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Board Game Idea 1 : Battleship Blocks


Basic Rules concept

  • Players have a set of blocks like Tetris blocks
  • Each player has their own grid board
  • They each take it in turns to place a block on their own grid
  • When they place their block they announce one square that the block occupies the other players must place one of their blocks in such a way that it also occupies that square
  • Blocks can be placed in any orientation as long as there is no unsupported overhang
  • Elimination: each player is eliminated if their tower reaches higher than *4* blocks. Last player standing wins

Interesting consequences of the rules

  • The Players are both trying to place their own blocks in a manner which lets them make the most effective use of their space while also trying to force the opponent to place their block in the least space-efficient way.
  • Since the location of at least part of the block is chosen by the opponents this means that there is no way for the player to simply build in different parts of the board, they are forced into conflict.
  • The nature of having to act even when it's not your turn and having decisions to make means that players are never sitting waiting for their turn to happen.
  • The turn cycle easily allows for more than 2 players and doesn't require an even number of players.

Ideas for themes

  • Each player is a construction company working with the same blueprints to build a building but trying to differentiate theirs from the competition.
  • Competing tower of Babels, each player if trying to build their mega tower in a way that doesn't upset god while trying to make the other builders offend god.
There is a lot of potential in this idea and alot of different variations which I think would be interesting games in their own right, but the physical nature of the game is beyond the scope of this project's brief. To do this game justice I would need lots of time to map-out play patterns and playtest different amount and configurations of block shapes not to mention the time physically making prototype pieces. I think were I to make this game I would first construct it digitally in Maya then export the blocks to unity and playtest it as a digital game, cutting the manufacturing time and cost of the pieces out of the equation until after the playtesting has determined things like the shape and number of pieces.
 
The other issue I foresee is that while I think it would be a fun game to play in a manner similar to Jenga, it has issues in its current state with conveying any kind of meta-narrative or thematic content as the game is currently quite abstract (again much like Jenga) and any inclusion of the elements would necessitate a shift in the focus of the design to effectively convey whatever the theme would be, which would take a great deal of time I do not have for this project. I feel like this is an idea worth revisiting in the future, certainly, once I'm more proficient with Maya and unity as I could knock together a simple prototype in a very small amount of time.

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