- Joined
- Jun 9, 2016
i mean, while the description of mechanics is a complete mess, and the premise is pretty scattered too, it did give me this idea:
from Lucas' idea, i present this unnamed game idea:
1. players are urban farmers in a dystopian wasteland where the promise of post-scarcity abundance has failed. you start out selling small salads in scavenged coffee mugs and work to grow your urban farm (on rooftops, hydroponics in apartments, potatoes in a salvaged bathtub, et c) and provide better ingredients to sell at the market for profit or to particular clients for money and favor.
2. because Big Food and the many little divisions control medicine, luxury produce like real beef or real fish, and the cultural impact of homogenized, commodified food, you have to make sure your farm is kept on a low profile to evade fines, prosecution or extortion.
3. you also have options like trying to break into growing traditional herbal medicines, or drugs or something for quick cash while increasing the risk of getting caught. and of course you have to pay for your fixed costs of clean water, electricity, good soil, maybe import seeds or designer foods modified for particular diets or to feed to gene-modified pet animals. selling home-grown designer drugs to techno-pimps so they heighten arousal and pleasure vs selling to the local gangers who want to muscle in on foreign cartel drugs by buying cheaper domestically and distributing powder to keep the wageslaves in line.
4. hivers working on a factory line or in offices have different food demands and satisfying them efficiently and profiting is the key. managing the delivery and work schedules, making sure that you can bribe a guard to deliver pizza to a secure area, or have cops look the other way in return for a genuine can of real spicy salsa for their lunchtime burrito. sometimes a hacker that you can mainline his blend of dorito paste and mountain dew will help you out and boost your online store presence over rivals.
5. work your way up through the food chain and make sure your couriers that deliver the foodstuffs are good enough to evade assassination and have enough pull or wit to keep either above the law or pay the bribes needed.
6. maybe an alternate strategy to win is getting enough market share with groceries or restaurants, the drug market, or designer foods. it's all about the credits you have in the bank at the end. then you can try to buy a real farm outside the walls of the megacity.
there are three decks to draw from (you by from two of them). you start with some cards from each deck and a loan from the local cybermafia. you bid with the loan to get gear and property, and you start with your own little apartment and a little windowsill garden. deck 1 is the event/season deck where shit is happening in the megacity that may affect you, the market, the farm, or among your customers. nanobot swarms, high fuel prices, power failures, smog day, rainy season, et c. deck 2 is a recipe/ingredient deck where you have the option of buying the recipe or ingredients for a fixed cost instead of growing it yourself. your "hand" is your warehouse and you only have so much room before you gotta sell or discard, but sometimes buying up something to keep it out of a rival farmer is a strategy in itself. deck 3 is the restaurant/courier deck that deals with events during the delivery or sale of food including being caught smuggling and having to pay a fine, upgraded hacks for your courier to keep on the downlow from random food/drug scans in a location, hiring a new courier and firing the old one (you can only have one courier and one staff at a time), restaurant needs to bribe an inspector or sell drugs on the side because it's been tainted and dead customers is bad for business, et c.
1. players are urban farmers in a dystopian wasteland where the promise of post-scarcity abundance has failed. you start out selling small salads in scavenged coffee mugs and work to grow your urban farm (on rooftops, hydroponics in apartments, potatoes in a salvaged bathtub, et c) and provide better ingredients to sell at the market for profit or to particular clients for money and favor.
2. because Big Food and the many little divisions control medicine, luxury produce like real beef or real fish, and the cultural impact of homogenized, commodified food, you have to make sure your farm is kept on a low profile to evade fines, prosecution or extortion.
3. you also have options like trying to break into growing traditional herbal medicines, or drugs or something for quick cash while increasing the risk of getting caught. and of course you have to pay for your fixed costs of clean water, electricity, good soil, maybe import seeds or designer foods modified for particular diets or to feed to gene-modified pet animals. selling home-grown designer drugs to techno-pimps so they heighten arousal and pleasure vs selling to the local gangers who want to muscle in on foreign cartel drugs by buying cheaper domestically and distributing powder to keep the wageslaves in line.
4. hivers working on a factory line or in offices have different food demands and satisfying them efficiently and profiting is the key. managing the delivery and work schedules, making sure that you can bribe a guard to deliver pizza to a secure area, or have cops look the other way in return for a genuine can of real spicy salsa for their lunchtime burrito. sometimes a hacker that you can mainline his blend of dorito paste and mountain dew will help you out and boost your online store presence over rivals.
5. work your way up through the food chain and make sure your couriers that deliver the foodstuffs are good enough to evade assassination and have enough pull or wit to keep either above the law or pay the bribes needed.
6. maybe an alternate strategy to win is getting enough market share with groceries or restaurants, the drug market, or designer foods. it's all about the credits you have in the bank at the end. then you can try to buy a real farm outside the walls of the megacity.
there are three decks to draw from (you by from two of them). you start with some cards from each deck and a loan from the local cybermafia. you bid with the loan to get gear and property, and you start with your own little apartment and a little windowsill garden. deck 1 is the event/season deck where shit is happening in the megacity that may affect you, the market, the farm, or among your customers. nanobot swarms, high fuel prices, power failures, smog day, rainy season, et c. deck 2 is a recipe/ingredient deck where you have the option of buying the recipe or ingredients for a fixed cost instead of growing it yourself. your "hand" is your warehouse and you only have so much room before you gotta sell or discard, but sometimes buying up something to keep it out of a rival farmer is a strategy in itself. deck 3 is the restaurant/courier deck that deals with events during the delivery or sale of food including being caught smuggling and having to pay a fine, upgraded hacks for your courier to keep on the downlow from random food/drug scans in a location, hiring a new courier and firing the old one (you can only have one courier and one staff at a time), restaurant needs to bribe an inspector or sell drugs on the side because it's been tainted and dead customers is bad for business, et c.
the problem with Lucas is that he never actually play tests or thinks through the mechanics of how and why, or have simple winning conditions or goals, which boardgames generally need. if they are too long or annoying to play, even the most well thought out game will be very niche or not be successful at all.
