New Board Game Brainstormming

Board Game Brainstorming

Finally! I feel so excited that it is the time for me to brainstorm my first board game design. I played lots of board games when I was little. Some great games I played: the “Rich Man” series, the “Flying Chess”, “The Romance of Three Kingdoms”, “Animal Chess”, “Jun Qi” and “Chinese Checker”.

l  What’s successful about them?

First of all they are all very playable, which could make players addictive to it. All those games are very easy to learn but it really takes time to become a master. Games like “Rich Man” and “The Romance of Three Kingdom” require players to have both good fortune and good strategy. The game is not totally depending on rolling the dice. The cards you use and when to use a card could really change the game. They all have repeated playability; players could always get a good gaming experience every time they play. Meanwhile, the playing experience they have each time is different, which is the reason these games come with so many variables. In the “Rich Man”, the map has different spaces to land on. There are so many cards with different sayings. None of them let their players feel exact the same whenever players start another round.

Secondly, the concept of those games is interesting. For example, the “The Romance of Three Kingdoms”, players especially in Asia love to be involved into such a heroic historical period. They desire to become one of those great generals in history. Another example is the “Rich Man”, every character has very different cultural background, by playing on different maps, players feel like traveling around the world. By using characters, it could motivate to want to play to be their favorite piece or color.

Thirdly, all of their game boards are perfectly designed. Those strategy chess games like ”Jun Qi” and “Shou Dou Qi”, their boards are very clean designed, game spaces are wised distributed. Monopoly games like “Rich Man” has full of fun graphics that can help entice people to keep playing. All of these will keep people coming back to them time and time again.

l  What’s could be better about them?

One thing is that games like “Rich Man”, it is not ideally designed for two players. Its map is too big for two players. Therefore we have to sometimes gather at least four people to start the game. Another thing is that not all those games contain multiple wining conditions. For example the objective of the “Rich Man” and “The Romance of Three Kingdom” is only to make the rest of players broke; the objective of the “Flying Chess” is only become the first person reach the destination. Not like the “Animal Chess” and the “Jun Qi”, people can win the game by either consuming all enemy chess pieces or your opponents are not able move any chess.

         Among those games I mentioned, almost none of them have very good designs on continuous challenge except the “Jun Qi”, which during the first stage players’ objective is to eliminate all “landmines”; while during the next stage, players are supposed to capture their opponents’ “Flag” chess.

l  What crazy, outrageous, things do they do? What would I like to try?

In the “Romance of Three Kingdoms” game, players were even required to sing songs, telling everyone a joke or writing his or her name by using left hands, so that he could get rewards from other players. I think this is really funny that someone has to do something because of the game rules.

Some Ideas about my game:

1.         I would like to adopt the ideas that were used in “Monopoly”, which every player is assigned a certain amount of virtual money to spend.

2.         Players could “purchase” an area on the map as their “land”, if other players step into those areas; they have to pay “money” to the “landlord”.

3.         I would like to make every players act as a character in the game. They are all going to act as divines that we know. Every character has its own special powers. Some of them can suck other players’ mana, some of them suck their health. Every player have its own passive skills that you do not need to cast the every turn.

4.         Hopefully I can figure out a way to make any changes of chess pieces when the game proceeds to a certain stage.

5.         Every character will have health and mana, while a divine casts magic, magic consumes mana.

6.         The goal of my game is making all your opponents broke or making their health to zero.

7.         On the map, I want to divide the map according to every divine’s origins, for example: Athena, I will have one area on my map represents Greece.

8.         On the map, there will be steps that require players pick an “event card”, which could be good or bad.

9.         The cards are going to be divided into different types: Role Cards, Event Cards, Pet Cards and Magic Cards.

10.     If it is possible, I would like to add some mini games within my board game.

11.     The costs of purchasing lands are different, which depends on the locations of them.

12.     Pets were designed to follow the character for a few rounds. There are good pets or bad pets, both of them put constant effects on you. Pets can be casted away or randomly summoned.

13.     All the divine characters are divided into two groups: divines from eastern culture or divines from western culture.

14.     The left part of the map is good for western divines to stay, while the right part of the map is good for eastern divines to stay.

15.     There are areas called holly zones, where if eastern divines step onto western divines’ holly zones, their mana will decrease, while western divines’ mana increases if they step onto western holly zones, and vice versa.

16.     What if I introduce another type of cards called “gear card”, which is mixed with “pet card”. Gear cards.

17.     What if I introduce bigger building areas where for players to build wonders? There are three types of wonders they can choose to build: Divine’s Statue, Divine’s Armory and Divine’s Temple. Divine’s Statue is allowed the character to pick an event card and cast the power of the card on his or her statue. If it is a positive event, only the owner benefit from it. If it is a negative card, whoever steps within the area will suffer from it. Divine’s Armory is dedicated to store a character’s three powerful artifacts, a character can only equipped one artifact, and the next time player pass by the armory they have to put it back for one turn to recharge power. Divine’s temple is dedicated to charge other players’ passing toll (25% of their ready money), while the owner of temple step on it, they can collect money from its worshipers. Wonders cannot be damaged.

18.     What if I introduce “bank” in the game, the money that is deposited in the “bank” cannot be used unless players withdraw money whenever they pass by the “bank”. If the ready money is zero, the cost will be from players’ saving money. It is not a good idea to carry too much money with you, it is too risky to lose them in competitions. So there will be a card, having power to switch your ready money with you saving money.

19.     Crystals are used by players to purchase magic cards from cards’ shop.

20.     There is a type of magic called alliance card, when people use it, they are forced to ally together.

21.     What if I design an area called church court, a character can be casted there by another character. The one is being judged by the church court cannot move for 3 turns.

22.     What if I design special areas like “Heaven” and “Hell” where those areas are not connected to the mainland, but if players step right on the portal of it, they will be sent to those lands.  

23.     The style of the characters are cute and funny! Here is a sketch of  two of my characters: Anubis and Athena.

 
Rules of my game and some other ideas: 

----- On every turn, players can only move their chess by rolling the dice.

--- Players have to understand the meaning of their cards.

---Players must remember those effects that their characters have either positive effects or negative effects.

---Every time, players took an event card, they have to put them back.

---One player can only use one card on one turn, however they can still used their special power after using a card.

--- Players must speak up if they are using magic card on other players and show them the card.

---Every time players used a card, it must be put back and re-arrange and mix with other cards.

---Once a player casts the power of an event card on his or her statue, he or she must place that event card on top of the temple.

---When players stuck in the “Hell” area, they must roll an exact point to step on the “exit” of “hell” to return back to the “mainland”.

---When mana becomes zero, the character cannot cast any more magic.

---A Player can only roll one dice a time unless he or she used “Speed-Up” cards. A player can at most roll 3 dices at one time.

--- If after 30 minutes, there is still no winner, the player who has the most money win the game.

---When the game asks a player to do something, he or she must do it or he or she is considered quitting the game.