GCPP:Proposal-Pike

Puzzle Codename: Pike

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Username:	McGarvery
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Project forum thread:	Discussion

	A prototype is available for this proposal.
	Check it out and contribute to the design!

Game concept

A combination of Minesweeper and Concentration.

Objective

The goal is to fill your Forage Bag with commodities. This is achieved by making consecutive matches on the game board.

Gameplay

Click tiles to reveal them, and see the surrounding 8 tiles. Keep clicking on tiles of the same type, to make consecutive matches.

Fill your Forage Sack with Commodities by making consecutive matches. The rare commodities take several consecutive matches to get any commodity, and their tiles are less frequent.

Your forage sack can only hold one type of Commodity. You will keep whatever you collect the most of. You can change what you are collecting at any time, but you have to earn more than you have in your sack, in one combo.

You can pile commodities into your sack freely if you are already collecting that type.

Any amounts you earn of other commodities, less than what you already have, are discarded. In the case of a tie, you keep what you already had.

EXAMPLE: You are collecting wood, and have 3 Wood in your Forage Sack.

If you collect 2 more Wood in a Combo, it will be put into your sack (making 5 units in the sack total) If you collect 2 Iron in a Combo, they will be discarded. If you collect 5 Iron in a Combo, your sack will be emptied of the 3 wood, and you fill it with the 5 Iron instead.

EXAMPLE 2: You are trying to forage some Sassafras, but it takes 15 consecutive matches. While foraging, you accidentally pick up a Coconut you don't want. But you can't empty it out of your sack; you always keep what you get the most of.

Later in that game, you just manage to get one Sassafras. But you already have one Coconut, so your Sassafras is discarded. You should have tried harder to keep an empty sack.

Clearing a large number of the same commodity in sequence results in a Combo, you will loot many more resources. With the easier commodities to match, like Stone and Hemp, it is possible to loot over one hundred units in one play, if you play perfectly.

When you clear resources, it taps the island's supply. Less commodities are shipped by merchant, and squares on the game board start appearing as empty.

You can initiate Foraging from shipside, as before. Or you can start a Forage from any resource spawn on an appropriate island. These Forage points have a more favorable spread of tiles for the associated commodity, but they dry up quickly, so exploring the island is encouraged in this way.

Scoring

At this time, there is no indirect scoring; what you win, you get to keep.

Every unit of commodity you manage to loot from the game board, goes directly to a ship of your choice after the game.

The exception is Fruit; For each 5 cheap Fruit, you get one Fruit crate. For each 10 valuable Fruit, you get one Fruit crate. The amount is rounded up - If you have less than a full crate, you still get a crate.

Variability

Different islands will have entirely different forage patterns, and foraging different resources will have different tactics also.

In addition, there is a possibilty of special Tiles appearing on the game board.

Example: Tortoise squares become more likely depending how depleted the commodities on the island are. Tortoises conceal the surrounding 8 squares from being revealed as hints, even if you click adjacent to them. You can only see a square adjacent to a Tortoise by clicking it.

Clicking on a Tortoise will scare it away and allow the surrounding 8 squares to be seen again.

Example 2: Attempting to forage on an island currently being raided by Skellies will cause Skull icons to appear on your game board. If you accidentally click a single skull, everything in your sack is replaced with worthless Bones!

But if you manage to Combo skulls, you instead recieve a bounty of PoE and the skulls will be harmlessly cleared from the board. They will only replace your sack with bones if you fail to combo them.

Skulls gradually appear at the forage points of any skellie-raided isle, in sets of 2 or more. Once cleared from a forage point, they will not reappear for at least 1 hour. (This prevents abuse by ignoring the skellies and foraging for skulls - which can be done, but only to a limited extent)

End criteria

When all the tiles have been overturned, the game ends. Optionally a player can conclude a game early and take what he has already earned. This may or may not be included, depending on game balance.

Difficulty scaling

Anyone should be able to perform basic matches and get simple commodities.

The skilled players will be able to loot an island quickly of lots of a cheap resource, or hunt down more rare commodities.

To obtain a resource that is rare and hard to get, a player must be careful not to pick up other resources, remember the locations of key tiles, and make sufficiently few mistakes to allow for a unit or two to be looted.

Very valuable resources such as Gold and Sassafras may not always have enough tiles on the board to successfully forage a unit; so even if a person plays perfectly, a harvest attempt may still fail.

Crafting type

This would be a foraging puzzle.

Known problems

With no time limit on the puzzle, people can potentially play forever without finishing a game. People who expect to earn a commodity every time with their labor, and try for something that is too hard to get, may occasionally fail and waste their labor instead.

