Very clever!
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Go Directly To Jail (Do not pass go, do not collect $200)'s itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Mechanics | #5 | 3.706 | 3.706 |
Quality of Writing | #7 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
Overall | #8 | 3.691 | 3.691 |
Use of Theme | #12 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
Overall Appearance | #15 | 3.471 | 3.471 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Love the game! super creative, and honestly is my new preferred thing to do with a monopoly board. Makes me wonder what else people could design with existing board games.
Just read through your game and very nicely done! I'm in the process of making a blog. One of the big reasons was I want to take board games (components and light narratives) and make them into RPGs. So I'm glad there are other folks out there who are thinking similarly. And awesome job for finishing it in 48 hours!
Here are some thoughts and reactions I had:
- Everything about your theme is great! Love the crime family angle and allows players to really create a fully fleshed out character. The Family Phase is well done and nice random tables. Your classes / stats are nice and thematically work.
- Your alternating narrator is a pretty neat idea! It's a nice way to divide up the GM responsibility. You could even open this up for more players (the person on your right is your narrator).
- The intro didn't let me know that they were criminals immediately. At first I thought the boss was just... well a normal boss
- Great that you acknowledge all the versions of Monopoly! I think you should encourage people to bring in whatever version they are playing into the narrative (could make it a bit more jokey).
- I was surprised that you didn't use the Property Cards! I was waiting for it. I also wanted to see more use of the board. They could go either clockwise or counter (do they spend more time prepping or do they rescue the family member first). But great use of the other components! I especially liked the money = Assets. And the green houses for blockers.
- There were a few times where the ordering of things had me confused. All the ideas are there (once I double checked)! For example, we learn about Blockers on pg 3 and figure out how to leave them on pg 6.
- All in all, great job! And way to chase down an idea!
Thanks!
I was wracking my brain to come up with a way to use the property cards effectively, but everything I tried felt like it was better used as part of a different system. Originally I had them be the assets, or blockers, or "boosters" which kind-of acted like the opposite of blockers. All of them felt awkward and unwieldy.
I thought about letting players move backwards, but I wanted to encourage the feeling that they are running out of time. You have to get to the end as fast as possible, and it's a race against the building threat clock. When the game feels like that, there is no incentive for moving backwards.
I'm definitely interested in reading this blog of yours, you should send me a link when you get it up!
I like the idea of using a Monopoly board. If I may ask, what inspired you to use it? The rules are pretty clear. Maybe the rulebook could use some more art. Overall, I'll surely try it when I can.
There was a post on reddit last week challenging people to come up with a game that you could play if you were stuck at a house and you only had a Monopoly board.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/d94ges/challenge_a_rpg_with_a_monopoly_set/
That was the initial inspiration, and it only made sense to make a game about prison break when I saw the jam theme.
I agree that I would have liked more art, but c’est la vie. I was running short on time to get the rules published and I’d rather have a functioning game than some nice art.
Thanks for the comments!
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