 3; 3rd up 1; all others down 2.

Sell Stock -
Players sell stock in turn order. Going first gets you better stock prices but going last lets you see where the stock is going.

Value sliders move toward potential. They move 1 per stock sold after each player is done.

First pass of a rough set of rules

So I think maybe the battle bag idea may complete the picture for me. Driving to my latest BGDW meeting I thought up these distinct areas of the game that would compose a single round of play:

Production Phase
Produce raw materials (5 colors of small cubes)
Produce high tech products (increasing the supply of them and lowering the potential value)

Market Phase
Add cubes to the market bag (If you have a better name please let me know)
Remove cubes from the market bag. This represents the demand for the high-tech products and therefore increases the potential value of some stocks.

Then players can buy or sell stock moving the actual value closer to the potential value.


PRODUCTION PHASE

Use your company influence to produce/collect raw materials (5 colors of small wooden cubes). Players will decide which factories will produce which materials and or take some from the docks.

Convert the raw materials into High Tech products. Still two thoughts on this:
1 - All the companies in the game (that you can buy stock for and potentially own) produce different flavors of temporal modules (time machines). This is appealing because this part of the game is cleaner. You don’t have to have separate rules / games for each product.

2 - There are 3 or more different types of devices and 2 or more companies that build each type. Here you can have more fun using different sci-fi high things throughout the game giving to different strategies and you still have the ability for two players to both go for the same type of toy and yet have controlling interest in different companies.

With either plan each company would be a certain color and the products would be large wooden cubes.

Creating the larger cubes would increase the supply of those particular types. Players will generate new products in secret and then reveal to see which have the most supply (go down the most in price) and which have the least (go up in price)


MARKET PHASE

Players will add product to the “Market Bag”. Once all have done so, someone will pull out some amount (10?) to show which companies are in demand currently. Their potential values will go up.

Then players can buy and or sell stock. Each stock trade will move the actual price closer to the actual.

There will be other reasons for the players to own stock other than just buying low and selling high. One thought is the highest stock owners sit on the board of that company and therefore have influence over their docks during the production phase.


All the while players will be able to break the rules using up some of the high-tech gizmos they have built previously. Like speed up or slowdown time with the a Temporal module.

Now I wonder how does the game end?

I think I can now hobble something together and start playing the different parts to see how they work.

Battle bag used for supply and demand?

Just a quick thought I had the other day while my 3rd grade son was learning about ratios for is math homework:

In a recent GDS (MERFOLK ZOMBIES) I thought up a battle system where the players took all their pieces at a location. Put them into a bag and drew out the ones that lived. Thinking that the more outnumbered you were the greater the odds you would have of being left in the bag and therefore dyeing.

Recently I thought about applying this bag to my Time Smugglers game.

Throughout the game players can add colored cubes or remove them. Either action will change the color ratio of the cubes still in the bag. I want to use the remaining ratio(s) to help determine the supply and demand functions for the game. If I can develop this more maybe it’s the center of the game that I have been waiting for.

I have to think about it more.

I have hit an impass

Not much has happened on this front lately.

I am having trouble with what I consider to be the center of the game. What is it the player is doing while they play? Are they building something? is it enough to just collect stocks? maybe for Acquire but this game has to have stuff for the player to manipulate in some way. Something for them to build. Some theme.

I am very confident that if I had this the rest would fall into place. but until then I am stuck.

More thoughts

Raw Materials will be small cubes.

Players will start with some random materials (maybe). But some to get them started so they aren't waiting till production before they can play the game.

Built stuff will be large cubes. Blue large cubes will be Temporal Modules.

Not sure what the other built "stuff" will be. Two thoughts:

• All companies build their own Temporal Modules using different combinations of raw materials. Each player would have their own "recipe" card showing them what they need.
• More like Settlers; players can build a list of usefull stuff including Temporal Modules. I really like this idea because it will create tension if done right. Players will build stuff they need to "get work done" but at the same time they will be influencing the supply and demand of the market as they do. Will they only build the items they own stock in or will they build what they need too?