GCPP:Proposal-Casabe

I'd like to apologise in advance for the sloppy text I'm about to write. I'll probably get it to look nicer in a near future.

Puzzle Codename: Casabe

Contact
Username:	MooNFisH1985
Additional contact info:	forum/Cobalt/wiki all use the same username. moonfish@gmail.com for email, Google talk and/or MSN
Project forum thread:	Discussion

Game concept

It really loosely resembles a multiplayer co-op variation of minesweeper. Or, it used to before I got my imagination started.

Objective

Skimming a game field with the purpose of finding forageable goods.

Gameplay

Everyone joins a game when you're docked at an uninhabited island, then have a ship captain start the actual forage when the amount of players is sufficient. Then a field with grid opens up for all to see (top-view), with something that restricts view. This could be fog, or panels. Players are then put in random order, and get to click one location on this top-view field for the purpose of scouting.

Now, depending on the density of the terrain you found underneath the fog or panels, you can see a certain range from where you've clicked. Examples:

• Flat ground (no obstacles): a 5x5 without its farmost corners, with its center where you clicked.
• Grass: a 3x3 with its center where you clicked.
• Rough terrain: a "+"-shaped five-tile group of fields with its center where you clicked.
• Dense forest: no more than the field you clicked on.

These can also be found in the image at the bottom of the page.
Of course, if you're on flat ground and at one of your sides is terrain with a different visibility factor, your sight will be limited in that direction by a factor related to the visibility factor of that terrain.

After this round of clicking, visible parts with any unusual contents can/will shimmer for a little bit. Then a round of collecting will come, where the pirates will be allowed to forage one field per pirate in the fields you made visible in the previous round (again, by order of the list).

Scoring

There's no real scoring system involved, and I don't think there should be. There could be one though, but I wouldn't know just how.

Variability

Each island has its own randomizing factors. Different islands would have different terrain types. Also, one island's trees could contain a lot more pineapples than another.

End criteria

After everyone's had their go, it's over. I'd leave the amount of times you can forage per day restricted, as it is now without the puzzle.

Difficulty scaling

The map will always be the same size, so a merch brig should be able to tear an island apart for its goods. If you just take out a 4 man sloop, it'd be more of a game of luck.

Crafting type

Foraging

Known problems

Of course, for a one man foraging exploration you'd hardly get anything. I personally don't think that's much of a problem, but I can imagine other people thinking otherwise.

Notes

The board size will eventually depend on the odds of finding forageable goods at a certain location, and how many people you'd want to be able to forage comfortably. Roughly, if you say the average visible fields per pirate are 9, and you'd want 12 people to be able to scout a decent part of the island, a 15x15 field would be a nice start.

Images