Name; Absolute Space
Items:
2 dice
2 player tokens
1 Time-warped Reactor Piece
Game Board
Deck with only face Cards and jokers
Max Players: 2
Premise: A Time portal has opened which allows you to warp to 3 different timelines. This allows you to travel to either the past, present or future in order to obtain a Time-warped Reactor which you must bring back to your timeline to save yourself from disappearing altogether.
Rules:
- Each player chooses a different timeline in which they begin in the outside space.
- The Time-warped Reactor will be placed at random in the timeline that the players do not belong to.
- Players begin the game by rolling 2 die each to try to reach the Time-warped Reactor first.
- Reaching the time portal counts as one space. Once there the player can choose which timeline they would like to go to.
- The first person to reach the Time-warped Reactor is now the Carrier.
- Carriers can move either backwards(towards the center time portal) or forwards(towards the outside edge), but must commit to either one before each roll.
- Carriers can not choose to go backwards AND forwards on a single roll.
- Carriers can not play action cards
- The person that does not have the Time-warped Reactor is now the Chaser and must attempt to steal the item from the Carrier before they reach the end of their own timeline.
- Chasers can only move forwards(towards the outside edge)
- The Chaser can now play action cards when they land on a dotted space
- JACK- Allows the Chaser to move either way on the roll of their choice. Chaser can keep this card and use it at any time
- Queen- Forces the Carriers next roll to be going towards the Chaser.
- King- The Carrier must skip their next turn and the Chaser gets to roll again.
- Joker- Warps the Carrier to the timeline in which the secret item came from.
- The Chaser mush reach the Carrier's space to steal the Time-warped Reactor. If the Chaser still had more spaces left to go on their roll after they steal the item, they can move those spaces in either direction.
- Reaching the outside edge of a timeline teleports you to the time portal in the center.
- Reaching the outside edge of the timeline in which you came from AS THE CARRIER Wins the game.
The first play through with my partner (Matthew) was mostly just to find out if our idea that we came up with was any fun at all. We started the game out as planned, rolling to see who could reach the item first. Matthew reached the item first and started heading back to his own timeline using the outside edge. Only a few turns later I caught up with him and stole the item from him and was on my way back to my time line. I got pretty far ahead, at this point we decided there needs to be some sort of catch-up mechanic. This is when we introduced action cards. The only one we came up with on the first play through was that the carrier has to miss a turn when a certain card is drawn. Matthew eventually took back the item and made his way back to win the game. We had fun playing it and were excited to make it better.
Unfortunately I have no friends and was not able to play it by myself over the weekend.
I did, however, greatly improve the board over the weekend to improve the look and play.
The last play through with Andy is when most of the refinement took place and the game turned out to be a lot of fun.the game started as normal with both of us racing to reach the item first. Andy grabbed it first with me being only a few spaces behind him. This is where we ran into a problem. We would both end up on the same space while one of us has the item in hand. We ended up making the rule in which you can finish your roll even after you stole the item, and that the chaser can only move forward and the carrier can move both ways.
The item went back and forth over time without either of us getting too far into our own timelines. We came up with some more action cards as I was pulling ahead and about to win. The Jack which allowed him to go either way on the board in the case that I was behind him with the item. The Queen, which forces the carriers next roll to be going towards the chaser.
The game had been going on for about 5-7 minutes with some discussion in the middle. I was heading towards the finish line with the item in hand. 5 spaces away and Andy lands on an action spot forcing me to miss a turn. eventually I am sitting on the last space before I win with Andy's turn to roll. He ends up landing on an action spot 10 spaces behind me. I was praying that he didn't draw a queen and force me to go towards him but he did. I had to roll away from being on the last spot before winning. Andy stole the item back and raced back to his timeline in which he would eventually claim victory.
The game lasted a good amount of time which I was happy with. The mechanics seemed pretty solid and fun to play around with. Absolute Space's core mechanic is Pick-up and Deliver.
The idea of a board game that uses the idea of time travel as a mechanic is really unique and it instantly hooked me into wanting to learn more as soon as I found that out. For the first read through of your blog post, it was slightly difficult to understand exactly where the end of the timeline was to win. It would have been really cool to get a more detailed session report of your first play through to be able to better compare the older prototype with the newer one. Also when randomly placing the time warp reactor I’m sure if both players just decide on a random spot or is that determined by a dice roll somehow? I really enjoyed your implementation of action cards. They seemed to have huge potential to really shake up the game for both players. Your last play through really showed how they could end up throwing a metaphorical wrench of a player’s potential winning streak. I like the idea of a mechanic that can really add suspense till the very last winning move. I feel like there’s a lot of potential to add interesting action cards to make the game a really active and engaging experience.
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