Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Week 3

I was honestly nervous about how successful we would be at reaching a consensus on the mechanics of the game. During the previous weeks we were having trouble developing techniques and creating rules that would allow players to move around the board without rolling the dice. Luckily, after brainstorming a lot more we managed to develop a game that handled this issue. We basically worked off of each others ideas, one member would say something and someone else would branch off of that idea or begin a counter argument. By using this method we were able to overcome any potential issues that we would not have noticed without everyone's perspectives.
After a long discussion we figured out the layout of the board. Basically, It has Mt. Olympus in the center of the board. which is the destination each player is trying to reach in order to end the game. Mt. Olympus is surrounded by two concentric circles of separated  islands. At the beginning of each game the players are supposed to randomly assign resources to each of these islands so that no player can have a pre-determined strategy for future games. These individual resource islands are connected by pathways with icons that display symbols relating to certain gods. The players are to place their piece onto a resource island of their choice, only on an island located in the outermost ring.
There are two decks of cards for players to choose from. Pathway cards allow players to connect one resource island to another and quest cards allow players to reach their destination of Mt. Olympus. Each player is randomly given a set of five pathway cards and gets to choose one card from the deck of quest cards. For every turn they have the option of collecting more path cards or building a path or moving their piece to another resource island. By building multiple pathways players are given access to multiple resources which help complete quests. We had difficulty figuring out how we wanted the point system to work for these quest cards. After careful deliberation we decided to create quest cards that had a Gold, Silver and Bronze level available for the players to choose from. These three levels require a different combination of resources, gold being the most difficult to complete and bronze being simpler to complete. Regardless of which route the player chooses they will receive an equipment card. A combination of these equipment cards will help them reach their ultimate goal of Mt. Olympus. The player to reach the destination first not only ends the game but also receives bonus points.
We are still trying to figure out a better point system in which players receive rewards for completing certain quests and penalties for players who do not complete their quests. We also have to figure out how we want to design the pieces of each player and the chips that will be used to allocate resources to the pre-drawn islands. This game has a lot of potential and we are hoping that the play-test does not result in disappointment.  


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