Notes

A simple Windows .EXE demo exists for this game, at the following location:

http://www.geocities.com/mcgarvery/Forage.zip (This serves as an example of gameplay and does not indicate final game balance.)

The demo has a known glitch when covered by another window, the graphics will not display correctly. Thank you for your patience.

Images

The following storyboard is provided at request...

Welcome to the Codename: Pike Forage puzzle demo.

I can see yer eyes gleaming over that rich forage, so let's dig right in!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S1.jpg

Click anywhere on the grid to take that tile. What's under it? Who knows! But ye can get a glimpse of what's hidin' nearby, every time ye pick up a tile. Plan yer moves carefully!

We uncovered a Durian!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S2.jpg

Te fill up yer Forage Sack, ye need to match consecutive tiles! Here, I've gone along and picked up a few Durians, usin' the surrounding hints to find more.

The Combo Meter shows ye how many in a row ye've picked up. On the right, ye see we need 4 consecutive Durians to get any in the Forage Sack.

We've already got 8! When you click a tile of a different type...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S3.jpg

... Yer combo is tallied and put into yer forage sack! HAR! Big combos are worth extra commodities!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S4.jpg

The Forage Sack can only hold one type of Commodity. And we keep whatever we can get the most of, whether that be trash or treasure.

We can pick up three Coconuts here in a row, aye... that would be enough to get one unit, but...

Tis' only ONE unit. We already have 4 Durians, so the one Coconut is discarded.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S5.jpg

On the other hand, any sets we can get of the commodity in the forage sack, will be piled in there! Har har har! Watch me loot these 8 Durians and fill my Forage sack up!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S6.jpg

If ye want to change what ye are looting in yer forage sack, ye need to get MORE than what's already in there, in ONE MOVE.

But I think I can do that. Watch me build up this BIG Hemp Combo...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S7.jpg

Arr! Eighteen in one Combo!

My Forage sack had 8 Durians in it. But the 18 Hemp outweighs it, so the old Durians are tossed out, and the Hemp gets piled in there! Yar!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S8.jpg

And so it goes! I've just about looted this Forage point out! I managed to get 26 Hemp - not a motherlode, but respectable, aye.. When you turn over all tiles on the board, the game ends.

I'll play again right away! But I discover a problem...

[[1]]

The more you Forage from a single location, the less commodity is available there.

Look at those blank spaces! There's no way to profit from that.

Crikey! We'll end up with an empty board if we keep harvestin' here!

Click a location on the list, then click 'Load' to move locations.

We'll try our luck with the Sassafras spawn. This represents deboarding and going to the island Sassafras spawn point itself, which encourages players to go explore the island.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S10.jpg

Now, some o' this rare stuff can be real tricky, and Sassafras is hardest of em' all. Some Commodites take so many consecutive matches, you'll be lucky to even get one.

Oftentimes, there just aren't enough tiles! And if me sack is crowded with other junk, I'll NEVER get me precious Sassafras!

Here, I've painstakingly cleared out EVERYTHING but the Sassafras I'm after, without picking up ANYTHING. It took too many tries, I tell you.

(I would have wasted SO much labor, but thankfully, this is a demo game.)

and I think I've got me a unit... I need a whopping 15 for a Combo... and I think I have enough tiles, PLUS an empty sack...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S11.jpg

Yes, I think I've got it!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S12.jpg

BINGO! Har har har! Me Sassafras haul was a success!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S13.jpg

Now haulin' somethin common like Hemp is much easier. Just clean out the other stuff, careful not to touch the Hemp...

Here, I've picked up a few coconuts, but I doubt it will matter.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S14.jpg

One square to go.. Me final combo is 44...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S15.jpg

ARR harhar! The 110 Hemp is worth much more than those junky couple of coconuts!

You think that's a lot? Well I'll tell ye; I've harvested over ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY in one labor-hour on a good day. Now THAT be impressive numbers!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S16.jpg

Of course, harvestin' like that really takes it out of the local spawn point... I ought te move on and find another source.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S17.jpg

Stayin' at one location and harvestin' all 24 hours, will slow yer supply to a trickle. Ye call this a harvest?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S18.jpg

Ah, Gold. So frustratin', a few Gold tiles appear on every board, but almost never a full 8.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S19.jpg

This board had 4... so close, yet so far away!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/Shockfrost/pp/S20.jpg

I've done what I can to encompass the feel of explorin' each different isle, and although the game needs a balancin', every isle really does feel unique.

This storyboard ends with a picture of me going home with an empty sack; a common sight on a depleted spawn point, but nearly impossible when laboring at a fresh one like this.

Cheers!