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[sonicblastoise]

hi everybody, this is my first stab at presenting a game design idea. i don't have a 30 page design document, nor a witty one-liner with which to populate those pages with. but here's my idea anyway.

There's an old SNES import title that never made it to the states called "Dynami Tracer" (Dynamite Racer). It's a prototype of games like Super Mario Party, where players basically traverse a board-game style map and compete with other players to get to the finish. along the way you play minigames, overcome hazards, and gain loot, which adds to your overall score. It was an interesting game, but i couldn't actually get into it due to it being in japanese. without access to any .IPS files at the time, i was a bit sad i had to put it away.

(i realize the above story may be slightly self-incrminating. please disregard if you are morally inclined to condemn me.)

anyway, the idea i had was something along those lines. I call it an "asynchronous simultaneous turn-based board game racer". the idea is players play at more or less their own pace, traversing the map in whatever way they choose, and complete the game. At the end of the game, their performance is calculated based on customized goals/parameters, and the winner is determined.

The number of options available for tweaking would be things like # of max players, players able to join game in progress, goal/point objectives, time between moves before a player is disqualified, # of turns, type of obstacle/minigame, combined board or individual board, etc.

i think it could be a fun, dynamic game that allows a lot of people to participate at once, but not be necessarily restrained by time or place, but could still include some dynamic and high-quality gameplay that isn't restrained by a particular design.

any thoughts? also, i'm not a developer, so it's not my intention to go out and program this game, but if anyone is a dev or designer and is interested in fleshing this out, let me know

i tried looking for some gameplay on youtube to no avail. i'll uplod some if i can get my hands on a copy.

[tesselode]

It seems like players could pretty much cheat by setting a really easy goal for themselves, but if the system was designed well, it would prevent that. This could be a nice design for casual games in general. I'm not sure why you're pairing it with a Mario Party-style game.

[Richard Kain]

Basically, you are describing a board game where each individual player is constantly playing, as opposed to taking "turns."

The benefit of this model is that the pace of the game would be much faster than traditional boardgames, and involve considerably less downtime. The downside is that this limits player observation and interaction. Part of traditional boardgames is the suspense of seeing how the other players will fare on their turn.

But of course, good game designers look for ways to turn potential difficulties into opportunities. I'm thinking a board game that involves various branching, intersecting paths.

I'm also seeing "battle" squares at each intersection. Any player that reaches a battle square would be required to play a minigame. Any other player that reaches that same square while a minigame is in progress would interrupt the minigame, and initiate a "challenge" minigame between both players. You could even integrate a gamble option where each player has the choice of adding more in-game currency to the ante if they are confident in winning. Whoever wins gets the pot, and gets to choose which path they want to take from the battle square. The loser is forced to take whichever path that the winner declined.

I'm also thinking that instead of rolling dice, the number of spaces each character moves is determined by whatever quick minigame they play when they land on a tile. The more successful they are at the minigame, the more spaces they move. If they want to slow down their progress, they have the option of intentionally doing poorly.

[sonicblastoise]

Yes! These are great ideas. Thank you Rich 

Some of the ideas are actually implemented in "Dynami Tracer". I wish I could get my hands on a copy to use as a reference.

I'm still working on this idea in my spare time, so I apologize for any lack of responses or any extra info on my part.

I like this idea a lot, and I don't really see it in the landscape anymore. Hopefully I can get it off the ground soon