Game #4

Game #4 has gone through a lot of iterations, so I'll discuss how it has evolved in conception. The core idea was that each player would be in charge of growing a hospital in a city recovering from disaster.

The first idea was for a hospital themed map based building game, in which players would build branches on an overworld map, each with different effects and radius, trying to serve as many people as possible. Ultimately, this is relied on mechanics too complicated to work with, as well as requiring some tools not easily provided or used (such as rulers, counters, etc.)

The second idea took the mechanic of expanding on the hospital but removed the board. Now, you would build rooms (emergency room, operating, etc.) which would give income as well as special effects. This was more feasible, but not very interesting, as player interaction took place only through special abilities on rooms, and there was no direct competition.

The third idea added a lot more interaction. Players would still build rooms, but rooms by themselves would do nothing. Instead, on every player's turn a doctor would come up for auction. Players would bid, with the winner getting a new employee. Different doctors would need different rooms (and building a room takes a turn), and would have different incomes. There were 3 resources: money, public support, and elite support. Public support would be obtained from emergency rooms and such, and would have a bunch of effects you could trade it for (instantly building new things, get cheaper doctors, etc.) Elite support would have different effects. Both elite support and public support would have a hard cap based on number of players and number of turns gone by, so players would also be competing for a limited number of resources. The combination of these mechanics, however, were too confused and redundant, leading to:

Idea four (the current one). Players build rooms, and bid on doctors and such, but! Only 2 resources, public support and money, with no hard caps. Employees, however, also tend to provide special abilities at various costs. A charismatic emergency room doctor might hold a gala which generates a large amount of public support at a cost, but also makes him not work at all for the next turn. Some abilities require you to get rid of the doctor on activation. Some employees (administrators) might provide no income, but have specially powerful activations. The game is won by obtaining enough employees.