Spatial Worker Placement

Prototype made during Summer 2017.

In this 2 player strategy game, you take turns moving your two mine carts around the board. Moving onto a tile with coins on it will pick them up. Coins can then be spent on items, which give your worker permanent stat bonuses, or expended to claim one of the 7 towers spread around the board. Claiming towers gives you temporary control over them - each round, your claim will decay. While you control the tower, you get temporary stat bonuses for each of your workers. Each round you control a tower will fill up a control meter on that tower - if it fills up for a player, that player gains control of that tower permanently. To win, a player must control a majority of the towers in play at one time. 

Design Thoughts

The initial inspiration was euro worker placement board games, such as Agricola or Stone Age. I liked the "action drafting" aspect of those games that required players to plan ahead, evaluate how much actions were worth in different situations, and assess what their opponent's priorities would be in order to properly react. However, I was trying to move away from victory point-based systems, especially "point salad" type end goals, and from systems that felt like two different games only linked together through one or two mechanics. I wanted to take the system of action drafting and have all the games mechanics revolve around that. A more spatial system made sense for that - in order to take an action, you would have to physically move a piece to that space. Thus every action revolves around your ability to be in a particular place at a particular time, and (in theory) you would be able to see what the other player was going for and react appropriately.

Requires two XBox controllers - inputs are A to select a worker & move, Y to end your turn before using all your moves, and B to unselect a worker. RB also cycles between your workers.