AnacletoDuplito108: Session Report: Coin Grid (Paper Prototype)

Coin Grid

What is Coin Grid? Well I could tell you it is this magical technological environment where all you do is travel, jump on creatures, look for mushrooms, and collect coins, but then I would be lying to you (and possibly receive a lawsuit). No, Coin Grid is just this simple quick paced board game that I created that has some resemblance to checkers with a casino touch. In other words, when you look at the game, it looks like checkers with dice and money. If you are interested in playing this game, you can check out the rules by clicking on this link (game rules).

The first phase of Pirates Vs. Ninjas (Discontinued)

Although the game may be simple, it wasn't the first thing that came to my mind when trying to create a board game. My first idea was to create this card game with a Pirates Vs. Ninjas theme, but later on seemed more like Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon. I decided to scratch the game because it was difficult to implement what I wanted it to become and realized the whole Pirates Vs. Ninjas theme didn't fit in. So as you can see on the pictures below, the fake gold coins that I was going to use for the Pirates Vs. Ninjas game was later used for this game.

The first play session of Coin Grid

During the first play session, after scraping the whole card game idea and having only about half an hour left of class time to come up with a quick board game prototype, I decided to create a game like checkers. With the help of Bowen Chan, we created Coin Grid. We established the basic rules and mechanics of the game. We both decided that the game board should be a grid and the coins can move in many directions like a Queen Chess piece. The objective of the game is simple, capture as many coins from the opposing player and whoever has no more coins to move is declared the loser. To make the game interesting, we kept the idea of battling coins (when a coin from each player meet on the same square space) by rolling dices and whoever had the higher number won the other player's coin. The double stack feature was also implemented to make battling more interesting and to add some sort of strategy. The double stack coins allowed the player to roll two dice when attacking other players, giving it a huge advantage at times. There were times when I would roll a two and a one and lose to the opposing player's five. Talk about tough luck, but that is how the game goes and still allows players with the disadvantage a chance for the upset.

Second play session of Coin Grid

In the second play session, I was able to tune the game for improvement and balance. One of the main rules that I changed was the requirement to have the player roll a four or greater to be able to cross the middle of the game board as to be fair. This obstacle kept the game from being too easy for players to simply end up at the opposing player's territory, where they could stack a coin on top of their coin for double damage. I also added more rows to have more space in between the middle of the game board and the opposing player's territory. During this play session, I felt the game ended too fast and I needed to make the game last longer.

The third play session, which was played with my family members, helped me put in a few tweaks to the game rules to make it more balance and to extend the game-play. These minor tweaks included adding a dead coin reward, more columns, more coins, and adding more design to the game board (because let's face it, the game board I had shown isn't going to win any awards or compliments). I added the dead coin feature because I wanted to reward players for having their coin(s) reach the end of the other side of the game board just like checkers. Since I already had the double stack feature implemented, I figure I would have the player gain a new special coin that would be placed on their territory. I would also add the feature of having the dead coins receive half damage as to make them even more special. Also, instead of having double stack coins to receive half damage anywhere on the board, I decided that this specific feature will only be in effect if the double stack coin was in the player's own territory as to make it fair since it can deal double damage.

The third play session of Coin Grid

As you can see from the picture above, my final design of the game board makes it look less bland. Sure I could have added more colors and probably ask myself why did I put x's on row five or yellow stars on row six. Short answer, time was the reason why my game board will probably be thrown in the recycle bin by mistake. Of course, the game board is pretty big, but I have created a smaller and portable version that anyone can take and play shown below.