Black Friday: Racing Auction Game

Black Friday: Racing Auction Game It's Thanksgiving week in the states! A time for plenty and gratitude for food, friends and games! Alas, most board games take up a lot of space on the table, leaving little room for the bountiful meals. Here's a racing auction mashup that should only take up a narrow sliver of space in the middle of your table.

The theme is that you're racing along a store aisle on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Taking time to gather the best combinations of gifts can score big points, but reaching the finish line can double or triple that score!


You'll need
2-4 players
A unique meeple for each player.
5 sets of uniquely colored chips, 15 chips in each set.
The boards and cards in this PDF.
Each player gets a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 card, as shown above.


Setup
Place the meeples at the start of the track.
Place a stack of randomly drawn chips beside each space of the track.
Each stack should have one more chip than the number of players.


Play
Each turn proceeds simultaneously. Each player reveals and discards one card from their hand. Each player MUST move her meeple forward on the track that many spaces. If you reach the end of the track, stop moving.

PIVOT: When a player reaches the end of the track, all players can now return to a full hand of cards. All players also now have the option of moving her meeples forward or backward along the track. Don't dawdle! The first-place finisher gets a really big score bonus.

BOOSTS: The parenthetical numbers below 1, 2, and 3, show the number of spaces you may move if this is the only 1, 2, or 3 played in this turn. For example, if you played 1 in this turn and no other player played that card, you may move two, three, four, five or six spaces instead of just one.

GATHER: Once everyone has stopped moving, you may take one chip from your landing space. If two people occupy the same space, whoever played the lower card takes a chip first. If tied, the player with the lower score takes a chip first. If still tied, the younger player takes a chip first.


Score
When two players have returned to the starting area, or used all their cards, that is the end of the lap. Score points for the chips you collected as shown on the board.

If you collected the most YELLOW chips, earn 5 points. If you collected the second most, earn 3 points. Tied players score the same number of points.

The MAGENTA chips earn more points the more you collect. Collect one to earn 1 point, two to earn 3 points, four to earn 6 points, ten to earn 10 points, and five to earn 15 points.

Every pair of GREEN chips earns 5 points.

Every trio of BLUE chips earns 5 points.

Collecting a set of all five colors earns 15 points.

If you finished this lap in first place, or closest to the starting area, triple your score. If tied, each player only doubles their score.

If you finished this lap in second place, or second closest to the starting area, double your score. If tied, neither player gets a bonus.


New Laps
After each lap, players return all but their white chips. Randomly redistribute the remaining chips along the track and begin a new lap.


End of Game
After three laps, whoever has the most white chips earns 5 points. Whoever has the fewest white chips loses 5 points.

The player with the most points wins!


Notes
Still hungry? The set-collection scoring mechanics in this game are shamelessly lifted from Phil Walker-Harding's excellent SUSHI GO!, now available on IndieGoGo. Go back it now!

Comments

  1. Steven DavisNovember 21, 2012 at 1:38 PM

    Do you have to make the full lap? The way its written, it looks like you would benefit by "dawdling" to stay near the start and then sprinting back to the end?



    Interesting design.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanielSolisNovember 21, 2012 at 1:50 PM

    You might indeed, but there are a few impediments to that strategy:

    Because you *must* move your card's number of spaces, you have less control over whether you can camp close to the starting line. And because movement cards are discarded after each use, you'll eventually reach the big distances anyway.

    It is possible that someone else reaches the end of the track first, thus advantaging anyone who is closer to the starting line, but they might not have the best scoring combination so the triple-bonus may not be that great.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mac LaurenNovember 29, 2012 at 3:32 AM

    An interesting game. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more