Saturday, July 16, 2011

Impromptu Board Game Shenanigans

Randomly had this idea today but I'm sure other people have done it before. Board games can be fun to play anyway why not get creative with it and make your own? On a budget? Not a problem. 
See below some easy to find items you can use.
 Okay the nunchaku are just there to establish that I'm kind of gangster.
At the very least you can make your own board game with a sheet of paper, something to draw with, some coins, and something small to use as tokens. I used paper clips.
 This is the board I've drawn. It can be as crude or as detailed as you like. It's your project, there is no wrong way here. I've made a few different types of spaces that affect the game in different ways.
Here I've drawn up some basic rules for the game as well as a key for the different types of spaces on the game board.

The coins will function as a substitute for dice. Simply agree on a number of coins to use, shake them in your hand, drop them and move your token the number of spaces equal to heads. Notice certain spaces on my board increase the number of coins a player may use.

The possibilities with this concept are limitless. I mean, you can design your own tokens or shop around for little pieces to use as tokens. You can design a full on rpg style board game with character classes, skills, spells whatever or keep it ultra simple. You can turn the game into a drinking game if you're a little party monster (spaces force you to take a drink, etc) or if you want to be entertained and productive you could make spaces requiring you to do exercises such as 10 push ups or roll and perform double that number in push ups. Really, the sky is the limit.

What's more, this is the perfect way to collaborate with your friends. Maybe you have one friend who is really artistic they can get all creative designing the board, tokens, chance cards and so on. Maybe you have an analytic friend who can help with designing different rules and game mechanics in the game. Maybe you just have a creative big picture friend to throw insane ideas at you. Really, whatever type of person you are, you could contribute to the idea somehow. Which is pretty exciting yeah?

You may have so much fun making these game you'll spend more time creating games then you do playing them. Have any game ideas? Feedback? Let me know. Hope you enjoy.

4 comments:

  1. JEN! Do you have a blog on blogger? I don't know how to follow you on your LJ because I don't have an LJ.

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  2. nice blog buddy!
    keep it up
    +followed

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  3. i remember making huge d&d style rpg board games on big pieces of cardboard as a kid! just let my imagination run wild fun stuff :)

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