Thursday, January 25, 2007

1st Place for January

In a close call this time, my concept for this month's BGDF design contest wins 1st place. Kind of surprising, really, based on just the cool concept of the second place game (which I gave as my first place game of 4 points).

Don't have too much time for discussion; I've got to take a nap while I still recover from the "Cold Virus of Death" that has been lingering over me for over a week.

Continuum: The League of Temporal Scoundrels, Pirates, and Thieves

It has been said that throughout the history of invention, a precious few items were created with material so unique, so special, dare I say Magical, that when collected together, it would endow the owner with great power and abilities. These items are linked together by forces which we cannot comprehend even in the Year 3000.

But alas, these items have been scattered throughout the world, lost throughout time.

Well, until the Year 3000 when the Time Machine was perfected.

Now, the League is tracking down these valuable items, using their gifts and abilities, to gather the largest collection of these Antiques. Breaking the time/space continuum, be damned.


SETUP:
Build the Time Nexus Map using the 70+ YEAR TILES. Tiles are blank or have Years (ie: 1582) on them. Player start on Year 3000. The map is preferred to be built haphazardly, creating something like a finished Carcassonne layout.

After shuffling, place the top five cards from the ANTIQUES DECK face up on the table. Anytime a player collects a card from the table, a new Antique is drawn to replace it.

An ANTIQUE CARD has the following on it: Name, Creation Year, Order Created number, and occasionally additional rules. An Antiques on the table (not owned by a player) exists on Earth in any Year beyond, and in addition to, it's Creation Year date. The Order Created number indicates the order in which the Antiques were created (the oldest Antique is 1, the second oldest is 2, etc.).

MOVING:
On a Player’s turn, a player VISITS A YEAR by deciding if he is traveling into the “Past” or “Future”. When moving into the Past, the player must move to a neighboring Year tile that is a prior Year than the Year he is moving from (1920 to 1834 to 1712); moving into the Future, the next Year tile must be after than the Year he is moving from (1251, 1954, to 2010).

The number of tiles a player can move is based on his greatest LINK of Antiques he owns. A Link is a numerical run of Antiques that are in exact numerical order based on their Creation Order number.

Example: A player has Antiques 11, 21, 22, 23, 56, 57, 86, 96. This player has a 3 card link (21, 22, 23), so he can move a maximum of 3 Tiles.


STEALING:
After moving, a player may STEAL one Antique.

When stealing from the table, the Antique’s Creation Year must be earlier or equal to the current Year the player is visiting. The player takes that card, and places a YEAR TOKEN on it that matches the Year he is visiting. This represents the Year in which he has stolen the Antique for his collection. All owned Antiques (with Year Tokens) are displayed in front of their owners.

To Steal from another player, the active player must be Visiting an earlier Year than the Year Token on the target Antique owned by his opponent. The active player takes the Antique from his opponent, and places a new Year Token on it based on the Year the active player is currently visiting. (The active player has stolen the Antique earlier in Time than his opponent; since it didn’t exist in the time when the opponent stole it, he can’t own it anymore. Got it? It’s crazy movie time travel stuff!!).However, a player can’t steal an Antique if he is in a Year that is prior to it’s Creation Year (since it wasn’t created yet).

Stealing an Antique in the same year as it’s Creation Year makes it “safe,” and cannot be stolen further. But since the Time Nexus board is big, and hard to travel across, this will be hard to do (in theory).


SPECIAL RULES FOR CARDS:
Certain Antiques (or combinations) will have special powers. Some powers will need an additional die roll to see if the player has broken that Antique while activating the power, causing the Antique to be discarded from the game.

Examples:
Mark Twain’s Pocketwatch plus Otto von Bismarck’s Cuckoo Clock: Player can change their past/future movement setting once during their move.

Davinci’s Flying Machine, Excalibur , plus Liberty’s Torch: Player can travel through blank tiles.

Full of Stars Monolith:Wild with respect to it’s Creation Order, and can be used to complete a “link” where only one or two Antiques are missing.

Hindenburg:Player can move diagonally in the Time Nexus.


GAME ENDS:
When all Antiques have been placed on the table, one more round of player’s turns commences. After that, the player with the most Antiques wins the game.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Seth Jaffee said...

First off, the prior comment is not from me.

Secondly, that sounds really cool. You always impress me with the quality and plausibility of your off the cuff ideas, Scott, and it kills me to know that chances are, you'll never give this idea another thought (even though it sounds like it's ready to prototype and test!)

2:56 PM  

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