Jen Scott Curwood

A week ago, my son Cole and I went to a Game Jam, sponsored by the Games+Learning+Society research group.  We had spent that morning working with his Odyssey of the Mind team, so we were ready to get down to business.

First, we had to suggest ideas for a theme… mine was “learning to read” and Cole’s was “Revolutionary War militiamen” (guess what he’s been studying in school?)  Others suggested “science” or “nature” – but the one that was randomly chosen was “deep sea vents.”  (That’s what happens when Brendan watches the Discovery Channel!)

So, we broke into groups, with the goal of making a playable game within the hour.  Cole’s almost ten, and he decided that he didn’t want to work in my group – so off he went with Brendan and Kevin.

Meanwhile, Ryan, Ben, and I got to work.  After a lot of deep thought (which you can see happening here), we used the available materials and some creativity to develop a board game called Battle of the Vents.

The rules for all of the games are posted on the Mad Designers website, but here they are:

Goal:
To eliminate the opposing sides bacteria, hence rendering their deep sea vent inoperable.

Equipment:
1 game board (we had it arranged as a rolling hill, but you may want to make it look like the symbol of infinity)
3 sets of 8 different colored tokens for your attackers/defenders
5 regular paper cups, 3 with their bottoms torn out
3 sets of 4 similar looking tokens (these will act as each player’s bacteria)
1 4-sided die
2 6-sided die
1 8-sided die
1 10-sided die
3 tokens to act as your movable character on the game board

Setup:
Need three players to play Battle of the Vents!

The three hollowed out cups will act as the respective bases for the players who will either be eels, octopi, or snails.  You may place them anywhere along the board that is not a playable game space.  Place your 8 fighter/defender tokens and 4 bacteria tokens around the cups.  The other two cups will be called “Fighter Purgatory” and “Bacteria Depository”.  They will be placed off the board entirely and will be used to hold the fighter/defenders and bacteria that are lost during gameplay.

Create the game board and make game spaces.  Place the following notations on the spaces.  Make sure to randomize them throughout the board.

+1 A – +1 attack (for one round)
-1 A – -1 attack (for one round)
+1 D – +1 defend (for one round)
-1 D – -1 defend (for one around
+1 B – Gain 1 bacteria
-1 B – Lose 1 bacteria
LT – Lose turn
+1 F – Gain one fighter
-1 F – Lose one fighter
Gain all fighters (place this VERY sparingly along the board as this allows that player to gain all of their fighters back)

Gameplay:
Each player rolls the 6 sided die to determine who goes first.  Game play starts when player rolls dice to move around the board.  The player is able to move to the end of the board and back again, there is no end spot.  The attribute on the game tile determines what the player receives.  Once this is finished, the player then decides whether to attack anyone on the board.  Player can only attack one group.  Player must have attackers in multiples of two, but can defend with just one.  The defender must also decide how many attackers to use to defend their vent.  The attackers/defenders of that turn determine what type of die the player may roll:
2 attackers – 4 sided
4 – 6 sided
6 – 8 sided
8 – 10 sided

If the player has a +1 or -1 A or D tile, they have to add or subtract from their die roll.  The player with the highest total takes that person’s tokens and places them in their vent where they are unplayable unless the player lands on a spot that gives them back fighters.

Once the player has attacked or defended the turn ends.  It is important to note that the attackers remain out of play until the next round of turns.  So if the player sends off 4 attackers to another vent, they only have 4 defenders for their own vent.

Once the player has lost all of their attackers/defenders, other players may then attack their bacteria to “finish them off”.  Each bacteria gets to roll one less die than the attacker.  So if the attacker goes at one person with a 8-sided die, the other player gets to roll a 6.  You can only attack one bacteria at one time.  During the time, the player can still roll to try to get attackers/defenders.  Each person moves around until there is only one vent remaining.

Later on, we played a game in which we were either tubeworms or nutrients.  Here, John, Ryan, Cole, and I are nutrients, about to be eaten.

I missed last weekend’s Valentine’s Day Game Jam, but Sean and John both blogged about it.  (I mean, how can you not enjoy something described as “Apple-to-Apples-styled fabulously-named “Temptation Island” game, a chess-like game of strategy that pit the Queen of Hearts and her court of assassins against St. Valentine and his Cupidian army”?)

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