Category: Game Design Studio 1

Lyrics vs Mankind Rules

There is no limit as to how many people can play.

We recommend 6-8 players for the ultimate party.

BASIC RULES

To start the game, each player takes a white board and marker.

The oldest player begins as the Lyric God by choosing a card from either the

Hip Hop, Pop, Rock, or Oldies pile and reading the lyric out loud.

Everyone else will create the next line of the song by writing it on their white board and placing it face down in front of the Lyric God.

Gently shuffle the whiteboards. The Lyric God will then read the Lyric Card following by the whiteboards out loud. For the full effect, the Lyric God should re-read the Lyric Card before presenting each whiteboard answer. The Lyric God will then choose the best answer and whoever submitted it gets one Rocker Point and collects the Lyric Card.

After the round, the player to the left of the initial Lyric God becomes the new Lyric God and will play a new Lyric Card.

Red Zone Rules

2 Players

BASIC RULES

To begin, the youngest player will call out a color (black or white) and they will be subject to those squares. Both players will choose five pawns and line them up at their end of the board on their color.

Player 1 will roll Dice 1 providing a number one through six, following by Dice 2 providing Left, Right, Up, Down, Stop, or A Star (L, R, U, D, S,    ). If the player rolls and 2 and a R, they will move right 2. If they roll a S, they do not get to move that turn. If they roll a 3 and a    , they can move 3 in the direction of their choice.

The goal for each player is to get to the opposite end of the board without passing over their opponents pawn. If the dice requires that you move Up 2 and that requires you to pass over your opponents pawn, that pawn is eliminated.

Players must get all 5 pawns to the opposite end of the board without landing in the Red Zone. The Red Zone is obtained by all 4 corners.

The player with the most pawns at the opposite end wins.

Collecting-Type Game Ideas

1. Toxic Collector – Board Game
   Compete against players for the most unique and dangerous critters. The more unique the find the more dangerous it is to keep it. Last one surviving with the most points wins.
2. Secret Trend – Board Game
   Compete to win entry into Fashion Week. Tell share secrets and gossip to get through the doors and gain your seat by the runway.

Game Reviews

Catan is a trading and strategy based game where players must build settlements, cities, and roads across a map. The first player to get 10 victory points wins. Catan is similar to Monopoly in some ways. Both games have similar mechanics such as trading, dice rolling, and collecting. Like Monopoly, Catan also uses negotiation and strategy skills. Monopoly’s theme provides a backdrop for the economic downfall of the Depression era. With concepts such as mortgage and bankruptcy, players must be money cautious in a winner-takes-all environment. Catan provides a more recent and familiar backdrop with concepts of limited resources, trade imbalances, and connected fortunes. Overall I thought it was a fun competitive game but I did feel like the rules took some time to adjust too. I do not think this is a gateway game due to its complexity.

Splendor is a game in which players are gem merchants trying to gain prestige points. With enough prestige points, wealthy players can receive visits from nobles which provide more prestige points. This game has a Renaissance theme and mechanics such as deck building and card drafting. The game has a prominent beginning middle and end which is shown by the number of prestige points a player has and how far away they are from the winning score of 15 points. The game could easily be a gateway game due to its originality, ease of play, luck, and replay value. I enjoyed this game very much and would play again.

I really enjoy games with the resource-collecting mechanic.  The act of collecting resources gives players small bursts of happiness which adds to the fun of the game.  Catan provides this every time one of your numbers comes up.  Splendor provides this every turn in the form of gaining new gems or cards.

The second act in our Catan game happened abnormally early, as Robert had an extremely advantageous spawn point.  The third act started when Robert began to upgrade all of his villages to cities.  The second act in Splendor started the moment people started to purchase cards.  The third act began when nobles began to be claimed.

Catan was relatively lacking in theme, which is why I’d guess it was developed with mechanics in mind.  While Splendor has a bit more theme to it, its mechanics could easily be re-mapped to a different theme, which is why I’m guessing it was also developed with mechanics in mind.

Review:

In week 4, we first played Nanobots. I got a very thorough understanding of this game and I really enjoyed it. It was fairly easy to learn and understand. Each turn was justified by the action card and the players strategy. I feel like this was a game of chance but also a game of strategy. Even if the player had a great strategy, the action cards picked by their opponents could easily kill them. As for the other game, we didn’t have time to thoroughly play the game, but from what we did get to do, it was very confusing. I was not a big fan of this game. There was a very long list of rules that didn’t really make sense.

5 Building Games:

1. Train
   In this game, you will build a train to travel across the world. The cards you pick will gain you money, parts, or passengers. The bigger your train gets, the more protection and supplies you will need.
   If you do not have the required parts for the amount of passengers, your passengers will die. You have to save as many people as possible.
2. Blocks
   There will be blocks of different sizes and colors. You will pick up a card telling you what block to pick up. You must strategically build your tower as high as possible without it falling. Once a block is placed it cannot be moved. Whoever has the highest tower wins.
3. Duck Crossing
   Each player will have 4 ducks. Each duck has a character card that tells you their needs. You must gain money and supplies to build a river for the ducks to swim in. If you do not fulfill the needs of a duck, they die. Whoever saves the most ducks wins.
4. Office Building
   Players will pick a card with a company on it and their requirements. Players will pick cards giving them supplies and/or money. Using these, they will have to build an office building for their company. You must fulfill all of the needs of your company to win.
5. Color Match
   Each player will pick two colors (RGBY). They will have 30 tokens per each color. Players lay one token per turn. The goal is to get three of the same color in a row before the other player disrupts it. Once all of the tokens run out, the player with the most matches wins.

