Heist

Originally I wanted to call the game Riddlediff for giggles, but later changed the name to Heist, as you can tell from the crossing out.

I've been told that my newest game is like a lot like chess, pacman, checkers, among other things, but its wonderful simplicity leaves me wondering why it hasn't been thought of before. Introducing Heist, a board game inspired by the Animal Crossing Video game in Nintendoland.

 

The rules are as follows:

The board must look like this on start-up. Yellow goes in center, red pieces in the center of each edge, and the purple pieces going on top of the red pieces on the top and bottom The board is 9x9 squares.

Yellow wins by collecting all four reds. (A red is collected by either moving over, or on top of the piece)
Purple wins by capturing the yellow

Red pieces do not move

Purple must move 2 spaces and can move cylindrically around the board once every other turn (think pacman)

Yellow must move 3 spaces every turn, but cannot move cylindrically around the board

Yellow always goes first.

Development:

The origins of the game are humble if not a bit interesting. I was working a game making lab session during class with someone who wasn't particularly imaginative, nor contributing much and with time ticking away, I went into what I like to call "improv mode" and started making things without thinking about it. Since materials available to use the game were limited, this would prove especially challenging. I had paper, pens, and colored note cards.

 

The first thought that came to mind. "Just draw circles, start writing and hope for inspiration."

After this first idea got me nowhere, I decided to draw a grid and tear some of my colored note cards into tiny squares. The thought of Nintendoland's Sweet Day minigame came to mind and I hoped to create a game in which one player would be controlling multiple pieces simultaneously to capture another player. The game started out originally with 4 purple pieces, but this proved to be unbalanced, so after some play tests, this number was cut down to 2.

The orignal board was asymmetrical. This would be fixed later

The game was fun and challenging, I was very proud of my creation... that is... until my step bro and I tested it at home.

A game breaking bug, the purple could be used to form an impenetrable wall.

The player would get the first red piece and the two purples would go into this formation (the light purple indicates areas that the purple can move to ie places yellow can't land without being captured next round)

 The only way around was at the bottom or top, but as the yellow moves to such areas, the other player could do this.

Nothing to do but go back up and the cycle repeats.

I felt utterly defeated, this was a game breaking glitch and I had no idea how to fix it. I tried the idea of making it so that the yellow could move on top of a purple and stun that piece for one round, but the yellow became overpowered.

Even when cornered, the yellow could always find a way out and always win.

About to give up, I tried one last option, making the board bigger and poof, the  game was balanced again. I brought it to class the next day and it worked like a charm.