Rocket Broker - Worker Placement Area Control Roll-and-Write

Photo by Monstera Production from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/vector-illustration-of-cheerful-man-in-flying-rocket-6289027/

(This is a rough sketch of a game from 2017, when dice placement and roll-and-writes were gaining more popularity. I was in a phase where I was just merging as many different ingredients together to see if they'd stick.  You can see some of these ideas in Pencil Park.)

You’re trying to get your payloads onto rockets and into orbit. Rocket space ain’t cheap and neither is the fuel. You have to invest wisely if you want to launch! 

Setup

The game comes with a deck of rocket cards. Shuffle a number of cards based on player count. (Designer note: I never determined a number since this prototype never got tested.)
Lay out six random rocket cards onto each of the launchpad spaces. Each rocket card has a space agency that is sponsoring its launch, like NASA, or JAXA. Each rocket has a different arrangement of spaces representing its cargo capacity. The oval below each rocket card space is its fuel, which will be needed for the rocket to launch at all. 

Start of Round

At the start of a round, a player rolls three dice and sets them where all players can see.


On Your Turn

On your turn, you may do one of the following actions. You must have enough cubes available in your supply to take the chosen action.

Action: Load

Choose one die to represent the type of cargo you want to load. The other two dice represent which launch pads you may load with that cargo. All our cubes cubes must fit in the on empty spaces of the chosen cargo. 

With the results  ⚀ ⚁ ⚃, you can place ■ on launchpad 2 or 4; or ■ ■ on launchpad 1 or 4; or ■ ■ ■ ■ on launchpad 1 or 2.

Some rockets give immediate benefits when you load certain types of cargo.

Action: Fuel

Add together two of the dice and place that many cubes in the dotted area below the launch pad of your choice. There are no spatial requirements for fuel. Just pile up those cubes!

Action: Launch

Choose a rocket that has more fuel cubes than cargo cubes. That rocket launches! A launched rocket rewards whoever has most, 2nd most, and 3rd most cubes in cargo and/or fuel. Tied players get equal rewards. 

⚡: Gain 1 power in the rocket’s agency.

★: Increase the agency's prestige.

♥: Gain 1 popularity.

Replace the rocket card with a new one from the deck.

Midgame

Crossing milestones on the ♥ track give you points, plus ⚡ or ★ for you to assign to an agency of your choice.

Endgame

The game ends when the rocket deck runs out. Your endgame score is (⚡×★) in each agency where you have either, plus points from ♥.

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