Tic Tactician!

A new and improved version of the classic game of Tic Tac Toe! The game revolves around the core idea of Tic Tac Toe where there are two sets of markers representing the two players in the game. The players then proceed to take turns placing their markers onto a 3x3 space board trying to create a row of 3 before their opponent. In Tic Tactician, some mechanics were added with the intent of creating a new challenging experience for the players. These mechanics include:

• Power of The Dice - A D6 is introduced into the game, where 3 of the 6 sides dictate what you do during your turn either it be placing 2 markers instead of one, or removing one of your opponent's markers, or removing one of your own markers. The other 3 sides allow you to place markers as usual. This not only adds luck to the game but also adds to the strategic characteristics of the game as players must now decide which markers to remove or where to place their markers. 
• Bigger Board - The original board of Tic Tac Toe is a 3x3 space board. This is somewhat unfair as the center space provides the most combinations for creating a row of markers and therefore the most valuable. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if both players had a chance at the center space but since the game is turn based, it is always the first player who takes the space. Even if the space is not a part of their strategy, they will take it just to deny the other player of having it. So, to deal with this problem the board has been increased in size to 4x4 space board so that there no longer exists a center space and there is no single space that provides a significant advantage over one's opponent. Of course, with a board this size the players must now create a row of 4 markers as oppose to a row of 3. This not only levels the playing field to allow for more balanced play between players but it also also provides more places to create rows adding to the strategic elements withing the game.

Pieces

• X pieces x16
• O pieces x16
• 4x4 space board  x1
• D6 x1

Number of Players: 2 

Setup

1. The board and the dice are placed in front of both players, where they are easily accessible to both players. 
2. Players choose which set of pieces they want. One player being the X and one being the O. 

The Rules

1. Players decide who goes first. 
2. The player taking their turn rolls the D6 and must follow what the outcome of the dice dictates. See Dice
3. After the player has finished it is now the other player's turn. Repeat from step 2. 
4. The game continues until either a player has created a row of 4 of their respective marker, in which case that player wins, or all the spaced on the board have been filled (cat's game).

Dice

The outcome of the dice determines what a player does during their turn. 

Outcomes:

• 2 - player removes 1 of their own markers from the board. If there no markers for the player to remove, that player does nothing for their turn. 
• 4 - player places 2 markers as oppose to just 1 for their turn. Player MUST place 2. 
• 6 - player removes 1 of their opponent's markers from the board. If there are no markers for the player to remove then that player does nothing for their turn.
• 1,3,5 - player places 1 marker onto the board. 

Additional Rules

• Players can only place markers on spaces where there is no marker currently places there. The space must be empty.

Play Test 

During play testing i found that the play time for the game was greatly extended as markers were constantly being removed from the board, sometimes almost completely clearing it. This allowed for players to replace their markers in different ways trying to achieve victory. The "place 2 marker" mechanic definitely gives the players an advantage but not so much so that it breaks the game as this mechanic is evened out by the fact that the other player can achieve this too as well as remove their markers from the board. Originally the game was played on the original 3x3 board and although it still had the prolonged game play, the "place 2 markers" mechanic was too powerful and the players became focused on obtaining the center space. So increasing the board size to the 4x4 board was definitely the way to go as it provided many more ways to achieve victory and no one space was more power than the others.

Alpha-Male 2!

Alpha-Male! was designed by me, Jonathan Virly. It was the first board game I designed for the Game Design and Production tutorials. The game revolved around the idea of a pack of wolves attacking a defenseless family wandering through the woods where the pack's leader, the alpha male, was killed and now the members of the pack must compete to determine who will take his place.

In the original game each player had a wolf piece and would move their wolf piece around a circular track all the while collecting alpha tokens, each space the players landed on could give them tokens, take them away, or affect what space they or their opponents land on. When a player reaches a certain number of tokens, as decided by a dice roll, they must land on the finishing space to win.

