Rube

I will continue with the Of Power & Glory blogs, but I wanted to capture a potential game creation in process.  Driving in to work today I was thinking about how The Game Crafter is about to release tiles. And, of course, that got me thinking about what kind of game I might make with tile.  So here it is in all it's raw glory:  Rube.

Rube is a square tile based game.  Each tile has a part of a Rube Goldberg machine on it.  Tiles may have 0 or more inputs and 0 or more outputs; each one on an edge of the tile. The inputs/outputs are typed...  for example, "pushing", "blowing" or "electricity".  Tiles are played in a common play area like Caracassone.  Inputs and outputs can only be placed together if they are of the same type.  I suspect this game will be a little more restrictive in placement than Caracassone, so players will have a hand of, say, 5 tiles to choose from.  You can optionally play a cube on the tile you just laid down.  Unlike Caracassone, you may take a cube from another tile if you wish.  Some tiles are special...  they're initiators.  When they are played, it kicks off the action in the machine.  If a tile has more than one output, the player decides which path to take.  Any cube on a tile that is activated gets a point.... 

That's basically it.  I see this as a fun game, not a high strategy game.  The artwork might be tricky, but I suspect this is the type of game that would be perfectly fine with free clip-art.  I guess we'll see if / where this idea goes.

Later!