So much for the weekly challenge...

So, clearly I have not kept up with the weekly challenge idea. The last challenge in particular through me for a loop. I did come up with a few ideas about how to combine simultaneous action selection and a time track, but all in a very abstract kind of way. My basic concept that I kept coming back to was a time management game. But it was way more complex in scope than I wanted to work on so I kept pushing past it to try and simplify and ended up with basically nothing... and then I thought up how to do a simple racing game. I'm going to talk about both ideas.

Day Planner.

The time management idea that I kept coming back to. Basically the way the game would work is each player secretly plans there entire day in regard to where they would be at given points in the day. So they might for example indicate that they will be at a restaurant at 5pm and stay until 7pm. This would probably be done by literally having the players pencil in times and locations onto a day planner. Then after all players reveal what there day plan is, the time track would move forward one hour at at time and each time a player is in a new location they would be able to take an action in that location. Either whatever they wrote on the day planner or maybe a card draw could happen and they'd get to make a decision? I'm not sure what the goal of this game would be. I bounced a few ideas around ranging from trying to seal a business deal to being a celebrity's PR specialist who is trying to get them as much publicity as possible. I think there is certainly something here, but I couldn't really get a working cohesive game in my head in the time I allotted myself.

Hex Race

This game is far simpler conceptually, and I think if I'd started with it I would have actually finished the challenge. Basically players have three types of cards, with three different time values for a total of 9 cards each. The three card types are move straight, turn left, and turn right. The values are 1, 2, and 3 seconds. These cards control how they move. Each game round players organize their cards so that when revealed one at a time it will indicate what they are doing in a given round.

The players also need two game pieces each and a global game piece. One is their vehicle (car, boat, spaceship, whatever) and the other is their time track marker. The time track marker indicates where they are in terms of time spent and therefore if they will act in a given turn. The global game piece is the actual time marker. The time track is 6 spaces long and at the start of the game all players start at the 1 second space of the track. Each player whose time track marker is in the same space as the actual time marker reveals a card. On the first turn this will be everyone. Cards are resolved in order of highest value first, then furthest ahead, then closest to the center. Each player resolves their move, then moves their time tracker up by the time value of the card they played. If they ever move the time tracker up past the 6 second space it loops around to the 1 second space and continues to move up. This can put them at a time deficit on the next round. When the Actual Time marker moves past the 6 second space and has to go back to the 1 second space all players reorganize their card stacks for the next round.


I may actually try to work on the Hex Race game further. Actually giving it more than a working title and maybe a modular board. But for now, I'm wrapping that challenge up and moving on to continue working on my Politics of War game.