The game was very much dependent on dice rolls, not only did dice rolls decide how many tokens the players needed to collect but also whether or not they would win. So as a change to the game all aspects of randomness was removed from the game and replaced with mechanics that promoted more skill based play.


The game is played as such: 

1. All players begin on the starting space. 
2. Players must have a minimum of 10 alpha points before the end square becomes available to them.
3. Player with the orange marker goes first.
4. The players then spend alpha tokens to determine how far they can move, each alpha token paid gives one space moving clockwise around the board, 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 3 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 3 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 pays 6  tokens 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 10 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.
• When a player runs out of tokens they are out of the game.
• When only one player is left within the game, that player is the winner.

As one can see by the rules the game has been changed from focusing on dice rolls to more resource management as one must pay tokens in order to move around the board and obtain more tokens but at the same time one must not spend too much, else they run out of tokens. At the same time you can tamper with other people progression but this comes at a cost but can very well ensure that a player gets knocked out of the game. 

Playtest 

Immediately I found that I had to change some of the instructions on the board as they involved instructions about dice rolls, which of course was taken out of the game entirely, they were replaced with instructions using tokens paid instead of dice rolls but the affects of the space remained the same. Further testing revealed that additional instructions on the board spaced need tweaking as the punishments for some of the spots was too severe, knocking players out of the game early on as they did not posses many tokens in the beginning. Other than that I found there was a good level of resource management but i would have like to have seen more interaction , or "interference", between players, so the cost for interfering with other players was decreased. 

Light and Darkness Cascading in a Flurry of Colour

Our team, Jazz and Awol, have come up with a game called Duality. The game revolves around the concept of the Van Gogh painting "Starry Night" and its tossing and turning look and the flux between light and dark. We wanted to try to create a game that addressed this and made the players take part in it by allowing them to examine a piece of art and giving them the chance to express their opinions on the nature of the piece. We felt that competitiveness took away from the focus of the game, which was the swirling duality of light and dark and the player's examination of it, as the players would care less for the art and more towards winning should there be a competitive aspect to the game. So instead we decided to have the players work cooperatively which slowed down the game for the players to fully take part in examining the art and expressing their ideals while at the same time kept them rooted in the game so that the game doesn't become arbitrary or "floaty". There are a couple of mechanics within the game that change, or attempt to, change the alignment of the pieces of art forcing the players to thing in new of seeing the art and forcing them to dig deeper into their imaginations.

The Game Contents:
- Bag of light/dark tokens
- Binary Dice
- Art cards
- Duality board

Players: 2- 6

Gameplay:

1) Shuffle the art cards and place them in the center of the board
2) Choose a player to act as the Dealer, usually the youngest among the players.
3) Dealer then draws a card, presenting both sides of the card to the other players.
4) A Player then rolls the binary dice, players then decide which side of the card best matches the result of the dice.
5) When it is decided which side best matches, the card is placed that face up, on its corresponding side.
6) The Dealer then turns his/her back to the other players and the other players then examin the card and write one word on a piece of paper reflecting their feeling they get from the card. Players are not alowed to talk during this stage.
7) The scraps of paper are then put into a pile on top of the card.
8) the Dealer turns around and must now guess who wrote what
9) for every right guess the dealer places one token of the corresponding colour into its pile.
10) the player to the right is now the Dealer.
11)The players must try to keep the number of tokens in each pile even, should one pile grow 7 tokens bigger than the other the players lose.
12) When each pile has a number of tokens equal to double the number of players, the players win.

Liar's Dice: Alternative Roll!

The Positive Feedback Loop

After a few playthroughs it became evident that the positive feedback loop was that every time you bet correctly or call out another player correctly, making them lose a dice, it becomes easier to continue betting/calling out correctly as the number of possible outcomes for the collective dice rolls decreases and therefore making it easier to predict. It doesn't even matter if you are the one who loses a dice because as long as SOMEONE is losing dice the possible outcomes becomes easier and easier to predict as the number of the possible roll combinations decreases with every dice lost.

