Last week I pitched a random board game idea, Doomed Colony. This week, I’m putting together a playable prototype of the game. After going through my patented One True Method of game design (which you can read about here, and is not actually the One True Way), I’ve revised and fleshed out the game’s components:
Game Board
Originally, each rescue rocket had a capacity of 20 colonists. But after doing the math (a key part of the process), I realized that at that rate, it would take roughly forever (or two games of Twilight Imperium) to fill the rockets. So I reduced the capacity to 15 per rocket, with an eye towards each rocket holding about 10 colonists when the game ends.
Colonists
I was originally thinking 20 colonists per color, but again, in the interests of game length, reduced this number to 16:
- 6 Workers
- 3 Executives
- 2 Aliens
- 1 Security
- 2 Agitators
- 2 Terrorists
Also, rather than removing three colonists at random at the start of the game, we’re now removing two. This should be enough to add some uncertainty while still keeping a diverse array of colonists in play.
Role Cards
These remain unchanged from the initial pitch.
I kind of like the idea of secondary hidden role cards like “The Common Man: Get +2 points per Worker on board, but 0 points for each Executive” or “Alien Mastermind: Get 2 points for each colonist devoured by Aliens on any rocket”… but want to save them for after making sure the core game doesn’t catch fire when played.
Countdown Counters
After doing the math and thinking through the turn sequence, I realized my original idea for these counters really didn’t work. If I wanted the game to end somewhere around where the rockets all had 10 colonists on them, I’d need whole buckets of counters to flip – and even then, there was a chance the “Launch!” counters would all come up early, ending the game too soon.
Instead, I decided to make them cards.
There are 10 countdown cards. At the start of the game, they are shuffled into the bottom half of the deck. When you draw a countdown card, you must reveal it and draw a replacement. When the eighth countdown card has been drawn, the game ends.
Action Cards
There are 110 cards. These are divided into several types:
- 10 countdown cards (see above)
- 20 scan cards (let you look at colonists)
- 20 reveal cards (let you reveal colonists to all players)
- 20 advance cards (move multiple colonists in one zone)
- 20 move cards (move single colonists)
- 20 “other” cards (swap colonists, mess with players’ cards, other assorted wackiness)
Note that, aside from countdown cards, these are just categories of cards. There might be 10 different types of “scan” cards, for instance.
Now that I’ve hashed out more precisely what components and rules and prototype needs, the next step is to actually make the thing, like with real paper and ink… which is a job for next week.
