Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Let's be Creative Part 2

So a little over a month ago I posted some creative things that I want to do this year. Of course, at the time I could not say why I want to accomplish them this year is because come the end of December my free time to do these sort of things will drop off a good deal. Anyway, one of the things that I want to do is make my own board/card game. I posted six ideas at that time, and I have decided which one that I want to run with. After my last couple of posts, there should be no surprise I am going with the Zombie idea. I tried to write out a description of how I envision this game working, but I am not sure if I did a very good job at doing that. Please take a look, and IF I actually made sense then please let me know what you think:

Concept
This game would be a non collectible customizable card game for two to four players. The game will have a Zombie theme, and the goal of the game is to complete the objective or be the last surviving player.

Set Up
The way this game will work is that a common deck will be constructed from smaller decks. The game will have several locations, and each location will have its own deck of cards. Players will choose or pick by random a few of the locations. The players will also pick one objective, and the objective will also have its own deck of cards that are added to the common deck. Finally each player will pick a character that has cards that will be added to the deck. There will be more locations, goals, and characters than is needed for one game so that each game can be very different.

Gameplay
Each player will have attributes that were function a bit like resources. These attributes are life, ammunition, cunning, and luck. The players will move from location to location to play cards which will increase these attributes. For example, a first aid kit could only be played if the player is in the hospital and it would increase the player's life. Fighting Zombies, which might happen when a player moves from location to location or when another player plays a zombie horde card, is done by expending the attribute like resources. For example, a zombie horde card might require three ammunition, four cunning, or five life to defeat/escape. The player would have to expend the attribute/resource of their choice that they have enough of. If they are one or two short of meeting a requirement, then they can use luck as a "wild", but luck is the hardest attribute to replenish. If a player's does not have enough ammunition or cunning to fight off the horde, then they must use life, and once life is used up then they are dead. In addition to item cards that strengthen attributes and Zombie horde cards to attack other players there will also be special cards that can be played at specific times to either help the person who played the card or hurt another player. Occasionally, a ten sided die will be used to determine chance. For example when a player moves into a location or stays at a location they will roll the 10 sided die and each location will have a number they will have to roll over to keep from fighting zombies.
The way a player turn works is they first draw cards. They may either draw a card from the discard pile or two cards from the top of the deck. If they draw two cards from the top of the deck they keep one and put the other in the discard pile (cards that are played go to the used pile and not the discard pile) The player then decides if they are going to move or stay put. Each location will have a "board" card that is placed on the table to represent the location, configuration does not matter as each player (who will have a pawn of some sorts) can move from any location to any other location. A player then rolls to see if they have to fight Zombies. The player then gets the opportunity to "search" and play all applicable item cards (most item cards are location specific). Then other players may play Zombie horde cards to attack the active player, and then it becomes the next players turn. Play rotates like this until there is a sole survivor or a player accomplishes the objective.
An example objective would be "Signal for help". To complete the objective a player has to fire a flare from the top of a building. To do this, a player must first play the "flare gun" card and then move to another building and spend three turns to ascend to the roof. Each turn the odds of fighting the locations zombies will increase. If the player makes it to the top of the building and survives their turn they win. The objective deck that is added to the common deck, will contain flare guns but it will also have special cards that opponents can use to cause the gun to malfunction, be dropped, or even stolen.

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