What? Back to designing games?
As it turns out, I'm away from work for a week and I get the design bug. I guess programming all day is a proper inoculation against this particular fever.
In the works are two things right now:
Without a good name, I'll stick to Galactic Empires. It is a card game played on a tabletop, where each player plays an alien race trying to reach one of three win conditions: Master of Trade (open trade with 2/3 of planets), Intergalactic Emperor (conquer 2/3 of opponents), or Expansionist (colonize 2/3 of worlds). There are cards, "Planet Sheets", tokens (each player gets one color), and six-sided dice. Tokens are Income tokens when in front of you, and Ship tokens when on a Planet or a Star Lane. You also use these same tokens, placed on a Planet's ownership space or Trade space to determine ownership & trade relations.
Planet Sheets
Planet Sheets are 3 x 2 cards in size, and laid out randomly on the table. They are designed so that a single Planet card is placed on the top part of the sheet (and can be shifted left and right), with space beside the planet card for Trade Routes, and three slots below the planet for Planetary Feature cards.
Shifting Planets
On the Planet Sheet, the Planet Card has space to shift to the left or right a few "slots". Shifting the planet reveals a portion of the Planet Sheet that offers bonuses to Economic and Military might. So if you shift your planet all the way to the left, you get a +3 bonus to military might. All the way to the right, you get a plus +3 to Economic earning.
Planet Cards
Not part of the playing deck. Distributed face-down on each Planet Sheet on the table during setup.
Playing Deck
Setup
The Planet Sheets are distributed randomly, anywhere on the table, so long as they are at least two card-lengths apart from each other. Then Planet Cards are placed randomly, face down, on the Planet Sheets.
Each player picks a Planet and then flips the Planet Card over to reveal it. Each Planet has special features, often bonuses to various things. Each player places one token on their planet. This is a starship. NOTE: It may be more fun to have all the Planets face up, and the players then get to choose their starting planet.
Game Play
At the start of a player's turn, a player:
Suverying Planets
Any face-down Planet Card with a ship on it is turned over, and considered surveyed.
Making a Turn Roll
A turn roll is three dice. The lowest die is the Income Roll, the middle value is the Draw Roll, and the highest value is the Command Roll. Ties are fine.
Earning Income
Each planet owned by the player provides a number of tokens equal to the Income Roll. These are placed in front of the player. You also earn tokens equal to half the Income Roll (round down) for every other player's Planet you've opened trade with. Lastly, you earn a bonus number of tokens (not modified by the Income Roll) indicated by how you've shifted your Planet.
Drawing Cards
Draw as many cards from the deck as indicated by your Draw Roll. You may only draw enough cards to bring you up to 5 + Number of Planets owned. You never have to discard if you have too many cards.
Perform Commands
This is where most gameplay occurs. One Command "point" is used to do one of the following:
Cleanup
You can do any of the following as often as you want, in any order:
Winning the Game
You can win the game as follows:
In the works are two things right now:
- Some kind of roleplaying game that evokes both pulp fantasy and the whole Planescape/Bas-Lag vibe. I'm not very far, but I'm coming up with some good design philosophy for it.
- A card game inspired by the Galactic Civilizations 2 demo (for which I would immediately drop the money for, if it weren't that all my time would be sucked away).
Without a good name, I'll stick to Galactic Empires. It is a card game played on a tabletop, where each player plays an alien race trying to reach one of three win conditions: Master of Trade (open trade with 2/3 of planets), Intergalactic Emperor (conquer 2/3 of opponents), or Expansionist (colonize 2/3 of worlds). There are cards, "Planet Sheets", tokens (each player gets one color), and six-sided dice. Tokens are Income tokens when in front of you, and Ship tokens when on a Planet or a Star Lane. You also use these same tokens, placed on a Planet's ownership space or Trade space to determine ownership & trade relations.
Planet Sheets
Planet Sheets are 3 x 2 cards in size, and laid out randomly on the table. They are designed so that a single Planet card is placed on the top part of the sheet (and can be shifted left and right), with space beside the planet card for Trade Routes, and three slots below the planet for Planetary Feature cards.
Shifting Planets
On the Planet Sheet, the Planet Card has space to shift to the left or right a few "slots". Shifting the planet reveals a portion of the Planet Sheet that offers bonuses to Economic and Military might. So if you shift your planet all the way to the left, you get a +3 bonus to military might. All the way to the right, you get a plus +3 to Economic earning.
