GCPP:Proposal-Corydoras

Puzzle Codename: Corydoras

Contact
Username:	Dismissed
Additional contact info:	Leetness5 on the forums. On the Midnight Ocean as Mephistocles or Leetness.
Project forum thread:	Forum Thread

Game concept

A multiplayer, turn based game in which cleared pieces cause the entire row or column to shift along.

Objective

Clear tiles in your area to cause combos elsewhere on the board.

Gameplay

The game is played by up to four pirates on a 10x10 grid. Each pirate has his own quarter of the board and he can only move pieces on that section on his turn. There are four different kinds of piece - stone, wood, cloth and rope. The pieces can be swapped with an adjacent piece (up, down, left and right), as long as it results in a clear. The pirate tries to clear groups of three or more pieces in a straight line. If the move does not cause a clear, the piece reverts to it's original position and play continues with the next player.

Clearing pieces in a vertical line will cause the column it is in to slide towards the clear. Likewise, clearing pieces in a horizontal line will cause the row it is in to slide towards the clear (see images when I have some). If a move causes more than one clear at once (like 3x3s or Bingos in Bilging), several rows or colums will shift.

It is thoeretically possible to play solo, but as there are no other players, the other quarters of the board do not contain any pieces, so it is much harder to gain points. Try playing Bilging using only a quarter of the board to see what I mean. This (I hope) will greatly encourage players to play multiplayer.

Scoring

I'm going to assign actual numerical values to the points system for now, rather than just say "this is worth more than this". A basic clear of 3 pieces is worth 1 point. Every additional piece for the basic clear is 1 extra point (so a clear of four is worth 2 points, a clear of six is 4 points). Additionally, every piece cleared outside of a pirates area is worth one or two extra points. A piece cleared in the player adjacent to you's area is only one extra point, but a clear in the player diagonally opposite you's board is worth two extra points, as it is harder to clear something there (see images when I have some).

A chain of clears causes a multiplier: for every clear in a chain, the points for that clear are twice the points of the previous clear in the chain. A chain of four 3 piece clears would thus be worth 1+2+4+8 =16 points if all the clears occurred entirely within the player's own quarter (which is unlikely as the area is relatively small).

What I call a "bilge combo" (Several clears with a single click, so not in a chain) is worth the normal points (1 point for each 3-piece clear, 2 points for each 4-piece clear) multiplied by the amount of clears there are. A combo made of four 3-piece clears would thus be worth (1+1+1+1) x4 =16 if all the clears occurred entirely within the player's own quarter (which is impossible as the clear would be either six pieces tall or six pieces wide, and the area is only 5x5 pieces).

Variability

Rare "Gold" pieces count as any piece, and appear sometimes. The game demands drastically different gameplay when fewer people play.

End criteria

The game ends after a specific number of turns have taken place. I'm not yet sure how fast-paced this game would be, so I'm reluctant to give a number at this stage.

Difficulty scaling

Gold is added at a higher level. More pieces could be added for the higher level players (making the game harder, but with greater point opportunities). Pieces could become "locked" so that the row or column they are in wouldn't move, and the clear would be filled in from the other side (see images when I have some). There is a problem with increasing difficulty: What happens when an Ultimate faces an Able? Is the game played at the high-level, or beginner level?

Crafting type

Probably construction, with different pieces could be adapted for foraging.

Known problems

The difficulty problem: If it's played at low level, Ultimates will avoid games with Ables on, as it is harder to gain big points, so Ables will only get to play solo games, and not improve their standing. If it is played at high level, Ables might not be able to cope, and again be stuck at able standing. It's a vicious circle!

On a slightly unrelated note, I'm not sure there are enough construction sites around the ocean to be regularly having four-player games. Also, It is possible that a 10x10 grid might make the pieces too small. I can't quite visualise he kind of sizes involved.

Notes

Not much yet, only the point I made earlier (under gameplay) about how I can encourage multiplayer games over solo ones.

Images

In general with these images, the green box is the swap made and the pink boxes are clears made. Any other coloured boxes are matched with the same coloured text.

Also, see an animation of a move in the game here.