A board game designer's web site
Copyright Eric Pietrocupo
E-Mail: ericp[AT]lariennalibrary.com
Pawn King, The
How much do you like this idea?
| ||
| Very Good | (10/10) | The game is very interesting, make it as soon as possible. |
| Good | (8/10) | Great idea but some modifications are required. |
| Fair | (6/10) | Interesting but a lot of things are missing. |
| Bad | (4/10) | Would need to completely redesign the idea in order to work. |
| Very Bad | (2/10) | It will never be interesting, abandon the idea. |
| Already Exist | (0/10) | Do not waste time on this game idea. |
Not rated yet
Status: CLOSED
- Makes more sense thematically to be a multiplayer game
- Not sure if could redesign the game to make rules fit on a page.
- Still need to do some mechanics research
Status: Raw Idea
Priority: Low
Number of players: 2 - 5 players
Expected Play time: 30 - 60 minutes
Description
Each player is a family of nobles that manipulate the king to do want they want. Eventually, one of the family would overthrown the king.
Objective
This game consist in reusing a mechanic I designed for Fallen Kingdoms which was too complicated an made a game by itself. The idea is that the king of a kingdom is a complete puppet and each family can use the influence they can use to make the king do what they want to do. Eventually, a family would get so much influence that they are going to be able to take the throne.
Inspiration
I would say that Louis XIV had some influence on the design because both games consist of placing influence markers on certain areas to get some benefits. Still the resolution is much more different.
Priority Evaluation
Theme vs Mechanics: This game is based on a mechanic, but I had an hard time to attach anything to it.
Video vs Board Game: This game has no platform restriction
Single vs Multi player: This game could be designed as a single player game. It would be more like a puzzle. A multiplayer version could be harder to scale with different nb of players.
Rating = 6/12
Digitizability
+ No Cartography: There should not be any maps in thie game.
? Scripting: Scripts could be required, it depends which mechanics I end up using and in which quantity.
Mechanics
The central part of the game will be the influence board where everything can be done. There will be a small map where player can place their pawn to indicate which family controls which territory. Each family might also have a personal sheet to keep trans of various stats like prestige, honor, favors, etc.
In my fallen kingdoms history of game development, I have described in detailed much more how the influence board would work.
Problems that prevent development
I don't have a prototype yet, I think the biggest problem so far is I need to find things that could get influenced. For example, right now, the actions people are fighting for could be used to conquer territories or increase their influence level (the number of pawns they have and the number they can place in 1 turn).
The problem is that there are now few things to influence. There are currently 9 actions and some actions influence the influence board itself. I might need to add 1 or 2 other element like trade, resource or culture to make sure there is enough things that could be influenced by the main board.
News, changes and updates
March, 15th 2012: I recently have an idea of pushing even further the analogy with chess. The idea is that you would use regular chess pieces with the game. Probably, players will also player components of their own matching their color, but the influence spent would trigger actions that would make the chess piece move.
For example, the pieces could be used to mark various things:
- Rook: Fortification locations
- Knight: Army location
- Bishop: Religious influence
- King: Status marker, or location
- Queen: Status marker, action selection, or location
- Pawn: Keep track of a majority.
As for the black and white, either the color has no influence, or either the black are rebels, units out of control, etc. The best would be to only use 1 set of piece, so there is not that much pieces available in 1 chess game.
Prototype Pictures
First prototype rapidly improvised.
Development Log
| Date | Type | Description |
| 13-jan-2019 | Idea | After playing louis XIV after many years, I though that this game could not only get some inspiration from it, but also could be converted as a 2 player game. It might be a 2 player competitive game with external threat like in shadows over camelot. The goal would be to take control in various aspects of the kingdom while keeping the kingdom alive. |
| 13-jan-2019 | Idea | A mechanic that I think I already design but state here as a reminder, is that players could make successive influence bid. But each additional bid must at least be 1 higher than the previous bid. Which could lead to a dynamic where players can bid low to have a change to place bid multiple times, thus increasing the number of times the action is performed. Or bid high, to prevent opponent from using it. |
| 27-jun-2016 | Idea | I like the idea of using chess pieces for another game. An idea would be to make a 2 player worker placement game using chess piece. Possibly pieces will have various powers independently of the location they are placed. For example, knight could fight and remove another worker in the same area. Some pieces like the bishop could get their benefits what ever they are placed. The piece type should not influence where it can be placed. As for the theme, not sure if they are both rival kingdoms, or simply part of the same kingdom. |
| 05-aug-2012 | Idea | Maybe there could be a common deck of cards like in San Juan, and player play these even cards to influence the movement of the pieces on the board in order to make them win prestige points. |
| 26-mar-2012 | Playtest | After the initial improvised play test, there is a few interesting mechanics but in general a lot of work is required. I fear that the chess piece might be too restrictive, but I still find the restriction interesting. |
| 15-mar-2012 | Idea | I had the idea of pushing the analogy to chess even further by using chess pieces as the main components of the game. It might not be the only component, but maybe player actions can manupulate the chess piece on the board. |
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