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Mechanic Monday: Out of Mutana

Just did a post yesterday, so let’s cut the chatter and get back on schedule with a Mechanic Monday.

Whole Combinations of Pieces as Win Condition

In GREEM, the board begins with a (randomized?) setup of neutral pieces, each of which can move along one axis - North-South, East-West, NE-SW, or NW-SE.  On their turn, a player can move either a piece or a stack.  In the first instance, the player can claim a neutral piece and move it in the direction that the piece allows.  If the piece lands on a neutral or friendly piece, stack the pieces - the new stack can move along any axis that any of its composite pieces could move along.  A player may also use their turn to move a stack, but may not move it onto or past an opposing piece or Stack, and may not move it onto a piece (or a stack containing a piece) that it already contains.  Once a player creates a stack with all four types of piece, the stack is removed from the board and added to the player’s scoring area.  The game ends once a player has scored three stacks.

I love mutate.  Love it.  I didn’t understand how the mechanic worked at first so I could not figure out the blue/black premade deck in Arena that utilized it, but once I saw it in action, leveraged against me, I was instantly enamored of it.  The risk inherent of consolidating your forces, balanced against layered-on micro engines - chef’s kiss.  I have a quiet suspicion that Mutate has been on the design doc for a long while, as it reminds me strongly of failed 2000s WotC transparent hex card game, Hecatomb.  Anyway, here I’ve mapped it onto the most basic of abstracts, and for the purposes of simplicity I’m picturing a square board, but this could scale up in complexity and still be quite interesting.  And despite Hecatomb’s failure, I still think it could work as like a standalone card game, particularly with the recent interest in transparent cards.

Anyway, that’s enough for today, I’ve work work and playwriting to do.  Be safe, wear a mask, punch fascists!

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