Building Economies - Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design - page 207

player's technology level on a piece of paper. A two-player game of Lunar Colony
should take 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

Throughout this section, we place more emphasis on human play testing than on
simulating the game in the Machinations tool, although we still use Machinations
diagrams to explain the game's economy. Simulations can complement, but never
replace, human play testing.

NOTE We designed
Lunar Colony as a
tabletop game made
from simple materi-
als. This way, you can
both play and extend
it easily. Throughout
this section, you will
find design challenges
that suggest direc-
tions for you to explore.
We encourage you to
explore these ideas but
also any other inter-
esting mechanics you
might think of.

Rules (First Prototype)
In Lunar Colony each player develops a research colony on the moon. The players
compete for ore and ice, trying to build as many stations as possible. To do this, they
must build an infrastructure, research new technologies, and manage their economy.

Game maTeriaL
To play this game, you will need the following:

n One playing card (used to measure distances).

n One six-sided die.

n At least 10 white tokens per player to represent ice.

n At least 10 black tokens per player to represent ore.

n At least 20 green tokens to represent energy points.

n About 20 tokens, all of the same color, to represent one player's stations, and 20
more of a different color for each additional player. You need as many different col-
ors as there are players. (Most poker chip sets include blue and red chips, suitable for
two-player games.)

n A flat playing surface.

seTUP
To set up the game, the players must first create a playing area. (Like Civilization and
SimCity , Lunar Colony starts with a “randomly generated” map.) Use the following
procedure for this first prototype of the game:

n For each player in the game, set aside 10 ice tokens and 10 ore tokens. Create a
single pile for all ice tokens and a single pile for all ore tokens. More may be needed
during play, so keep them accessible too.

n The players take turns setting up the playing area. The first player starts the setup
by rolling a die. If he rolls a 1, 2, 3, or 4, he takes that many ore tokens from the
ore pile and places them anywhere on the playing surface in a single stack to form
an ore lode . If he rolls a 5 or 6, he takes that many ice tokens from the ice pile and
places them anywhere on the surface in a single stack to form an ice lode .