Collapsi Devlog - Day 4: Bigger Board and Item Cards

Day four of my Collapsi Jam has been a success!  Not only did I test a 7x7 game with my wife, but I also started testing some ideas for solo play.  I will have a separate post for that in time.  For this post, I am going to focus on the 7x7 two player game.  It included the following rules:

• 7x7 grid that included A-5 x 8, 6 of clubs, spades, and diamonds x 2, 1 king card, and 2 Jokers.
• The king is a dud card that begins the game collapsed.
• Each 6 has a special ability that can be used as soon as a player lands on the card.
  • If a player does not use the item ability, they lose it.
  • Each ability can be used on a card no more than 6 spaces away orthogonally
    • Clubs are bombs that collapse a card
    • Spades are shovels that dig a collapsed card back to the faceup side
    • Diamonds are tunnels that allow you to move to another card

This proved to be a very fun iteration!  The game did last longer, but it didn’t feel like it was dragged out.  The item cards were also fun to use.  I’m not sure what my opponent was thinking during gameplay, but my strategy was to start creating a ring around the perimeter of the board.  I wanted to block off the edges but also give myself a way out if I needed to take it.  My goal was to back my opponent into a corner which I did!  I was able to close in the board and escape out the back by using the wrap around feature of the game.  This left my opponent in the center of the board while I was free to roam in the bottom row.  The bottom row was also stacked with aces, so I just moved one space at a time while my opponent had nothing but 2’s and 3’s to pick from without enough spaces to actually complete the move.  It all worked very well and the win felt satisfying.  Also, the look on my opponent’s face when she realized she lost was so sweet.  

I am now at the point where I really need to fine tune the gameplay.  Some questions I have are:

• Do I need designated starting spaces, or can I replace them with more number cards?
  • What if I replace those with number cards and let the player choose which card they want to start on?
• How can I structure the deck so I do not need a single “dud” card? 
• Is there a different board structure that could work? 
• What if I add more items?

If I do a proprietary deck, I can put items on any cards I want.  It doesn’t have to be the 6’s.  I could also do any number distribution that I want.  What would that deck look like?  To keep things within the scope of this jam, I am going to continue using a deck of playing cards.  Once I am completely content with basic gameplay, I will start working with proprietary design.

Tomorrow's actionable items will be to play with the deck structure to get rid of the dud card.  Maybe add a single 7.  We need to play again with the same rule set from tonight.  I also want to do some more solo test runs on my own.