Nice Games Jam: "Eddies"

Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

The clubhouse is caffeinated and ready to jam, game jam that is.

The clubhouse is giving a prompt where air movement is the main mechanism of action and they create a physical game for a tabletop (in the style of 'Hungry Hungry Hippos'). The notoriously unpredictable 'Eddies' of air movement gives this game it's name. The main challenge for the team - a more sanitary air blower mechanism than drinking straws: a tiny bellows, small whoopie cushions, slide whistles, or party noisemakers?

Prompt

"Create a game where the main mechanics are fans and or leaf blowers."

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

2 - 8

Materials

Blowing mechanisms - one per player (drinking straw in playtest)

A bunch of small peices of junk

A container for the small peices of junk

Playing feild (box, 8 sided)

Rule Card Deck

Setup

This is a game about some young teenagers who find some leaf blowers in their (octagonal) cul-du-sac and make a game with them.

Each player will select a side of the playing field (the box) as their home territory. The goal of the game is to have the least amount of junk (points-wise) fall off of your side of the field.

Rule Cards:

• Separate the Rule cards into the three categories: Puff Variants, Point Variants, and Zone Variants. Shuffle the cards from each category, and pull three of each category to start each of the three rounds.Cards rule examples
  • Puff: Each player has 3 puffs per turn
  • Point: Each black item is worth +1 point, all other items are worth -1 point
  • Zone: The windy end of your blowing mechanism may not be placed within zones 1+2 of the playing field
• Shuffle the remaining rules cards from three categories together.
• From the combined deck, deal 4 cards to each player.
• The player may look at their hand of cards

Place Junk (perform at the start of each round):

• Gather some junk and place it in a container. Typically dice and pieces from other games will make up the majority of the junk, but this may also be dodads from your junk drawer like golf pencils, nails and screws, magnets etc.
• At the beginning of each round a different player will grab a handful of junk from the container and place it in the center of the 8-sided playing area.The junk placer may not arrange the junk when placing it down. Any junk that falls off of the playing field will be returned to the container of junk.

Rules

After the junk is placed the rule for each category is revealed, by flipping over the top rule card from each of the three piles: Puff, Point, and Zone. The displayed rules are now in effect.

The player who placed the junk will go first.

Each player turn has three phases:

1. The play may put a rule card from their hand into play by stacking it on top of the exsisting rule for the category which it belongs to (puff, point, or zone). That rule is now in effect and the rule that was covered up is no longer in effect.

2. The player uses their "leaf blower" to puff the objects in on the playing field the number of times indicated by the Puff rule. They must follow any Zone rules in effect.

3. The player's turn is scored according to the rule cards in effect. The player draws back up to 4 cards in their hand.

The round ends when each player has had 5 turns.

New junk is placed in the center of the playing field, new rule cards are revealed and the next round starts.

The object of the game is to have the least scoring junk blown off your edge of the playing field. Highest scoring player (usually player closest to 0 wins), as most junk is worth negative points.