Review:

• NanoBots was fun, however it ruined our friendships as we kept attacking each other. I liked the idea, but a board with a grid would have made it easier to tell who was adjacent to one another. Cascassonne we did not really understand very much. I liked building the board, the “kingdom,” and connecting the pieces, but we did not really figure out the point of the characters.

Building Game Ideas

• Balloon Pop
• Getting Promoted
• Build a skyscraper
• Make a meal?

Week 1:

• Flux started out slow as we first started playing, but once we figured out the rules the game got more interesting and fun. Love letters was the same way, but we caught on more quickly because there were less cards and it was the same concept as the last game with the changing rules. Hanabi was difficult because we couldn’t look at our cards. It was confusing until we figured out how to play, but I did not enjoy it as much as the first 2 games.

Week 2:

• I liked playing the character building games, or games with characters.  It was a was a depressing topic when having to kill all your characters, but it was still a fun game and a different concept than anything we’ve played before. I liked playing the medieval game when you had to buy each card and choose when to play it.  Once we got the hang of it, it was really fun and easier to play.

Week 3:

• Takenoko and Pandemic were my favorite to play. The Italian game was hard to understand, even with the English directions. We also kind of made up our own rules because it was hard to understand what exactly we were supposed to do.  Takenoko was a lot of fun, and I also liked playing in teams. Once we all go the hang of them game, it was really fun and cute. Pandemic was my favorite. We needed to sure the world and the directions were easier to understand. We did not get to finish the game, but I wish we did.

Card Ideas:

• Dominos
  • Have to play the card in hand
• Special Card
  • Get the card and keep it until all cards are gone
  • Rules
• Changing Rules
  • Bunch of cards with rules
  • Out if rules not followed
  • Last man standing wins

Chess Ideas:

• Tetris
  • Stack pieces
  • Dice tells which pieces to play
  • Tower cannot fall
• Play with all colored pieces
  • Memory Game
• Hop Scotch
  • Dice tells how many jumps
  • Cant land on different colored space
  • Last player standing
  • checker piece out if land on an X space

Themes:

• Spy Game
  • One person is a double-agent
  • Guess who it is
• Building
  • has to build their “tower” first
• Witchy
  • Collect ingredients for a spell
  • Be the first to cast a spell
  • Obstacles and Magic Cards
• Fly a plane through a storm
• Salem Witch Trials
  • Don’t get burned at the stake
• Crystal Garden
  • Good vs Bad person/witch
  • Get the crystal before the other
  • Maze
• Zodiac
• 13 Ghosts
  • Save their souls

Building Game Ideas

1. Royal Garden – Tile building game
   Compete with other players to build the most beautifully structured and floral garden for the King and Queen.
2. Animal House- Tile building game
   Work cooperatively with players to build a suitable home for your adopted pets.
3. Bulk Up – Deck building game
   You’re a squirrel preparing for winter by bulking up and stashing food. In this game, you do not play nice. The squirrel with the most nuts wins.
4. Career Builder – Deck building game
   Everyone has to start somewhere. Gain experience cards to level up your character. Trade experience cards, resources, and education cards for job cards worth more points. The player with the most points wins.
5. Burrowing Fox – Tile building game
   You play a Papa or Mama fox burrowing your new home for your family. Add tiles to extend your burrow and add much-needed resources for more points. Protect your fox from pretenders with repellent cards.

Game Reviews

NanoBot is a tile building science fiction game set in a petri dish. Each player has a bot with its own special skill that must be used to form the longest chain of NanoBots. Although the theme is unique, I did not feel like it was as immersive as Pandemic or other story filled games. The rulebook was slightly cluttered and could have been simplified. I did enjoy the reaction cards which spiced up the gameplay and made it more competitive.

Carcassonne is another tile-placing game but players are adding tile to build out a Medevil territory. The different tiles must connect with cities, roads, or grasslands, and players must decide to put down a corresponding knight, a robber,  monk, or a farmer. When an area is complete, it scores points for that player. The rulebook was rather confusing and our group sought further instructions online. The basic principles seemed easy, set down tiles and try to get the most points. I believe our group might have been a bit hasty with our few wooden characters so the game got pretty boring when we were just laying down tiles at the end. I think the puzzle-like form was the most intriguing part of the game.

1. Long Live the King – Players are part of the royal court and work to expose one player as an assassin hellbent on the King’s life. The King is stubborn and dull, so proof plays a large part in this deduction game.

2. Taste Tester – Players are high ranking government officials, and must hire taste-testers and chefs to enjoy their meals without fear of poisoning. At the same time, they try to plant phony chefs and testers in the kitchens of the other players.

3. Hypnosis – Players are competing street performers all specializing in psychic abilities. Competition has gotten fierce, and the players are now all trying to hypnotize each other to do each other’s bidding.

4. Cookbook – Players are novice alchemists working together to craft the right potions for their customers and keep their fledgling business alive.

5. Personal Space – Players are all socially terrified freshmen trying to maintain a minimum distance of 5 feet from any other human being.