Greater of Two Evils - Board Game for Two by Eli Brody

8/12/2019 Greater of Two Evils - Board Game for Two by Eli Brody

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Greater of Two Evils

A board game for two by Eli Brody

Made for Ludum Dare #25December, 2012

Part I

The Story

You are a villainous master mind, able to leech life from the surroundings at your slightest whim. You take pleasuruining the natural beauty of the world and the bountiful resources available to ordinary men. And yet you are nalone in your despicable cravings! During your travels, you encounter a rival, bent on the same unearthly desire

as your own. Unable to agree on how best to divy up the land, you resort to tearing through and consuming abefore your opponent can.

Claim your place as the most cunning, ruthless, and unfeeling villain this insignificant part of the world haever known!

Part II

Contents of the box

16 terrain cards (4 forest, 4 water, 4 village, 4 livestock)

20 devastations (5 wildfire, 5 pollution, 5 enslavement, 5 disease)

8 counters (4 black, 4 red)

2 player pawns

Part III

Rules

1 Setup

Players play facing each other, across a table. Shuffle the 16 terrain cards, and deal them out face-up onto th

table between the players, in four rows of four cards. This forms the 4 4 board.Place the devastations face-down on the table, and shuffle them by moving them around. Each player draws

single devastation, and does not reveal it to the other player.Place the counters near the board.Each player chooses a player pawn at random. The player who chose the red pawn goes first.

Alternate method: The player who most recently made another person cry goes first.

2 Play

A player may perform one of three possible actions on every turn:

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Move the player pawn,

Draw a devastation, OR

Play a devastation

After playing her turn, the player updates her devastations on the playing board.

2.1 MovementPlayers move across the terrain board by moving their player pawn. Movement is a single terrain card left, righforward, or backward no diagonals. The first move a player performs is to place her player pawn on any of thterrain cards on the row closest to her. At no point may a player move into a blank space, or off of the board.

2.2 Drawing a devastation

A player may choose to draw a devastation instead of anything else for this turn. The player draws a devastatiofrom the face-down pile, and does not reveal it to the other player.

2.3 Playing a devastation

Players befoul and putrify the world by activating devastations. Each devastation affects one kind of terra(wildfire forests, pollution water, enslavementvillages, disease livestock). The players pawn must be othe appropriate terrain in order to play the specific devastation. This terrain card must not be currently undergoindevastation by either player. Furthermore, the player must either be holding the devastation, orhave a devastatioof the same type in play for this turn.

To follow through with the devastation, the player places the devastation on the terrain card in question. Thplayers turn ends.

2.4 Updating devastations

After a players turn ends, she updates her devastations. For every terrain card that is currently undergoingdevastation by her doing, an appropriately-colored counter is placed on the terrain card.

If there are already three counters on the terrain card, instead of adding another counter, the terrain card

removed from the board, and placed in the players score pile. If there is a devastation on this terrain card, it reshuffled into the face-down devastations pile. The counters are placed back on the table, beside the board.

2.5 Simple example

To illustrate the devastation timing, let us say Vincents player pawn is on a Forest terrain card. Vincent haswildfire devastation, so on his turn, he plays it on that card. When his turn ends, he updates his devastation anadds a counter to the terrain card. On his next turn, Vincent moves to the right, and then adds a second countto his devastation. On his next turn, he moves right again this time landing on another Forest terrain card. Hthen adds a third counter to the first Forest. For his next move, he nowre-uses the wildfire devastationon thsecond Forest card! A new devastation is now in play. Finally, he completes the devastation of the first Forest bremoving the card from the board, and placing it in his score pile.

3 End of the game

While either player may concede defeat at any point, there are a few ways the game can end:

A player reaches 7 points. Points are counted as the number of completed devastations performed, in thscore pile of each player. The player who earned the 7 points is the winner.

A player falls off the map. This occurs when a players pawn is on a terrain card when a devastation is beincompleted (and removed from the board).

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If there had been a way for the player to avoid being on the tile, it is considered a forfeit. The other playwins the game.

If there had NOT been another alternative for the player, the game ends immediately. The winner determined by comparing the number of score cards attained by each player. The player with the highescore wins.

Stalemate. Both players stalling for time and waiting for the other to move means game over. Just stop doin

that. Stop it. Nobody wins.The winner is henceforth known as the most vile, inhuman scum to be found on the planet. Congratulations!!

Part IV

Acknowledgements

Special thanks goes to my wife Tanya, who helped with playtesting (as well as devising the alternate rule of whgoes first).

More thanks goes to Alan Hazelden, who gave valuable feedback and suggestions.

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Figure 1: Counters

Figure 2: Devastations

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Greater of Two Evils - Board Game for Two by Eli Brody