In my previous post I mentioned that I had built a prototype of a Venture Africa board game.  I’m currently searching for a publisher, so I’m not going to post the full ruleset, but I will give a sense for what the game is like and how I came to design the game I did.

The board game consists of two players controlling six species of animal (lion, crocodile, elephant, rhino, zebra, monkey).  Players are trying to keep their animals alive while using their lions and crocodiles to eat the other player’s prey.

Players start their turn with 3 movement points, which they can distribute amongst their animals.  Terrain squares have an impact on movement, and each animal has a special ability.  It’s like chess, except that instead of making the pieces unique by how they move, the pieces are unique in how they attack and defend themselves.

Animals also chase a raincloud around the board, which is how they breed.  Breeding can keep a species alive for a little while, but eventually, the other player will take out the last of a species, and then it can’t return.  Eventually, one player wins by taking out all of the animals of the other player.  Games last about 60 minutes.

You might also notice that the game board can be modified, making every game quite different.  This is one of my favorite features of the game as it’s a blast to create the topography and then analyze how that affects gameplay.  The manual includes a number of preset boards, so people can compare individual games without having the include a diagram of the board placement.

The main thing you’ll notice about the board game is that it is multiplayer and competitive.  I mention this because the video game is single player, and to some extent, non-competitive.  There is no antagonist in the video game (though you could say that the environment is the antagonist, always threatening the lives of the protagonists, the animals).

This philosophy reamins intact (to some extent) in the board game, in that the pieces are actually player-agnostic.  Lions can eat zebras of either player; special abilities of animals do not depend on the color of the animal.  In this sense, you get the feeling that both players are controlling parts of a single ecosystem, rather than two opposing armies.

I haven’t played it yet, but my boardgamegeek friend Eryn mentioned that the game reminded him of Manoeuvre.  I’ll have to give that one a try.

In any case, like I said, I’m searching for a publisher, and I’ll keep you updated on the progress!

As for the process I went through to design this game, that’s for another post!

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