Board Game Road Trip - Game Version 001 & 002

This is the start of the Board Game Road Trip... a little game experiment where we start a game here at Button Shy and then visit designers, developers and playtesters across the county to see what they can add to, take away, fix, or redo on the game. We want to see where it is (if it ever ends) and archive every step of the development.

There are only a few requirements:

-It must play 2-4 (more or less are welcome on top of this)

-It must fit in a small box

-Any components should be available on TheGameCrafter.com

With each leg of the journey, you will receive two things: a podcast, recording the design/development of the next version of the game, and a print and play copy of the next version of the game. 

Today we are looking at two versions of the game. The initial base, Version 001 (Ben Begeal) and the first update, Version 002 (Jason Tagmire). 

Here's a link to the podcast for both games: http://buttonshy.com/bs/diy/DIYBG003.mp3

Version 001 - Ben Begeal

You may or may not know Ben Begeal as @sumfatkid. He's also a big part of Button Shy. He road tests, develops, designs, scouts and assists with every other end of the business here. He's also heading up the road trip as he travels a lot, so you will see his face and hear his voice very often.

As we started thinking about the base for the road trip game, Ben mentioned a game that we tinkered with a long time ago, called the Silly Little Tile Laying Game. It was a small card game where you placed cards down and they triggered effects on adjacent cards. It was pretty abstract and definitely fit into the category that we hear about so often - "Needs just one more thing". This was perfect, because while it needed one more thing, it had the room for a whole bunch of other things.

In Ben's initial game, players would play cards down like tiles, effecting the adjacent cards. Some cards would turn all adjacent cards on (flipping them face-up and then triggering any instant effects that may occur). The chain was a really interesting concept and would make players think about which order to flip. Then at the end of each turn, players must take a face-down card back to their hand. If they couldn't, the game would end.   

Version 001 Rules and PNP: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/werdaow3v4vnkyx/AADPzCRFjjxcw2efqjZaKnNha?dl=0

Version 002 - Jason Tagmire

We wanted to see how this would work and I had some thoughts about how to take the game to the next level, so we got in our first modification before it left Button Shy. 

I basically wanted to open the scale of the game and introduce some non-card components. There were two reasons. 1) We work with a lot of cards on our small games and I wanted to see what we could do by introducing components, and 2) I wanted to set the stage for the next designers to be able to make the same types of changes. 

So I introduced a player tableau with a track, as well as a token and meeple to activate and track the track. The meeple would be placed on a card to activate a token on one of three tracks, and when the track was completed a special ability occurred.  The meeple also prevented players from effecting the card, causing a little bit of area control on the playing field. 

I also balanced some numbers to make the endgame scoring a little tighter. Cards were previously 1 through 5 points and with a one or two card hand at the end of the game, the spread could be 1 to 10 points. We cut it down to 2 through 4 points per card, making for tighter games. I also changed an Off (n/k/a Empty) card into a Swap card, as the Off cards were very powerful and would keep the game going longer than planned. 

Finally we added a theme. (This was more Ben's idea than mine but it came about in our discussions. Ben will likely have an influence in each of these versions as he goes and works with each contributor.) The theme was alchemy, and it fit pretty well. Instead of turning cards on and off, players were filling and emptying bottles by using a variety of potions. The track was a learning track and when completed, they could do a new special power. It all started to fall together, so this version was codenamed Elixir. 

Version 002 Rules and PNP: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/werdaow3v4vnkyx/AADPzCRFjjxcw2efqjZaKnNha?dl=0

We have some people lined up to pass this off to (Ben is in Texas now for the next leg), and we'll have an update as soon as the next version is ready. Thanks for helping us get this far and thanks for following along!