In this hidden movement game, one player is a legendary hunter and the other is the great bear. The hunter starts out with a general idea of where the bear was last spotted. The hunter must, then, set out to find the bear’s trail and start tracking it. The hunter gains experience as he tracks the bear and learns more about its habits and can better anticipate it’s next move. These experience points gradually accumulate, increasing the potential game score if the hunter can manage to “Bag” the bear. At a certain part of the game, however, these points start to dwindle.

Meanwhile, the great bear roams around, hunts for food, and is the master of it’s domain. The bear has an acute sense of smell and can tell when the hunter is near. It is also aware that the hunter is dangerous and becoming more dangerous as he gets closer and that this danger increases over time. Does the bear try to evade the hunter as he grows more powerful, or does the bear try to investigate and risk an early encounter with an inexperienced hunter, which is likely to miss his shot. The more the bear knows about the hunter, the more likely it is to avoid being shot.

Once the hunter spots the bear, the game changes. The hunter’s experience points start to dwindle and the hunter has a limited number of bullets. The pressure is on and the hunter must decide to take a long shot or try to get closer to the bear. All the while, his experience points are dwindling.

Once the bullets run out, the tables are turned. The Bear becomes the hunter, and the hunter must make it back to his camp before the bear overtakes him. If the Bear captures the hunter, it claims all his victory points. Taking a risk by leading the hunter far into the wilderness where he gains more experience might pay off well, unless of course, the bear gets shot in the process.

If the hunter makes it back to the camp, then nobody wins, but the hunter and the bear both survive to hunt another day.

I haven’t figured out the mechanics yet to make this game possible, but it could be quite fun if I or somebody else could make this work. If anyone wants to collaborate on this idea with me, or even take the idea and run with it, you are welcome to try. Drop me a line if you’re interested, and leave a comment if this type of game appeals to you.

Happy Gaming

RogerDogerGames

I learned a new term today, it is Intelligence Augmentation (IA). Many of us have heard about AI, or Automated Intelligence, but the term IA was something I haven’t really considered much until now.  It’s not a new concept, in fact it’s as old as dirt. If you’ve ever notched a stick to keep count of something, looked up a mortgage payment in a mortgage table, used a slide-rule or one of those fancy new electronic calculators, you have Augmented your Intelligence.

IA is simply the act of using an external means to keep track of something or perform minor decisions for us while we focus on more important matters. How many of us currently have a cell phone nearby which is sifting through news to bring relevant information to our attention, keeping track of our schedules, and providing a link to the “Hive Mind” so we can ask it just about anything. IA has become an integral part of our lives. Many people fear AI (Artificial Intelligence) will somehow take over and make us obsolete, but in reality, we’ve been using technology to enhance our intelligence from day one and this can lead to newer and better versions of ourselves.

There are many examples of IA in tabletop games. The unique decks for each character in “Un-Matched” spare the player from having to create a custom deck and trying to get it to work properly with each character. The player boards in many games like “Scythe” and “Brass” reveal bonuses and actions as you remove components or re-arrange them on the player board. This reduces the rules overhead and pushes the player towards the fun and interesting decisions rather than the menial bookkeeping and minor decisions that don’t contribute much to the gameplay. Even a minor thing like placing an action token onder each spider token on my “Arachnid” game helps to reduce unnecessary rules overhead. As soon as a player places a new spider onto the web, an action token is revealed providing an additional player action.

Many of us have experienced AI in some form in a board game. It may have been an “Automa” deck used in a solo variant of a game like “Wingspan”, or perhaps the “Bots” used in “Power Grid” or “Root” to emulate additional players. Most of us, however, may not have considered how prevalent IA is in our board games and life in general. It is good to know that games are trying to make us smarter and our gaming experience more fun. I will gladly hand over the boring bits of a game to some device, or even an app. if this means more fun for me.

I welcome your thoughts on this?

Why is there an alpha player problem……”Because I Said So!”. This is, maybe, an extreme example of a problem that often plagues cooperative games. One player can dominate the game and try to control the direction of the game, which is usually only fun for only one person, the Alpha Player. The other players can experience everything from mild annoyance to outright anger. Some people consider this a fault of the game, while others believe it’s a problem with the game group. Regardless of who’s fault it is, it’s a problem which must be addressed and I believe I may have a solution.

I believe the problem isn’t so much that there is an Alpha player, it’s more about who takes on that role. In order to keep the game flowing, decisions must be made amongst differing opinions, and sometimes these decisions are arbitrary. The game must carry on and a dominating player will occasionally step in to attempt to break a stalemate.  This problem is even more likely to occur when one player is more familiar with the game than the others. Pushing through a decision is a necessary function for any group task, but it doesn’t have to be performed by the most dominant or aggressive member of the team. Why not elect an Alpha player who is fair and whose decisions will be readily accepted by the group. Players can elect one member of the group as the “Alpha”, who will make the final decisions whenever the group reaches an impasse. This player doesn’t necessarily have to be the most experienced player, just the one who can make the most impartial and fair decisions.

The players will hold a simple election before the game begins. Each player will pick a first choice and a second choice. (A player cannot pick themselves as a first choice.) The votes are tallied and the player with the most total votes is elected “Alpha”. In the event of a tie, then the one with the most first choice votes will be the winner. If it is still a tie, then the winner will be determined randomly. The “Alpha” will have the final word whenever the players cannot agree. This might help to alleviate the Alpha player problem.

I was listening to a TabletopBellhop podcast the other day, and one of the listeners asked what book or literary world would make a great board game. This is my pitch for a game based on one of my favorite science fiction novels.

Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction story where the Firemen are actually burning books and trying to eradicate the written word, while a handful of people are risking everything to try to preserve them. Players each are assigned a book and have to run around collecting chapters while the firemen are removing the books. Sometimes the firemen are getting close and you have to pick a chapter from a book other than yours. If the fireman catches you you lose one or more of your own chapters and are forced to replace them with whatever is at hand. Once you acquire enough chapters, you become the book. The story you tell from the bits and pieces you have acquired could be quite funny. For example, you can be “Oliver Twist”. Your story might take an interesting turn in chapter five because that chapter came from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and finally, end with Oliver replacing his Canoot’n valve because the final chapter came from “Reader Digest Home Plumbing Repairs”. Once the last book is read, the player with the most complete book will be declared the winner.

Ray Bradbury might not be impressed with the light hearted approach to such a serious topic, but the game might be quite fun to play.

What if the “World Space Organization” (WSO) decided to clean up all the space junk floating around our planet. This would be great for communications and research but not so good for all those spy satellites that aren’t officially there. This could make for a great cat and mouse game, full of hidden movement, secret objectives and subterfuge.

The WSO will start mapping out the skies to locate all the space junk, but the spy organizations will try to keep the locations of their spy satellites secret. It will be a race to collect as much “Intel” as possible before the WSO detects the spy satellite. Do the spy organizations “Orgs” reveal their satellite’s position, effectively shutting them down, or do they risk gaining more “Intel” and possibly losing it all if they are discovered? Do the “Orgs” overtly try to control where the “WSO” searches, which might provide information on their own positions, or do they try to throw one of the competing “Orgs” to the wolves by revealing their position. It’s Spy vs. Spy on a global scale.

This game sounds like too much fun. Somebody should really make this.