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Who isn’t dying to play a game called Shipping Goods right? Naming games is something that I find really difficult. Luckily most games have a working title and then something emerges once the game experience can be fully realised. Well, we can all hope that is the case and if not that what all you folk are for! After all, this is about community participation!
Shipping Goods was another game that is being pulled of the scrap heap, and much like Outriggers (https://bgdlplus.com/the-process-the-first-idea-outriggers/) came springing back into mind while listening to another one of Gabe Barrett’s podcasts. This time I believe I was listening to optimising game design time with Trevor Laforce.
This was of my very first game ideas, but due to a combination of lack of experience and big ideas, it crashed and burned while making the prototype and put in the too-hard basket. I bailed out because the prototype I made didn’t work. After all, it required me to fit together Tetris pieces and I made crap ones. Now with more experience and ideas, I have redesigned it to perhaps tackle again:
I present Shipping Goods:
Theme: Pirates time high-seas trading
Story: Merchants competing to ship the most good and build a shipping empire
Mechanics: Timed puzzle, economics
Win Condition: Most money
Game Play: There are 4 Phases to each round
Phase 1: Buying goods. Players buy goods to stock their ship with. Goods are Tetris shaped pieces. The price to buy is based on a deck of cards that states the price for each resource. There is a sell deck that states how much each is worth when selling. A card is drawn at the beginning of the round at each deck to set the market. The sell deck cards are almost always higher than the buy deck.
Phase 2: Players organize their goods on the ship. They have 30seconds/1 minute to organize goods. Bonuses for the way you stack your deck? Any goods that don’t fit perfectly on the boat can’t be shipped.
Phase 3: Sail to the market and sell goods.
Phase 4: Upgrade your ship. Buy more ships to be able to ship more goods.
Extra Idea:
Bonus goals for certain arrangements of goods.
Goods are in bags (one bag for each good) so it’s a blind draw for the shape you need for your puzzle
Different ships can have different abilities/layouts
An event deck (pirates attack, rough seas) cause unique challenges
Play as a captain – each captain has a special power.
