Tree Prototyping!

So I completely forgot about this assignment and it's 3am the day that it's due. Hope you enjoy some nonsensical, delirium.

Assignment was pretty straightforward. Partner up with someone, think of a game in 15 minutes, then PROTOTYPE.

My partner was Josh something. All I remember is that he liked Halo and had a beard. I didn't have any interesting ideas so Josh came up with the idea of some sort of territorial acquisition game. However, after throwing random mechanics at the wall and looking at what stuck, we came up with a trench warfare type of game, where the core mechanics were similar to chess and risks. The following is a brief summary of our mechanics of each version.

Version 1:
Materials: 6x8 game board, units (small blocks), machine guns (gold coins), mines/bunker (cards), dice.
Rules:
Two players.
Each player gets 7 units and 3 machine guns. Victory condition is when opponent loses all machine guns.
Before game begins, players take turns placing their machine gun placements and units. Roll dice to determine who goes first.
Units can be grouped into 2 units. A unit can move 2 spaces, grouped units move If a unit encounters another unit, both players roll and player with higher roll defeats other unit. A grouped unit means extra chances to roll attacks.
If a unit occupies a machine gun nests, they must occupy it for 2 turns in order for it to be destroyed permanently.
Cards are placed in the middle of the field and if a unit enters it, they the number underneath determines a certain effect.
You can use a turn to replenish lost units to the amount of machine gun posts you possess.

Version 2:
Materials: 8x8 game board, units (small blocks), machine guns (gold coins), dice.
Rules:
Two players.
Each player gets 7 units and 3 machine guns. Victory condition is when opponent loses all machine guns.
Before game begins, players take turns placing their machine gun placements and units. Roll dice to determine who goes first.
Units can be grouped into 2 units. Number you roll is number unit can move. For groups, its the dice roll divided by 2. If a unit encounters another unit, both players roll and player with higher roll defeats other unit. A grouped unit means extra chances to roll attacks.
If a unit occupies a machine gun nests, they must occupy it for 2 turns in order for it to be destroyed permanently.
Numbers are placed in middle 4 rows. Before each turn, a roll is made. If a unit is on a number that is rolled, they are immediately destroyed. This simulates land mines.
If a unit is within 4 spaces away from a machine gun nests, a roll is made to determine if they are destroyed by the machine gun. 4-6 is a direct hit and any unit in line of site of a machine gun is destroyed.
You can place up to two bunkers which blocks machine gun fire. You may also replenish units on top of your own bunker.
You can replenish 1 unit per turn.

Version 3:

Materials: 8x8 game board, units (small blocks), machine guns (gold coins), dice.
Rules:
Two players.
Each player gets 7 units and 3 machine guns. Victory condition is when opponent loses all machine guns.
Before game begins, players take turns placing their machine gun placements and units. Roll dice to determine who goes first.
Units can be grouped into 2 units. Number you roll is number unit can move. For groups, its the dice roll divided by 2. If a unit encounters another unit, both players roll and player with higher roll defeats other unit. A grouped unit means extra chances to roll attacks.
If a unit occupies a machine gun nests, they must occupy it for 2 turns in order for it to be destroyed permanently.
Numbers are placed in middle 4 rows. Before each turn, a roll is made. If a unit is on a number that is rolled, they are immediately destroyed. This simulates land mines.
If a unit is within 4 spaces away from a machine gun nests, a roll is made to determine if they are destroyed by the machine gun. 4-6 is a direct hit and any unit in line of site of a machine gun is destroyed.
You can place up to two bunkers which blocks machine gun fire. You may also replenish units on top of your own bunker.
You can replenish 1 unit per turn.



Play Sessions:

Version 1:
Person I played with was Josh and we were just testing our ideas. Since we didn't know any meta strategies, both of us played conservatively. The game was moving pretty slowly, with us grouping all our units together and slowly moving towards the other person's trenches. 20 minutes would pass and neither of us made any progress getting rid of their machine gun nests. We changed the rules a bit, allowing the units to move a little farther, and Josh blitz my machine gun encampments, destroying all three because I had little defenses.

Version 2:
This time I played with Magic Mike Phe. Learning from the last time we played, I wanted this to go a little quicker so I allowed the units to move by the dice number you roll. This increased the playing time significantly and we were able to destroy each other's encampments pretty quickly. Since this was the second time I've played it, I adopted Josh's blitz strategy and destroyed Mike's encampments quickly.

Version 3:
The third time I played was against my brother. I didn't change much to the rules except for the fact that I made the map a little bigger. With more refined rules, and a bigger map, we had more interesting exchanges. The blitz strategy doesn't work quite as well since the map was a lot larger, but once a unit broke through the front lines, it was quite easy to destroy their machine gun nests.

All in all, the sessions were pretty entertaining and coming up with unique, dynamic strategies was a very cool experience. This blog is a little more dry compared to my last one because this is goes into more technical detail about the prototypes and experiences.