Biomes Update #1
Biomes
This would be the game that I have thought the least about, but made the most progress on. Despite 20-30 pages of notes on 30xx and countless hours of thought on that game, I was able to push this to prototype over a weekend. Before tackling a heavy economic game, I felt it was prudent to work on some smaller, but still interesting ideas - hence, biomes was born.
Landscape tiles - Letters represent biome: O - Ocean, F - Forest, D - Desert, S - Snow. Animals (represented by disks)
One of my favorite things to do in Carcassone is try and place my city tiles adjacent to my neighbor's city. Load them up with a majority of knights, and you can steal their hard earned points. Unfortunately this rarely seems to work out. I wanted to create a simple tile laying game that was a more little more reactive and organic.
Animal and Landscape Offer
In Biomes, players will take turns placing landscape tiles, positioning them in such a way to maximize their biome of interest, say forest. After placing the landscape tile, the player can optionally, purchase an animal from an increasingly expensive offer. As the rules currently stand, the player may choose one of the offer sets, consisting of the landscape tile and the animal below, pay the associated cost ($1, $2, or $3 here). The player then places the landscape tiles in such a way that one "like" segment is covered by the same like segment. Since only one "space", defined here as a 1/4 of a tile, is covered, the players can use the rest of the tile to block their opponents biomes, or to bolster their biome of choice. After any landscape tiles or animal tiles are removed, the existing cards and tiles slide to the left and become cheaper. The newly opened tile and card spot and replenished from their corresponding decks.
Currently exploring how restrictive this "set" mechanic is. Thinking about optionally allowing a player who after paying the cost above his animal of choice, pays again at a different set to take a different landscape tile. While this would at the very least double the cost of his turn, it would add some more autonomy of choice (which is usually a good thing).
After placing the landscape tile, the board is examined and any animals that can spread, will spread and the owner of that animal will be paid. The player then puts his animal into play. Animals currently fall into 3 main categories, prey, predator, and bird. Each respective category has animals that prefer (i.e. only be placed) in specific biomes. The animal card will be set to the side of the board, and marked with one a colored token corresponding to the player taking the action. Once put into play, the player selects one "space" and places his colored disk there. If any orthogonal and unoccupied (by another or your own disks) adjacent tiles match it's preferred biome, the player will place one token on each matching biome, receiving one dollar for each. Still deciding whether this should happen immediately, or if there should be an "animal" spreading phase before each players turn. Predators work in much the same way, except they can not go into empty spaces and require available prey. Each predator disk will replace another player's (or your own) disk following the previously described biome rule, receiving $1 for each.
The final type of animal is bird, which functions exactly the same as prey. The difference being that the animal deck is split into 4 roughly equal sized piles, each receiving one bird and is shuffled. Once the four piles are shuffled they will be placed on top of each other, creating the animal draw deck that will be used for the rest of the game. This card represents migration, once drawn from the animal deck all in play animals and disks are removed from the board. Players bid for new turn order, and play continues. Since the prey outnumber the predators 3:1ish, this provides an opportunity for a clean slate. The game ends after the final bird card has been drawn, after all players have had an equal number of turns. Money is tallied, someone wins, you play again hopefully. The circle of life.
Phase One Playtest Goals
1) Test variations in selecting from the animal/landscape offer
2) Test bid for turn order mechanic?
3) Solidify landscape placement rules
4) Adjust offer prices if necessary
5) Note how current card ratios work.
Phase Two Playtest Goals
1) Add unique animals that break the game in some small way, or provide bonuses based on select adjacent landscape, etc.