Chibi Robo + Mine Sweeper as a Board Game?


A while back, I lost two hours to Super Samurai Sweeper, a minesweeper-inspired action game. Naturally, I started wondering if you could do a similar game in a tabletop format.

How would that work? The calculations that make the digital Minesweeper so critical couldn't be done on a table with non-electronic components.

Well, maybe that's okay. There just needs to be another mechanic in the game that works better for the analog format.

Here's the loose idea: There is a grid of tiles laid out 5x5. Each cell contains two tiles, one stacked on top of the other. Each tile has a number 1-10 and icons representing certain resources. In this example, let's just use circles, squares and triangles.

Sweeper

On your turn, tap a stack (here noted in pink). Then you reveal the top tile of that stack and the top tiles of orthogonal adjacent stacks. Then you can choose to tap that stack again or pass.

Sweeper2

If you choose to tap it again, then you must take both tiles from that stack. (Here, noted in magenta.)

Sweeper3

Thereafter, if any player taps a stack whose top tile is revealed, she must take both tiles in that stack. (Here noted in blue.) Otherwise, she may tap a fresh stack as shown earlier in this example.

The game continues as each player taps stacks and collects tiles. Between rounds, players may spend their tiles as currency for special actions, stuff like:

  • (Three Triangles) Peek at a stack without revealing it to the other players.
  • (Three Circles) Steal a tile from another player.
  • (Three Squares) Score a point for each resource x currently in each player's collection.


The game ends when one player has enough tiles to equal N, where N is based on the number of players. (I haven't tested this yet, so I can't say for sure what's a good number.)

Players score 10 points for every complete flush (circle, square, triangle) and every three-of-a-kind (3 Triangles), plus the numbers on their collected tiles.

Clearly this is very abstract at the moment. I'm imagining a theme inspired by Chibi Robo. Players move their little robots around the room, sweeping up clutter and collecting trinkets. It could work!

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