Skip to main content

A Glimmer & A Game

Bit of a stretch, eh?
Well, my last post came two days before being laid off from my cushy 9-5 job.  I immediately had to change gears and start looking for a job.  I've since been working multiple jobs to cover rent, bills, loans, etc.  BLAH BLAH SOB STORY, I've been getting by alright, and I've also been as busy with theatre stuff as ever (perhaps even more so) so in general, I haven't had time at a desk to sit and update this.  But I've certainly still been turning the gears; in fact, my primary place of employment right now is the fabulous Cat n Mouse Game Store, here in Chicago.  I was incredibly lucky to get the job, especially so soon after being laid off, and it's meant a great grounding in all things to do with games, puzzles and toys.  Unfortunately, it's not a desk job, and I spend my time actually working in the store rather than whiling away on the computer (couldn't anyway, the computer's a bit of a relic).
So anyway, I've been cogitating on game design, just not blogging about it.  In fact, I've got a few designs to share with you.
For today (since it is a special, if not necessarily meaningful, day) I've got a new take on an old classic, themed for the "holiday".

The Sweet Game

Valencala! Or ManVala.  Whatever you'd like to call it.
Components:
- Standard Mancala/Kalah/Oware Board with two rows of six wells, and a well for each player at the end.
- One bag of small candies that Player 1 loves and Player 2 does not.  At least 36 candies.
- One bag of small candies that Player 2 loves and Player 1 does not.  At least 36 candies.

Setup:
- Combine the two bags of candy.
- Mix thoroughly.
- Seed the board: Place three randomly selected candies in each of the twelve small wells.

Gameplay:
The game is a co-operative, rather than competitive, version of Mancala, where the players are trying to use Mancala well-moving rules to separate the candies by preference into each player's well.
- On  each player's turn, that player takes all the candies from one of the smaller wells and moves clockwise, leaving one candy in each well until there are no more.
- If the last candy is deposited in one of the larger Player wells, the player whose turn it was goes again.
- The game ends when all of the candies have been played into the two larger Player wells.
- Tally the number of Player 1's candies that are in Player 2's well, and add that to the number of Player 2's candies that are in Player 2's well.  That is your final score.  Try for the lowest score.

Notes:
- You can always choose which kind of candy to leave in which well.
-  Because this game is co-op, it should theoretically be solvable.  However, the random seeding of the candies allows for replayability, and overly cautious play will grow boring and stale.  Get together with your honey and just try to have fun!



Gross, isn't it? Ah well, it's just a simple game.  Don't let it bother you.  Just go out and have a good night, however you want to.
More game design to come.
Slan!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

TTRPG Tuesday: Three Means Of Resolving

Hi it’s another TTRPG Tuesday! First of the year.  Let’s get right into it. Saw a challenge on Twitter to make some resolution mechanics.  I can do those! Here we go: Hand to Hand The player performing the action and the person running the game or otherwise opposing the action both put their dominant fists toward one another, bounce them three times to get a rhythm, and reveal a number with their fingers, 0-5.  Sum the two numbers, and if the number is greater than 5, subtract six, so that the final number is always between 0 and 5.  On a 0, the action fails catastrophically, on a 1-2 it fails, 3-4 it succeeds, on a 5 it succeeds spectacularly.  The player taking the action starts the game with all five fingers up on their non-dominant hand; after an attempt, they may lower fingers on that hand to add to the sum of the attempt. Ex. Alice attempts to seduce Cat’s character over to the coup conspirators.  They put their dominant hands together (right for Alice, left for Cat) and thro

TTRPG Tuesday: Beliefs as Roles

  Hello from high above the Rockies, as I make my way back to Chicago from Big Bad Con 2023.     This was my first con in five years, and only my second ever.     I had a better time at it than I did at GenCon, which I understand derives largely from this being an industry con vs a consumer show.     I made a modest number of purchases but it was easy to stick to the constraints of my limited luggage space, which was fine; shopping and new releases were not the attraction here.     Gaming, panels, and (as I soon learned) networking were. This con was certainly less overwhelming and I think my expectations were clearer and my FOMO much lighter, but I’ll readily admit that I had a lot to learn.    I misunderstood or made mistakes regarding almost every event I signed up for, including happy accidents like sitting in on the wrong panel only to learn a ton, or expecting a mending workshop to be about fixing one’s writing when the application was rather more literal, which was a fascinat

TTRPG Tuesday: Minimum Viable Product for WWDW?

Hello and welcome back to TTRPG Tuesday! I’ve put together a barebones introductory document for We Won, Didn’t We? and, well, I think it speaks for itself.  Check it out HERE ! This introduces the skeleton of the game, as well as walking through the steps; I’d say next up is a rudimentary character sheet, and maybe I can bring this to a Playtest Zero session and see what folks think of character creation within one of the starting Bulbs.  I’ve opened the doc up for comments, so if you have thoughts dear reader, fire away.  Brain fried, go read the doc, til next time!