Introduction

PanzerPlay is a board game about a tournament for panzer mock battles held by high-schools in the distant future. This is the first step of design, and as such I list below three possible foundation game ideas that could be built upon to make a complete game. I hope to be able to pick one of these three within a week or so, after I get some feedback on them. Regardless of the game specifics, they all share the following ideas in common, and most of these base ideas are likely to be cards in the game:

The main resources of the game are: Motivations, Panzers. and Students. The Students man the Panzers that make up each player's team, and their general Motivations affects their strengths and goals.

The secondary parts of play are: Maneuvers, Terrain, and Strategy. The tanks make Maneuvers to win, and these interact with Terrain and Strategy in play.

The core the gameplay will always be tank matches, where each team fields manned tanks from three to six and attempts to take out the flag tank of all other opponents in the match.

Design: Apple - Feedback

In the Apple design, the game is focused on a feedback loop that will make your tank teams the best they can be. You put your Students in your Tank teams and play and earn rewards that make the Students better and therefore the Tank perform better in a feedback loop. Meanwhile your opponents attempt to break that cycle and arrest your development. This design would add Achievement cards that improve the Students over the course of play. This design would have a heavy focus on planning ahead and overall game strategy. The way Achievements connect to Students makes them the hinge of play.

Design: Pear - Deck Building

In the Pear design, the game is focused on building the best deck you can - trimming and adding cards from draw to draw and reshuffling the deck. While this idea overlaps a bit with Apple, it isn't the same and doesn't focus on improving Students at all. Instead, you have Skill cards that can be bought with Merit and placed back into your deck that enhance your team's performance dynamically. In the Apple game, Student improvements by Achievement are rather static. This design would have a heavy focus on getting the right set of skills to let your team thrive. Skills would be connected to Terrain, meaning the game would hinge on Terrain.

Design: Lemon - Trick-taking

In the Lemon design, the game is focused heavily on knowing how to play the cards and gauging what your opponent will do. The matches would be played out in the trick-taking style, and part of the goal would be to increase your hand size to represent a better team. This gives advantage by giving more options. Hands would be made of possible Maneuvers for tanks, making them the hinge of play.