Welcome to Next Big Thing Publishing! This site is the result of multiple past attempts at building a brand around my writing and board game hobbies. As I build this page, I’m planning on taking a multifaceted approach using Twitch streaming, YouTube, Podcast, while also consistently blogging about my experiences, my wins, losses, etc. My hopes for this page is that that by the end of the first year, I’ll have completed one or two of my ongoing projects and be publishing them under this brand.

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Jail Break! - Board Game - Paper Prototype

This is the first version of Jail Break! and was the first board game that I've ever gotten to a point of actually making a physical prototype.

Board Layout

In this version (as seen above), you are restricted to a standard Monopoly sized square game board. The board itself was just a grid of 3x3 inch squares that you lay map tiles on. Each player would start from one of the four orange/purple/green/red colored "jail cells" that you see along the lower perimeter. The brown squares on the upper left & right sides were air vents and worked the same way that the secret passages in games like Clue. The exit/escape point was the checkered spots on the top of the board marked with checkered flags.

Cards

There were five types of cards in this game
  1. Map tiles (3x3 inch tiles five variations)
  2. Character cards (Contains a punny name, your crime, special abilities, etc)
  3. Contraband cards (Smuggled cell phone, shiv, stolen keys, rope made of bed sheets)
  4. Punishment cards (go back to your cell, miss a turn, etc)
  5. Reward cards (extra turn, and other perks)

Mechanics, Game Play, and Win Conditions

Each turn you were supposed to lay a map tile to expand the maze or block an opponents path, you would then roll a four sided dice, and move that many spaces through the growing maze. If you rolled a number higher than spaces available, you were to move the maximum amount of spaces possible. Throughout the maze were three types of individual spaces green, red, and contraband spaces. Landing on green would trigger a reward, red a punishment, and a contraband space would give you a contraband card. Before you were able to escape/win you had to gather the four pieces of contraband.

If you get "caught" with a punishment card you had to give up one random piece of your contraband and return to your cell. Additional game mechanics include special abilities for characters (if you get caught you choose which cell, If you get caught you don't have to give up contraband, and others depending on your character.)  Once you gathered your contraband, you would move towards the escape point and finish the game. 

Experimental

I was toying with the idea of a mechanic where a guard can chase you through the halls, but unfortunately the logistics of it didn’t fit in with the overall game play.

I was also trying to experiment with easy, medium, hard modes depending on age range, but it made the rules to confusing.

 I was also experimenting with some basic cooperative play where players work together to escape, but this made the game way to easy.

 

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