Four colors: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. Nothing more classic in board games then that. A little boring, in fact. So how do we turn these four colors into something to write home about?

The answer comes in the constraints placed upon us by the player count. eight to twelve players. More then the four colors available, and there seems no way to distinguish who owns which cone. At first I thought it was with the small toothpick flags, but they are missing from the published version. It becomes obvious as Ben faces off against Gryzzl that Ben is using blue cones while Gryzzl is using red.

Lets make this our core deviation from the rulebook. It is not the first player with four cones who wins, but the first color with four cones who wins.

This means that multiple players can win, if they’re both working for the same color. But that doesn’t make total sense, since why then were there only two players left at the end of the game? Perhaps then there are three “phases” to the game: wherein players have no cone affiliation, wherein every player has a cone affiliation, and wherein each cone affiliation has one player. This, however, brings up a new problem. Player Elimination. No fun for anyone involved. I’m struggling to decide whether to include it or not. On one hand, it sounds like exactly the thing a cut-throat game like Cones would have. On the other, if you’re eliminated and there’s still four hours of game left, you’ll just want to go home.

We’ll come back to that. First, what are the colors? We know there is am object in each corner of the board, with its own Sub-board. We also know for certain what three of the objects are. The green corner has a Dragon, the yellow corner has a Pyramid, and the red corner has the Lava Worm. We know these because they show up in the names of decks in the Prototype version, with the same color as the corner the decks are placed near. The fourth corner, blue, we cannot see the deck for, but we can make a guess at the object as a Castle.

We have four objects, four entities of a sort. In the Cephalofair version of the game, Isaac Childres decided each of the entities were gods which the players had to appease. But what of the Sub-boards? They have their own printed tiles, with little round tokens placed on them. They look a lot like the Challenge play tokens. We also know from images that minis can be placed on the Sub-boards, and lastly that there are these transparent pyramids. These pyramids are a common game component called Looney Pyramids. How do we parse all of these components? What is the point of the Sub-boards at all? To gain favor with the entity, like Childres’s version? Perhaps. Perhaps they are the skill trees of our game, where the further your minis make it down the track, the more powers they gain. A player would gain a power by passing one of the Looney Pyramids, which we will call Roadblocks. This fits into the quote Ben had about Trivia cards and challenge play, although we won’t dig into that system yet. For now, know that the challenge play tokens and the roadblocks and the trivia cards are all on the Sub-boards.

What happens if a player reaches the end of a Sub-board? Perhaps that is where you can pledge yourself to a cone color, taking one of the four spots of potential victors. As little fun as it is, it’s hard to work around player elimination in a game that already has so many players. Perhaps thinning the herd could help speed up the endgame extensively.

Lets combine this feature with the “buying a cone” feature, so that by reaching the end of a Sub-board, now you can buy that color’s large cone, which designates that as your cone affiliation. We should create a sufficiently fantasy sounding name for that, to keep with the theme. Or maybe each color has its own title to go along with it

here’s what they will be:

Blue: The Thronebearer

Red: Consul Ad Infinitum

Yellow: The Grand Metaphysiker

Green: Traxxdal’s Emissary

Because we have combined two systems, we have some bookkeeping to go over. To buy a cone, most players have to pass the “Front of Tragarum”. As easy as it would be to just make this the end space on a Sub-board, I really want the Front to be a hex on the spiral of the main board. Perhaps it is the space between the bottom and top boards on the published version. We will find the exact space when we go over the board, but for now note that the Front is a hex. We also need to decide what Paramilitary Disruption is. Only the Maverick can induce it, and the Maverick is recommended for experienced players only. So it should be sufficiently complicated. Taking a cone affiliation early in the game would be complicated enough. But how would Paramilitary Disruption help with that? You can send minis onto the sub-boards, which travel up and show how many of those powers you gain, right? Well what if the Maverick can choose a sub-board and battle the other minis on that board? If the Maverick is able to kill all the minis on a board, the Maverick has induced Paramilitary Disruption and can then instantly take that cone. But as a debuff, the Maverick cannot have minis on any of the other Sub-boards. Essentially, the Maverick locks down one of the boards early in the game, with the downside being less versatility.

So, what are the rules we have added this time? Lets lay them out.

Four Cone Colors. Each contains an entity and a Sub-board. Each can have one player declare a Cone Affiliation to them. Each Cone Affiliation has its own fun name. You declare a Cone Affiliation by buying the cone after you both reach the Front of Tragarum and have a mini at the end of the Sub-Board. Except for the Maverick, who must defeat every mini on the Sub-board to induce Paramilitary Disruption.

Four Sub-boards Each contain sections marked by Roadblocks Each section passed gives the player a new power Contains Challenge Play Tokens



Not much in the way of actual content, but these decisions will heavily reflect on the rest of the game. Next time, we look at the board, and figure out how we’re going to make it.