Below, you will find the original rules as well as a modification to said rules. This modification, call hubris, is geared towards counteracting the innate positive feedback loop of the original game. Hubris, essentially, forces a player to reveal a dice on all subsequent dice rolls every time they win their bet. The number of dice they are forced to reveal increases every time they win their bet. This makes it harder for winning players to lie and easier for losing players to call their bluff. 

Original Rules

1) all players roll dice in their cups

2) players look at their dice roll, taking care to keep it concealed from the other players

3) the first player then bets on how many of a certain dice outcome has occurred in all the dice rolled between all the players.

   Example: Jim rolls his dice, and he rolls one 2, one 3, and three 5s. Jim is also the first player and bets that there are

 at least three 5s in the group, meaning that out of ALL the dice outcomes of all the players there are at least three

 5s.

4) The next player can then increasing the bet placed by the

previous player (See Increasing Bet). 

   Example: Gander takes his turn after Jim, so he has the choice of either increasing the bet of Jim OR calling Jim out on his bet.

5) Players can Call Out another player on their bid (See Callin'em Out) after the bid has been made. Players can only call out another player on their bid from the time the bid has been made to the time the next player takes their turn.

6) When a player loses all their dice they are out of the game.

         
Increasing Bet:

 A player who chooses to increase the bet of the previous player may do so by increasing the amount of the   certain outcome

they named, OR increasing the outcome named, OR both.

Example: Jim bet that there was at least three 5s. So Gander can bet that there are FOUR 5s, or three 6s, or four 6s.

Calling'em Out:

1) A player who chooses to call out the previous player on their bet forces all players to reveal their dice rolls and the collective outcome of the dice rolls is counted to see if the bet is true or false.

Example: Gander calls out Jim on his bet that there were at least three 5s. So both Jim and Gander reveal their dice rolls to each other and see if Jim's bet is accurate or not.

2) If the bet turns out to be FALSE, the player who betted loses 1 dice but if the bet is TRUE the caller loses 1 dice.

Example: If Jim's bet was true Gander would lose 1 dice but of it was false Jim would lose one dice.

Modified Rules

Hubris

- If a better is called out, all players reveal their dice roll, as usual.

- The players then look at the collective dice rolls to determine if the bet is true or false.

- If the bet is TRUE the caller loses 1 dice, as usual. BUT the player who betted must now reveal 1 of their dice to the other players right after they roll their dice before they bet, every time.

Example : Jim bets that there are at least three 4s and is called out by Gander. They both reveal their dice and it shows that the bet is true. So Gander loses one dice BUT Jim must reveal one of his dice after every time he rolls. So right after Jim's next dice roll, he must reveal one of his dice to Gander before he can bet.

- The number of dice the player who betted must reveal after every time they roll INCREASES by 1 for every bet they win.

Example: Jim has won 2 of his bets so he reveals 2 dice right after every roll before he bets.

- If the bet is FALSE the player who bet loses 1 dice AND DECREASES the number of dice they must reveal by 1.

Additional Modified Rules

- If a player has only 2 or 3 dice left, that player then has the choice of forcing another player to lose a dice.
- Loser's Pity: The player with the lowest has "leeway" of +/- 1 dice when calling out other people's bets.
- Should a player's dice be the only reason their bet is true then they gain an additional but wehn they next cought lieing they lose 2 dice.

The Results of The Playtest 

The playtest proved to be quite enlightening as it showed that in a two player game when a player is forced to reveal all his dice because he has won his bets 5 times in a row, the other player has lost. Hubris didn't really extent the duration of the game but definitely made things harder for the winning players but did not necessarily make things easy enough for the losing players. The other modified rules definitely added additional depth to game making things more challenging for players, especially if they begin to win.  

Galaga: The Card Game

The classic game of Galaga now in a card game! Face off against your friends in your goal to be the last player standing. Send barrages of ships to reduce their lives to zero and claim supremacy over the galaxy.

