[Roger Meloche]

I am fairly new to game design and to modern board games in general. I have a pitch for a game that I haven’t got the ability to design at this point, but it sure would be cool if somebody did. I just thought I’d throw it out there for somebody to catch if they want.

Nightmare!

This will be a cooperative deck builder where players try to build up their skills during the day, so they can use them at night to escape from the nightmare!

The game will consist of a deck of cards; each card having a “Dream” action and a “Wake” action as well as a point value. Each turn will have two phases, a day phase where players acquire cards to be used for their “Wake” powers, and a “Dream” phase where the nightmare deck is revealed a card at a time. The object of the game will be for all the players to wake up before the nightmare deck runs out, trapping the players forever in the nightmare.

Each round, a number of cards are dealt into a stack. They are revealed, one at a time, and the players must decide to try to capture each card or throw away less useful cards to let them accumulate in the ever growing “Nightmare” deck.

The Wake phase will be similar to a trick taking game, where players have to combine their point values to exceed the values of the cards they need to capture. Players must bear in mind, the Wake vs Dream powers of each card as well as how they will interact and enhance each other. The players only have a limited number of point value cards so they must be careful how they are used. After the cards are played, the captured tricks can be distributed between the players and the remaining cards go into the nightmare deck which is shuffled.

In the Nightmare phase, the cards are revealed one at a time from the nightmare deck. The “Dream” cards will be trying to force the players into a deeper sleep, while the “Wake” cards are played to try and wake the players up. Once one player is awake, they can help wake up their teammates more easily. Every player must wake up before the nightmare runs its course or it is game over.

I know that ideas are cheap and easy to come by, but this one seemed especially interesting. It’s up for grabs if anybody wants to catch this wild pitch and run with it.

Good Luck – Roger M