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E-Mail: ericp[AT]lariennalibrary.com


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Adventures of Rajo Lopez, The

Page: GameIdea.GameIdea201012210401PM - Last Modified : Sun, 26 Jan 20 - 1940 Visits
How much do you like this idea?

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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.

Status: CLOSED

  • Essentially a multiplayer game
  • Must be done as a board game due to the social aspect
  • Partial idea of the mechanics, but still searching to be done
  • Rules does not fit on a page for multi player game

Progress: Partially Designed
Priority: High
Number of players: 2 - 8 players
Expected Play time: 60 - 90 minutes

Description

Join of the crew of captain Rajo Lopez, a pirate swashblucker, who sails the seas for adventure. Many challenges and treasures awaits on his path, are you willing to take the risks?

Objective

This is a cooperative game where each player play a crew member of the ship while one player play as captain Rajo Lopez. The captain has a quest he wants to fulfill and he must choose the best past to reach the destination. During the voyage, many encounter will test the skill of the crew. If players manage to reach the destination and fulfill the quest they win.

Inspiration

"Battlestar Galactica" board game is a good source of inspiration to the ship movement and travel location cards selected by the captain. As for the theme, "The carrabean pirates" movies are also a good source of inspiration.

Priority Evaluation

Theme vs Mechanics: Theme based game. Many mechanics ideas are possible.
Video vs Board Game: Board game is a necessity since a lot of social interaction.
Single vs Multi player: Multi Player game essential due to the social interactions.
Rating = 4/12

Digitizability

+ No Cartography: There is no maps, probably only a list of destinations
? Scripting: Again, not sure of the presence of script for unique stuff.

Mechanics

There will be a travel deck like in Battle star where Rajo will determine the next location. If the crew and the ship is in good condition, he could try visiting more risky locations, else he might want to play safe. Each location have a series of action that can be done. If its a city, you will be able to repair ship and get new equipment. Else you can land on a mysterious island and send a search party.

Moving to a location will spawn encounters which can bring anything from Pirates, Imperial navy to sea monsters. The crew must work together to overcome these obstcles. I am not sure yet how this will be resolved and one I idea I have is that they could be resolved with a real time mechanic to reflect the lack of time you would have to think if you were on the ship.

Problems that prevent development

Besides the encounter resolution which I have absolutely no idea to resolve, the game ideas is not enough mature to have encountered any problems yet.

News, changes and updates

March 17th, 2013: I had an interesting idea of resolving ship challenge with a real time mechanic a bit like space cadet. It would be a 1 or 2 minute challenge where players play cards and assign crew to various parts of the ship in order to over come the challenge. Meanwhile the captain yell out orders and give feedback on the progress of the challenge while planning his maneuver card. When the time has passed, the crew check if the challenge is passed or failed. I have little real time game in design and I think this mechanic will give the sensation of really beign on a ship. Unless I change the other mechanics, only that part of the game will be real time, the rest of the planning is turn based.

If I want a 100% real time game, I could simply make a series of challenge on cards that players need to face with maybe a 1-2 minute timer between challenges to recover cards and take a rest. That could also be an interesting and be a simpler concept but there will not really be any resource management which can be fine. It avoid having 2 separate games in one.

Development Notes

DateTypeDescription
25-jan-2020IdeaAnother idea is to use the "Captain's log" pen and paper game idea. Making it a solo game instead of coop
17-jun-2016IdeaI discovered a game called "Deep Space D-6" which is a dice game where you control a ship and try to survive various threath. Now this dice system could make this game playable as solitaire. It's really not the same feel, but it could make the game playable.
7-Feb-2014IdeaRajo would assign order to players, an in order to do so, I was thinking in using a mechanic as Mu, where players could reveal 2 cards from their hand to give an idea of their hand to others. Then rajo assign orders and the encounter could be resolved with some sort of real time mechanic to simulate tension and quick reaction on the ship.
7-Feb-2014IdeaI forgot to transcribe this, but the board could be a monopoly style board where you move around. The center of the board has a layout of the ship ans players playing the crew would place workers or cards on the baord, or move around the ship.

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Prototype Pictures

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News, changes and updates

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