Rimworld: The Board Game??

[Kindyj]

I love Board games, I play a lot of board games. I have at least three in the mail on it's way to me. and I've been thinking... Rimworld might make a great Board Game. I've never made my own board game, and I probably never will but I find it fun to just think about. so I sat down today and wrote a very brief outline of some of the aspects of how a Rimworld Board Game might work. I'd love to hear other people's suggestions.

Tynan...Let me know if you'd sell me the rights to make a Rimworld Board Game....

•   Hunting Deck
o   Being attacked by prey
   Chance of being attacked based on dice roll
   Damage taken from animal based on type of animal
o   Meat received from animals hunting
•   Trading Deck
o   X # of cards up for trade for X # of Turns
o   Comms Console allows for cards to stay through turns
•   Research Deck
o   Research unlocks building certain things
•   Build Tiles
o   Everything is available to build but may need research
•   Stress Tokens
o   Stress is Received for upsetting things
o   Too much stress can be bad
•   Random Event Deck
o   A Random event is drawn every X # of Turns
•   Raids???
•   Health
o   X # of Health Points
•   Skills
o   Every Character has a Set of Skills

[Razbari]

It's a neat idea, but I think a RimWorld board game wouldn't possible be able to capture the complexity and nuances of the PC game that make it so fun and so special.

I do think you have a good idea going here though. I think the world could use some more colony management / survival type board games. Now I wouldn't suggest trying to turn RimWorld into a board game, but I think you could probably come up with something inspired by RW that could be pretty incredible.

[Hans Lemurson]

That's a pretty cool idea.  Since RimWorld was designed around the idea of "telling stories", I think that many of the core concepts of it are transferable in spirit to the format of a boardgame.

I think though, like Razbari said it would be more of a "Colony Survival Game" with a Rimworld aesthetic.

[Bozobub]

You should probably look at the mechanics of Settlers of Catan, and similar games.

[cmitc1]

I could see it working, each player having the goal of making there colony last the longest.

[Morak]

Perhaps instead of a Board game a card game would be better. Are you familiar with Munchkin? In Munckin you have a character and the cards you draw impact that character.

So in the case of a Rimworld Card Game; Your colony would be the character and cards you draw would impact the colony.

[Kirby23590]

Sounds interesting...

I hope it includes a Second Player as the Storyteller like in Dungeons & Dragons as the Dungeon Master who would control the events or raids by picking cards randomly of their choice.

But Settlers Of Catan with a Rimworld skin aesthetic would work too. 

[Kindyj]

It's a neat idea, but I think a RimWorld board game wouldn't possible be able to capture the complexity and nuances of the PC game that make it so fun and so special.

I do think you have a good idea going here though. I think the world could use some more colony management / survival type board games. Now I wouldn't suggest trying to turn RimWorld into a board game, but I think you could probably come up with something inspired by RW that could be pretty incredible.

Your Right, any Board game can not fully contain the Complexity of a Computer game, just for the simple fact of Bookkeeping. But a Boiled down version of Rimworld would work I think. I'm thinking a Dead of winter style game. Maybe if you include an App partner like the XCOM Board game to do the Bookkeeping, it could be more complex.

But the general idea is that it's a Co-op Board game playing against the Game(Dead of Winter Style). There would be rounds in which each player gets to take actions. whether that's plant a field/Hunt/Heal/etc. after each round a Card from the event deck is drawn and effects the colony or Certain pawns.

...this may never come to fruition because I'm not a follow through kind of person, but it's fun to imagine.

[Bozobub]

Your Right, any Board game can not fully contain the Complexity of a Computer game, just for the simple fact of Bookkeeping. But a Boiled down version of Rimworld would work I think. I'm thinking a Dead of winter style game. Maybe if you include an App partner like the XCOM Board game to do the Bookkeeping, it could be more complex.

But the general idea is that it's a Co-op Board game playing against the Game(Dead of Winter Style). There would be rounds in which each player gets to take actions. whether that's plant a field/Hunt/Heal/etc. after each round a Card from the event deck is drawn and effects the colony or Certain pawns.

...this may never come to fruition because I'm not a follow through kind of person, but it's fun to imagine.

Before you think this can't be done via a board game, you might want to consider the Civilization series of computer games is based strongly on the Diplomacy series of board games.  Then there's paper map-and-counters war games that include detailed supply models, and THOUSANDS of varying little unit/condition/event counters and whatnot.  "Bookkeeping" isn't as much of a barrier as you seem to think, although yes, it certainly matters.

After all, given a map, D&D is easily considered a "board game", and no PC game will likely approach the complexity of the paper-and-pencil version.  Starfleet Battles is another good example of a game that has NEVER been as complex on computers, as in paper-and-pencil play, that has silly amounts of paperwork involved .

If you elaborated a Settlers of Catan-"esque" game with a good number of extra mechanics, yeah, you could probably do it to any arbitrary level of abstraction desired.  Believe it or not, there actually are game freaks who will play enormously elaborate games like this (not me, though!).

[Razbari]

Your Right, any Board game can not fully contain the Complexity of a Computer game, just for the simple fact of Bookkeeping. But a Boiled down version of Rimworld would work I think. I'm thinking a Dead of winter style game. Maybe if you include an App partner like the XCOM Board game to do the Bookkeeping, it could be more complex.

But the general idea is that it's a Co-op Board game playing against the Game(Dead of Winter Style). There would be rounds in which each player gets to take actions. whether that's plant a field/Hunt/Heal/etc. after each round a Card from the event deck is drawn and effects the colony or Certain pawns.

...this may never come to fruition because I'm not a follow through kind of person, but it's fun to imagine.

Before you think this can't be done via a board game, you might want to consider the Civilization series of computer games is based strongly on the Diplomacy series of board games.  Then there's paper map-and-counters war games that include detailed supply models, and THOUSANDS of varying little unit/condition/event counters and whatnot.  "Bookkeeping" isn't as much of a barrier as you seem to think, although yes, it certainly matters.

After all, given a map, D&D is easily considered a "board game", and no PC game will likely approach the complexity of the paper-and-pencil version.  Starfleet Battles is another good example of a game that has NEVER been as complex on computers, as in paper-and-pencil play, that has silly amounts of paperwork involved .

If you elaborated a Settlers of Catan-"esque" game with a good number of extra mechanics, yeah, you could probably do it to any arbitrary level of abstraction desired.  Believe it or not, there actually are game freaks who will play enormously elaborate games like this (not me, though!).

Yeah, I hadn't considered D&D and similar titles when I mentioned that a board game likely couldn't capture the complexity of RimWorld. Sure it's possible to some extent, but I don't think that it would be worth it. A lot of sacrifices would have to be made to make the RW equivalent of a board game though.

[Kindyj]

I Wouldn't want to make a game with the complexity level of a game like D&D. I Want to make something with the Weight of Board games like XCOM, Dead of Winter, Fallout. Each of these games captures the essence of the video games they replicate quite well.

I'm going to begin working on ideas, prototypes, mechanics, rules next week after my vacation. i'll make print and play copies available when something significant has come together. that's probably months down the road.

[blightmoon]

Best wishes on your endeavor.

[Bozobub]

Agreed.  I'll be interested to see the mechanics you choose !

(Doesn't mean I'll play it; the only "true" board game I will play is chess.  But I find the mechanics fascinating, anyhow.)

[Razbari]

If this project goes anywhere, I would be interested in progress updates!

[Boston]

Dark Heresy is a -very- good fit for Rimworld, to the point where one can set a campaign on a Rimworld without -any- mechanics changes at all, only refluffing