Alpha-male!

The sun sets and darkness falls upon the forest. A family wanders through the trees searching for their way home. Beasts lurk in the dark, sniffing, hunting, the family's sent is caught! Howls rise up through the dark. The creatures dash through the trees homing on their prey. The family walks through a clearing, the beasts silently circle the area, the family is trapped. One of the beasts bears down on the father of the family, "wolves!" he cries. A gunshot cuts through the night, both fall to the ground lifeless.

You are a member of the pack, your leader, the former alpha-male, is dead and the family is defenseless. Now who will lead the charge? Who will get prime choice of the spoils? Will it be you? Compete against the other members of the pack by circling the track and collecting alpha-points. But be careful as just as there are spaces that give you points there are also ones that take them away.

The game is played as such: 

1. All players begin on the starting space.
2. Players role a D20 to determine the "alpha-level", the minimum number of "alpha-points" that each player must attain for the ends space to become open to them.
3. Each player then rolls a D6 to determine who goes first, highest role is first.
4. The players then roll a D6 and move that number of spaces clockwise, unless effected by "interference". See interference. 
5. All instructions on the space landed on must be carried out. 
6. The game is won when a player with the correct number of alpha-points lands on the end space. 

Interference

• Head-butting/Lunging: a player can pay 5 alpha-points to “push” either another player’s or one’s own piece to go one square farther than their movement roll indicates. 
• Tail Biting / Backtracking: A player can pay 5 alpha-points to “pull” either another player’s piece or your own which decreases the movement phase.
• These techniques must be called out after a player rolls for movement but before they reach their designated square. It must be spontaneous, no planning allowed.
• A player may only choose to play ONE of these moves at a time per turn ( this includes the other players as well). Example: Jimmy CANNOT lunge 3 times on his turn but he CAN lunge on his turn then tail bite on Gary's turn.
• There is no limit to the number of players who can use these moves at one time. Example: Gary rolls a 6 but before Gary can move 6 spaces Timmy calls tail bite, Cindy calls head-butt, and Jimmy calls tail bite (6-1+1-1=5). So now Gary moves 5 spaces. 

Additional Rules

• All players start the game with 0 alpha-points.
• Should a player land on the end square and does NOT have the required number of alpha-points then the end square does nothing and the player must continue around the track. 
• The players must land on the end space EXACTLY. If your movement role dictates that you pass over the end space then you must continue around the track.

The game was first played on September 18, 2012 by four players, Zee, Patrick, Basm, and myself. The beginning of the game was a little rocky as none of the other players had played the game before and I had to explain the rules. But things quickly picked up after that and I found that they enjoyed the fast pace of the game with alpha-point tokens flying from their piles, to the point pool, to other players's piles, and back again and vice versa. It was a beautiful chaos. I also found that they liked the competitive interaction between the players and were genuinely engaged in the game as they seemed to feel some sense of loss when forced to give up tokens and annoyance when tokens are stolen from them. The game proved to be a success, and the players looked forward to playing it again. 

Despite the general enjoyment of the game some issues came up during play. Such as the size of the spaces, I found that the spaces were not big enough to accommodate the size of the player markers, especially when more than one were on the same space. In addition to that, the instructions written on each space appeared "fuzzy" and were not easily read. I also found that the balance of the game was off as players were progressing too slowly. The amount at which players lost tokens, though lower than the rate at which they gained  tokens, was too close to the amount they gained slowing the progression to a crawl. Even a player who was able to attain 10 tokens, with a few bad moves, was left with a measly 2-3 tokens. Despite all these unfortunate revelations, there was one pleasant discovery. A player, Zee, suggested that the tokens be placed in the center of the board for easy access by all players. Even though I initially intended for the center to be a space depicting the "defenseless family" where, upon victory, the winning player would place their marker. But this proved to be a much better used for the space. 

To fix these issues I would need to employ the use of a bigger board so as to make enough room for the bigger spaced or to expand the spaces inward toward the center. The problem with the "fuzzy" printing can be easily fixed by either printing out the instructions via computer or simply using and ink pen as oppose to a marker, which would create much crisper lines. But as for the balancing issues, I think i would have to decrease the amount which players lose tokens and the amount they are forced to give away, probably by 2 tokens. 

Other than these problems the game was a rousing success.