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
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