The team reviewed the games provided to us and decided to go with Galaga as it seemed to provide a enough content to be turned into a card game. We were unsure of how to turn Galaga which is a single player game and turn it into a card game that can be played in a group, specifically with up to 4 players. We came up with a few ideas, one being that the players be split into sides, one playing the enemy ships and the other playing the white ships. But this idea went against the original game as it did not support cooperative play, it was a single player game. So we then came up with the idea that each player would play the "main character" or the white ship.

 But then how to utilize the enemy ships? Would we create a system that would "automate" the enemy ships so that all 4 players were trying to survive the attacks of the enemy ships and the player who survives the longest wins. But creating a system that properly simulates the overwhelming onslaught played out in the game would not only take too long but would also be too hard to explain to the players. We decided to have the players attack each other, allowing them to create the overwhelming attacks ,posed by the enemy ships in the game, that the other players would face. We wanted to play off the competitiveness of the players to have them create truly terrifying attacks for the other players to defend against.

The original goal was still the same: the player who survived the longest wins the game. So fire your lasers, obliterate your enemies, claim your place as the winner.

Parts:

20 x Offensive Cards

20 x Defensive Cards

5 x 1UP Cards 

17 x Life Cards

Setup 

1) Each player takes three Life Cards and places these cards in front of them face up.

2) The rest of the Life cards are then placed to one side. 

3) The Offensive, Defensive, and 1UP cards are all combined and shuffled. The resulting deck is then placed 

    at the center players. 

4) Each player then draws 5 cards from this deck and holds them in their hand.

Gameplay

1) Players decide who goes first.

2) Player draws from deck. 

3) Player can play any of the cards in their hand and target any of the other players with offensive cards. See  Combat.

4) When player has finished playing cards, the player to the left goes next. 

5) When a player runs out of Life Cards they are out of the game

6) The game is won only one player is left in the game (i.e. they are the only one left with life cards.

1UP Cards

When played they gain 1 life. That player takes a life card from the life card pile and places it face up in front of them. The 1UP card is then placed in the discard pile. 

- A player holding a 1UP card can only play it during their turn.

Combat

1) Offense

Player targets another player with an offensive card

    - Should that card possess an "offensive #" that is that player's offensive. Players can play any number of 

      these numbered cards. These numbers are then added up, creating that player's offensive. 

      Example: Jimmy plays 3 offensive cards that have offensives of 3, 5, and 6, so 3+5+6=14 so Jimmy's 

      offensive is 14. 

   - There also exists cards that can be attached to these numbered cards to augment their values. These   

      cards are placed below the targeted card so that both cards can be seen. 

   - Special offensive cards that directly effect the targeted player or their defensive  possess some instructions.    These instruction are to be carried out immediately unless negated by the targeted player, see Negation. 

2) Defense

When targeted by offensive cards, targeted player plays defensive cards

      - Should that card possess a "defensive #" that is that player's defensive. Players can play any number of 

      these numbered cards. These numbers are then added up, creating that player's defensive. 

      Example: Timmy plays 3 defensive cards that have defensives of 3, 5, and 6, so 3+5+6=14 so Timmy's 

      defensive is 14. 

   - There also exists cards that can be attached to these numbered cards to augment their values. These   

      cards are placed below the targeted card so that both cards can be seen. 

   - Special defensive cards that directly effect the targeted player or their offensive  possess some instructions. These instruction are to be carried out immediately unless negated by the attacking player, see Negation. 

3) Results of Battle

When both the attacking and defending players have finished playing cards and all the instructions for special offensive and defensive cards have been carried out, the resulting offensive number and defensive number are compared to each other and the player with the largest number wins.

 - If the attacking player wins, the defending player loses a Life Card. Put that life card where other life cards are. All the offensive  and defensive cards played are put in the discard pile. 

- If the defending player wins, all the offensive and defensive cards played are put in the discard pile. 

4) Negation

When a card is negated it is placed in the discard pile. 

