Board game design?

Question

I'm designing a board game, in which one of the obstacles is the secturity guards. They walk around and if they catch you, you're basically out of the game.

Can anybody think of a way of randomly moving these security guards around the board?

Answer 1

There is a game called Zombies!!! (for details check it out here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/23972) in which all the players are trying to save themselves (and if that means sacreficing another player that's fair game) until the helicopter arrives, while avoiding being caught by a Zombie.  The Zombies themselves are moved by the players at the end of their turn.  A six sided die is rolled to specify how many zombies to move, and each zombie can be moved one square (zombies are slow).  Naturally zombies tend to move away from your character and towards your opponents on your turn and vice versa on others turns, perfectly consistent for the brain dead undead..  A limiting factor is that only one zombie can occupy one square (although any number of players can occupy that square), and so zombie congestion and a low die roll can limit your ability to stay safe.  The rules for the game are posted here:  http://www.twilightcreationsinc.com/zomb...

Hope this helps.  Good luck on your game.  Have you designed any other games?

Answer 2

I think you may get a better result if you combine McGeddon's two suggestions.

You should have one or more patrol tracks (since that's what security guards are supposed to do - PATROL).  This would be a set of spaces that the guards are limited to when they're not catching one of your players.

You also should have a 'guard die' which is a die you would roll to move one of the guards.  Let's say that there are four security guards - two on each of two patrol tracks (which can intersect so that you can move the guards along either path).  At the end of EACH PLAYER'S TURN, that player rolls the guard die and chooses ONE guard to move that many spaces along the patrol track.

This would effectively allow you to move the guards without making you move them away from your player every turn (since presumably, every player would move the guards into an ineffective position so as not to get caught, thereby invalidating their purpose).

You may have cards that are drawn, I don't know how your game is structured, but you could have the cards do things that affect the guards ability to see and/or catch you and your opponents, such as:

-turn a guard around so he's moving in the opposite direction on the patrol track,

-make yourself unable to be seen or heard for one turn (through disguise or stealth, I'm not presuming that you have supernatural abilities in this game)

-double a guard's die roll for one turn

-make one or more of the guards take a coffee break

-make one of your opponents "noisy" so that they are detected more easily by the guards.

Also, I don't know whether the guards are able to "see" the players' pieces, but you may want to include line of sight, where a guard will leave the patrol track if you are within "view" of it, and give chase.  It depends on what the game's definition of 'caught' is.

You may also then include cards that might allow you to 'lose' the guard who's chasing you so that you can go back to whatever the game objective is (which would immediately return the guard to a patrol track, or something).

The result would be a system of guards (like circling sharks) that would force a player to 'wait' or change course to avoid them if they are in their path.  If there are other 'ticking clocks' in the game (i.e.- a time limit before something makes the game more difficult or the player flat-out loses the game), it might make the player debate whether to chance an opponent's guard die roll against whether they need to move forward and possibly get caught.

The thing that would exert an element of control would be the patrol track.  It would make players unable to force the guards away unnaturally, and can even sometimes force them into a difficult situation.

Without more specific parameters for your game, it would be difficult to suggest more without being wildly varied in my suggestions or incredibly vague.

I hope this helped.

Answer 3

It's hard to know what to suggest without knowing how the rest of the game works, but maybe you could have a "patrol track" that the guards move along, rolling a die each round to see how far they get?

Alternatively, you could have the guards controlled by the players - on your turn, you take your own move, and then get to move one of the security guards (in a way that would frustrate the efforts of your opponents). It'd probably need a rule to stop people moving guards away from their own pieces - perhaps you'd always have to move the guard who was furthest away from your character, or had to skip guard movement if a guard could see you.

Answer 4

i also would recommend letting the players in turn move the guards if that's possible, works nice with supergang at least :D