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The idea:

So based on the parameters I got, I immediately thought of having a hex board with mirrors placed around, then you try to create a form of laser “pen” and anything inside that is your territory. I didn’t immediately think of an end condition, but that I hope comes naturally. As far as the cards go, I think I can get away with using them to determine when you get to place, rotate, move mirrors and maybe change something about laser strength, maybe if lasers clash the one with higher strength goes through. Anyway this is all written right after the last post, time to actually prototype some stuff!

One day and a trip to the dollar store later:

Very little is unchanged from my first thoughts, the one major change is the addition of red backed cards, which go in the same deck as all other cards. I will explain them in a moment. For now I’ll go through each component.

Rope:

They’re supposed to be the lasers, players get one at the start of the game and let it run in from a chosen hexagon in the outermost edge in a straight line. These will bounce off of the mirrors to bend. Not pictured is masking tape to hold the things in place a bit. A much better solution would be chains as they stay more in the shape you give them. But no luck finding those for cheap, so rope it is.

Map:

Just a standard hexagonal map, I won’t add any fanciness to it until I get to play-test the game.

Mirrors:

They require a little imagination, but they’re those little rectangles. I tried to make them out of aluminum for a reflective touch but that ended up being too cumbersome and flimsy, so I just covered the paper in tape to make it shiny and called it a day.

Card number reference:

It’s the paper rectangle with numbers on it, it tells you how many blue and red cards there are of each type in the deck.

Cards:

Cards are pretty simple except for maybe one, I’ll go through them one by one and then explain red cards.

Move:

Move a placed mirror, keep the rotation

Place:

Place a mirror, choose a rotation for it

+1 Mirror:

Gain a mirror from the supply

Rotate:

Rotate a placed mirror

+1 Strength

This is the weird one, it gives your laser strength, what does that mean? Well I think it could mean that if two lasers clash the one with higher strength goes through and the weaker one stops. I’ll have to test it. Another interpretation would be the player gets another incoming laser to play with but again, I don’t like that second solution because it just makes the card too damn strong.

Red cards:

The concept behind red cards is relatively simple, when a player goes to draw a card, if the card is red, the player may choose to discard that card and draw another one instead. Why does that matter? Well let’s look at what the current numbers are for red and blue cards:

Move: 20 blue, 0 red | Place: 12 blue, 12 red | +1 Strength: 4 blue, 12 red

+1 Mirror: 9 blue, 3 red | Rotate: 32 blue, 0 red

So reds are composed of mostly Place and Strength cards (24 cards out of 27) which are both meant to be crucial to the game, but, at some point these cards might not be what you’re looking for based on your strategy in regards to strength or your amount of mirrors available to place, so you can skip them while still stopping other players from getting these good cards.

How to play

For the moment, I’ll only worry about 2 player rules, I can specify things for 3 players later when the game is a little bit tested. I think the full deck is a little too big for 2 players, but let’s try it regardless.

So, first turn, the player draws 5 cards and places their laser, then they get 5 mirrors from the supply and place one, choosing the rotation it’s placed in. Then, they may play a card.

For turns 2 and 3, the player draws 1 card and places a mirror, choosing the rotation. Then, they may play a card.

For every turn after, the player draws 1 card and then chooses to play a card or not. Also they may move their laser starting point by 1 hexagon (remaining on the outer edge) and or rotate it as much as they wish (remaining in a straight line of hexagons)

Rules

Lasers must always travel through a straight line of hexagons.

All mirrors can reflect any laser, but only a player of the mirror’s colour may move or rotate them.

Mirrors can only be rotated to reflect light in “sensible” ways, meaning they can only reflect lasers in a way that makes the laser travel through a straight line of hexagons and that resembles real life reflection.

If two lasers of the same strength clash, they both go through.

A mirror must always change the direction of light that hits it, meaning it can’t be placed to let light through it.

I think that’s about it (for now!) so hopefully I get to test it tonight and maybe get some chains before then so the game isn’t super inconvenient to play!

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