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?

slightly more gelled

So it sounds like I want to make a game where players can produce raw materials then they can build things with it maybe like how you can build different things in Settlers.

One of the things players can build are time modules. They will be able to use these in different ways throughout the game. For example to speed up production or to change the value of something.
(TIME SMUGLARS)

Also the production of things in the game will decrease the value of it but the SOMETHING ELSE ??? will mainipulate the popularity ofthe item changing the potential value too. (RESTUARNT GAME)

All the while players will be investing in futures of a the different products trying to be the 1st or 2nd major share holder in the products that will be the most valuable.

So far MONOPOLY is not here yet. I think the Monopoly ideas will come later. They are more about allowing the players to increase the value of what they have.

• I dont want player elimination.
• If play order maters it will be nice to have a way for the players to change the play order as a natural course of events.
• End the end the player with the most money wins.

Thats all for now.

First Pass of ideas

These are ideas from different sorces that are all interesting to me. I think they could all go into one game somehow. They are in no particular order.

MONOPOLY - This is inspired from Monopoly. Stuff you buy can go through many layers / levels of growth. Each layer increses the value or potential value or increases your actions in quanaty or strength. In a nutshell you can aquire stuff then build it up and make it/you strong.

RESTURANT GAME - For a long time I have had ideas about a supply and demand mechanic. In a recent GDS I got an opportunity to flesh that idea out some. Distilled down you have two sliders for each item you are keeping track of. One slider is the range of values that that item SHOULD be worth. The other slider is the actual current value of that item. Througout the game demmand moves the potential value slider and supply moves the value slider. Here is the BGDF entry:
Chef Tycoon

TIME SMUGGLARS - This was another GDS that I worked on that I liked:
Time Smugglers . I want to use the first part of this where players coopertativly produce raw materials and then make stuff from it.

ACQUIRE - People can buy futures in diffrernt products. Throught the game players can cash in on being 1st or 2nd majority owner of a product.

Noblemen goes to the back burner for a bit.

I have some strong ideas for a new game and I be itching to start a new design. I am not finished with Noblemen yet. I should finish it before moving on but I will put it on the back burner for a bit at least while I flesh out and combine as much possible the currently set of disjointed ideas for the new game. These new ideas are exciting and I need to get them down all together to really see if I have something before I forget some of them.

Part of the problem is I am not sure what "finished" means with Noblemen. The game seems to be complete but is it as fun as it could be? I do have an idea, an old idea, about removing the Noble title ladder / Masquerade balls and having just one set of titles. Each player would choose one at the beginning of the game through some mechanic. Then depending on the Title they had they would be afforded some extra luxury. Part of the idea is that there would still be a ranking to the titles and the higher titles would give more but would require more prestige to maintain them.

Finished probably should mean finish the rules layout, do some screen text. and wrap it up in a neat bow and put it on the shelf. Take what I have learned from the process and move on.

Either way I am promising myself that I will go back and do what is needed to finish it. This is a promise I realize I am not that great at keeping. This time will be different. Honest.