Northanger Abby: The Ball Game

The game was very amusing to create, solely due the fact that ”The person who has the most balls gets Catherine.”

Now let me elaborate! Our game idea is (loosely) based off of Northanger Abbey, a book by Jane Austen. Now, being 5 rather male humans, none of us have read a single page of a Jane Austen novel.  All of our information is therefore based off the Wikipedia page about the book.  Which I believe to be fine, as in my humble opinion if it was expected of us to read a novel by her just to make a board game based off of it, I’d be a bit peeved. 

I digress.

Now for the idea of the game came when we read that “Catherine liked to attend balls” and then further reading that there was a love triangle involved.  We quickly came to the idea of a territorial acquisition game, with 2 teams based off of the male families.  Whoever had the most attendance at the 38 balls happening that evening (I know, a very busy Bath that night!) would have enough persuasion to woe Catherine.

Oh, but what about the pirate portion of the board game? Well we decided that the odd numbered player would get to run mischief around town the night, causing a handful of annoyances to the balls and therefore opposing players.

This exercise of only basically being told “Jane Austen Novel and Pirates, Go!” was kind of interesting.  Working with other material is always a love-hate relationship for me, as I don’t like doing something about a body of work without feeling like I know it through and through.  Oh well, though.  I sure as hell wasn’t going to read one of her books!

Here are the rules, and a picture of the board.

Northanger Abbey: The ball game

2-5 players

Setup:

Each player takes control of a family member on each side of the conflict, Thorpe, or Tilney.  If there are an odd number of players, the odd player will play as the pirate.

Once team selection is finished, players take turns placing people to attend the different balls over the town of Bath.  Each player will then place their own player piece in attendance at a ball that they are already in attendance at.  This ball will be the player’s “home” and will not be attend able by the other family.

The objective of the game is to have the most people of your family in attendance at the various balls, to obtain popularity in order to impress Catherine Morland.

Gameplay:

Families:

Each family has up to two players; for the Thorpe family, there is John and Isabella; for the Tilney family, there is Henry and Eleanor.

At the start of each turn, the current player may place people at the balls they are in attendance at, limited based on the number of balls their family currently attends.  The player will get one person per ball attended, and a pre-determined amount based on the amount of regions they attend all the parties at.

The families will take turns crashing the other adjacent balls to obtain attendance.  However, the family can’t cross the river to crash, unless there is a bridge.  The crashing party may use up to 2 dice, while the defending family may use up to 3 dice. The winner of the crash is whoever has the highest dice roll, and that family may attend that ball.  The losing family will lose all people in attendance, and if any player pieces are in attendance, they move back the ball they started at.

Extra powers are in effect if a player piece is part of the crash:

·         John and Henry power: Authority, they count as +3 for defending +1 for attacking.

·         Isabella and Eleanor power:  Feisty, they count as +2 for attacking +1 for defending.

Pirate James:

The pirate player draws a card at the start of his/her turn, which determines what they must do that turn.  Whether or not the pirate plays the card, it is discarded at the end of the turn. 

The pirate may move anywhere on the board, within a 6 ball-space area, depending on what they roll on a 6-sided die.

 Winning conditions:

            There are two ways a player may win; the first is optional, the second is mandatory.

·         After a pre-set number of turns, the winner is the family with the most balls in attendance

·         The winner may also be the family with every ball in attendance, except the other family’s “home” balls.

That’s it! A cool game, heavy influenced by risk, but still unique in itself.

-Jordon