My group’s project aims to make a wilderness survival game that encodes fellowship principles. At the moment, we’re trying to do this by using wilderness trivia questions to spark group decision making. However, I feel that our current mechanics don’t do so. Thus, I went to game night to explore some different mechanics that encourage fellowship, specifically those around resources and objectives.
The first game I played was Ramen Fury. At its core, Ramen Fury is a building game. You collect ingredients to create three, tasty ramen bowls. The more ramen bowls you complete, the more points you collect. You can also steal ingredients from other players’ bowls, or even add ingredients! The first player to complete all three bowls ends the game, and each player calculates their points based on their own completed bowls. My biggest takeaway was the limited number of bowls you could complete. Having only three bowls per player limits the length of the game, but also demands strategy. Is it better to complete all your bowls, or build a few very high value bowls? As an objective, I think it adds challenge fun and sensation fun (because who doesn’t like making pretty bowls of ramen?). On top of this, being able to steal/move ingredients with the spoon makes for fun fellowship dynamics. At one point during my game with Krishnan, I used a spoon not to steal his ingredients, but to move one of mine to a more favorable bowl. This surprised Krishnan, and got us laughing about strategy, as it had counteracted one of the three chili peppers he had sent my way in earlier turns. I’m not sure why, but it was not until I played Ramen Fury that I understood that fellowship fun can be “negative,” or disruptive to other players without isolating one player, like in a social deception game.
The second game I played was Sushi Go! With this game, I focused more on the resource mechanics. Specifically, the core mechanic of the game is trading hands. Each turn, you choose a card from your hand to form sushi combos to earn points. Once you have selected your card, you pass the rest of your hand to the next player. So, each dealt hand diminishes as it gets passed between the players. This is a resource management system I have seen used in other board games like 7 Wonders, and I think is is very effective. Namely, it adds fellowship fun to your game by encouraging players to keep track of which resource cards go to which player, and block resources from getting to their opponents who need them. In my first game against Shana, I lost early on because I hadn’t picked up on this strategy yet.
Going forward in my own project, I’m going to try combining the building mechanics of Ramen Fury with the resource management and strategy of Sushi Go! Both mechanics work well with the theme of an island survival game, as well. However, I think to add even more fellowship fun to our game, I think we could use more special items like the spoons in Ramen Fury. Also, I think adding a resource trading mechanic, similar to that of Settlers of Catan, could make the building mechanic more player-involved.