Planet Cards
Not part of the playing deck. Distributed face-down on each Planet Sheet on the table during setup.
Playing Deck
- All cards in the playing deck: The backs of these cards looks like a starfield, and when played with this face up, they are a Star Lane. You can place them anywhere on the table, so long as at least one corner is touching a Planet Sheet or another Star Lane.
- Planetary Feature: Cards you can place on an owned planet. These can defend against planetary invasion, boost economic output, and so on.
- Special Lane: Played as a Star Lane, but with additional properties, like Wormholes, Black Holes, Gravitational Anomalies, etc.
- Ship Cards: Modify ship behavior. These can be varied, and used for anything from colonization to combat to opening trade.
- Events: Played either immediately or otherwise (not sure yet), these cards are those catch-all "something's happpened" that affect one or more players.
Setup
The Planet Sheets are distributed randomly, anywhere on the table, so long as they are at least two card-lengths apart from each other. Then Planet Cards are placed randomly, face down, on the Planet Sheets.
Each player picks a Planet and then flips the Planet Card over to reveal it. Each Planet has special features, often bonuses to various things. Each player places one token on their planet. This is a starship. NOTE: It may be more fun to have all the Planets face up, and the players then get to choose their starting planet.
Game Play
At the start of a player's turn, a player:
- Surverys Planets
- Makes turn roll
- Earns Income
- Draws cards
- Performs commands
- Cleanup
Suverying Planets
Any face-down Planet Card with a ship on it is turned over, and considered surveyed.
Making a Turn Roll
A turn roll is three dice. The lowest die is the Income Roll, the middle value is the Draw Roll, and the highest value is the Command Roll. Ties are fine.
Earning Income
Each planet owned by the player provides a number of tokens equal to the Income Roll. These are placed in front of the player. You also earn tokens equal to half the Income Roll (round down) for every other player's Planet you've opened trade with. Lastly, you earn a bonus number of tokens (not modified by the Income Roll) indicated by how you've shifted your Planet.
Drawing Cards
Draw as many cards from the deck as indicated by your Draw Roll. You may only draw enough cards to bring you up to 5 + Number of Planets owned. You never have to discard if you have too many cards.
Perform Commands
This is where most gameplay occurs. One Command "point" is used to do one of the following:
- Move a Ship: Move a ship one card across Star Lanes. If you own a planet, you can move the ship to the Planet Card. No more than one ship can be place on a Planet, and three ships in a Star Lane.
- Explore Space: You can place a card face-down (as a Star Lane), so long as one of your ships is adjacent (on a card touching the newly-placed Star Lane). You must then move an adjacent ship onto the new Star Lane.
- Play a Card: You may place a Planetary Feature onto a planet, place a Special Lane, play an Event, etc. Some cards have a monetary cost, in tokens. You must spend that many tokens to use the card.
- Survey: When you move a ship onto an unclaimed Planet, place your ship token on the face-down card.
- Colonize: If you have a surveyed planet and a ship on it, you may spend one token to colonize it. Remove the ship from play, and turn the Planet Card over. It is now yours.
- Open Trade: If one of your ships is adjacent ot another player's planets, you may attempt to open trade. (rules for opening trade forthcoming) If you successfully open trade, you place one of your income tokens onto that Planet Sheet's Trade area.
- Shift Planet: A Planet Card can be shifted to the left or right on the Planet Sheet, revealing bonuses. These bonuses are a trade-off between Military and Economic benefits. You can shift a planet one "slot" per Command point.
- Build Ship: If there are no ships on a Planet, you may spend three income tokens to place a ship on the Planet.
- Interstellar Combat: A ship (or ships) can attack one other player's ships so long as they all share a Space Lane. (Mechanics for this forthcoming, using dice and modified by number of ships and cards).
- Planetary Invasion: A ship (or ships) can attack one Planet adjacent to their Star Lane. The results of a successful Invasion means the planet is ownerless, and may be Colonized. (Mechanics forthcoming, dice rolls modified by Planetary Features, Cards, etc).
Cleanup
You can do any of the following as often as you want, in any order:
- Scuttle: Any of your ships on one of your Planets can be placed back into your income pile.
- Demolition: You may remove any of your Planetary Features at no cost.
Winning the Game
You can win the game as follows:
- Master of Trade: You have opened Trade with 2/3rds (maybe all) of the other player's planets.
- Galactic Conquerer: You have destroyed 2/3rds of your opponents (planets or military force or something).
- Expansionist: You have colonized 2/3rds of the planets on the table.