5) Interference

Players not involved in a battle can play offensive cards on the attacking player's side and/or play defensive cards on the defending player's side to "help" them. 

Additional Rules

- Players can only attack other players on their turn.

- Players can only attack one player at a time. 

- When a player is out of the game all their cards in their hand are placed in the discard pile 

- When the center deck runs out simply reshuffle the discard pile and place the resulting deck in the center. 

Mechanical Mayhem

Lightning strikes a lightning rod, illuminating the night sky of a dense city! You laugh maniacally as energy surges through your lab sending life to the robotic monstrosity that lied in the center of the room. It begin twitch and shudder! "YES!" you scream in delight as thoughts of destruction and world dominance race through your head. Lost in your day dreams of power you lean on a button, a very big red button that reads "Self Destruct". You look on in horror as your creation EXPLODES sending its pieces flying all over the city!

During your search of the pieces you find out that you are not the only mad scientist whose robot had blown up that night. "NOOO!NO!NO!NO!" you yell in a fit of rage. The only one who deserves to destroy this city via mechanical monolith of massive mayhem is YOU! Not any of these PRETENDERS! You decide then and there to grab as many of their pieces as possible so that they will NEVER be able to complete their robot! "MUAHAHAHAHAHA!" you laugh as you run into the dark streets of the city.

The idea behind Mechanical Mayhem is that you play a mad scientist and that you must collect as many robotic pieces as possible by the time all the pieces have been collected and the player with the most pieces wins. Initially though the idea was that each player had their own set of robotic pieces to collect, they could not collect other players' pieces, and the player to collect all of their own pieces first wins. But thanks to my team we were able to see the fault in the initial design which was that it possibly went against the instruction set down by the assignment in that it involved players trying to reach a goal first (collect all 4 of their robot pieces). We resolved this by changing the robotic pieces from player specific to generic and made it into a sort of Hungry Hungry Hippos thing where the player who gets the most wins. Though every other mechanic in the game has stayed the same from the cards to the game board.

I really like the idea for the board where it is broken up into 9 tiles as this allows players to generate a different board every time they play the game. Of course, the tiles must be placed in a certain pattern, detailed in the rules. Though this does little to effect the number of combinations that players can create.

Collecting itself would be too easy so we have some cards that the player can choose to draw in exchange for their movement, so instead of moving that turn they draw a card. These cards can benefit you, deter others, as well as hurt you as well. So there is always some risk in sacrificing your movement.

Overall the game is very simple and easy to learn. It has proven to be fast paced and exciting right to the moment the winner is decided. So I hope you have fun playing our game and by all means let the mechanical mayhem begin!!

Pieces:

- 4 player pieces
- 16 robot pieces
- D6 dice
- 9 board tiles
- 26 gadget cards


Rules:

1) Shuffle tiles then place them in a 3x3 formation as shown: [*][*][*]
                                                                                                [*][*][*]
                                                                                                [*][*][*]
2) Place all place pieces in the center square of board.

3) Each player places 4 robot pieces on any square of any adjacent tile.

Gameplay:

1) Player has the choice of either drawing a gadget card or moving their piece.

2) If the player chooses to move their piece they must role a D6 and move that many spaces.

3) If the player chooses to draw a gadget card, they draw from the top of the deck and can either play it the card immediately or hold it in their hand.

4) When a player lands or passes over a square containing a robot piece, they claim that piece and add it to their robot pile.

5) the game ends when all the robot pieces are collected and the player with the most pieces wins.

Additional Rules:

- Players can move any direction except diagonally.
- Players can hold a maximum of 2 cards in their hand.
- Should players have more than 2 cards they must either play or discard cards until they have, at most, 2 left     in their hand.
- Cards are placed in the discard pile after they are used.
- When gadget deck is finished, reshuffle the discard pile and draw from the top of the new gadget deck.
- When targeting a player for a card, announce the card played and the target of said card. Then place that card in front of that player. The target player then discards that card when its duration has ended.