City Developers, a fast-paced cross between SimCity and Monopoly

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Please give me feedback on my board game!

This game has Chance, Charity, and Movement cards. Charity impacts money and ethics (doing the unethical thing is more profitable than the ethical thing but increases the punishment when arrested), Movement makes players advance to specific properties, change their movement, or give options to move specific distances without rolling (such as when you don't want to land on Super Tax, Arrest, or a heavily developed property).

Ever since the first time I noticed the flaws in Monopoly City, I wanted to make a better board game. Now I'm in the final stages of redesign and play testing. My freshman-level computer science class has taught just enough to for a competent student in the class to design games in the C language and write logs to files telling what as done each turn. The computer program will have 1 represent $100 and calculate funds and asset values separately except when assets need to be sold to pay off debt; that way, I shouldn't run out of room with unsigned long integers. Using that computer program, I found that this game takes far fewer turns to win than Monopoly.

I also playtested this game with friends and they enjoyed it much more than Monopoly and more than most other common board games.

 

Pieces I designed for 3D Printing (should eventually be 2x2 cm on a high resolution printer, or injection mould) or digital board game

 

I reorganized my board to be a bit more densely packed. Players travel roughly counterclockwise with some zigzags and the option to build bypasses in the form of the VIP Bridge and 2 shortcut alleys (the Movement spaces that touch).
Game Board (final layout, simple graphics):

 

Property Deeds:

Rules in spoiler

Spoiler

 

1. Setup: Each Developer starts with M20. Spend at least 50% of initial funds on Properties (not Utilities or Rail Stations) before moving.

2. Buy Properties to earn rent. If you don’t buy an unowned Property you land on, you put it up for auction with a starting bid of 75% list price but with you unable to bid below starting price (the discount can only go to opponents).

3. Dice rolls determine movement unless you have a movement card. Rolling doubles lets you move again, giving you an option to build again. Moving over 24 spaces from doubles gets you arrested for speeding.

4. Pay Day provides Developers with M5 each time landed on or passed.

5. Properties can’t be developed until its Developer passes them (VIP Bridge and trains bypass Properties) after purchase but can be developed on your turn any time afterward. You only need 1 Property to start building. Residential and Industrial buildings increase the rent value of your properties. Commercial buildings generate no rent but increase money earned on Pay Day. Properties can have up to 12 units of Residential + Industrial units and unlimited Commercial units as long as total spaces occupied by R, C, & I occupy 8 spaces or fewer. 3-unit, 1-tile buildings cost the same as 4 1-unit buildings and 4-unit, 1-tile buildings cost the same as 5.5 units

6. Industrial buildings remove income from Commercial and all NIMBY buildings remove income from Residential and Commercial. Bonus buildings prevent NIMBY buildings from being built but neither reduce the harm that Industrial has on Commercial. You can build a stadium as a special Bonus for M50 on a Property in which you own the whole color set for M1 extra each Pay Day. Limit 1 stadium per color set, 2 Stadiums per Developer, and 3 Stadiums per game. Commercial buildings cost the same as Residential and grant 10% of the rent value of the equivalent Residential at Pay Day.

7. If you own all the Properties of one color set, you can build a skyscraper on it to double income. If you own all the Properties of 2 color sets, you can build the HQ, which doubles the income of every Property the builder owns. Skyscraper costs vary between Property colors. Only one HQ can be built per game and the Developer gets a 50% refund on their skyscraper if they built one before they built the HQ. The HQ costs M20.

8. Landing on Planning Permission allows you to build a 1-tile NIMBY building or a 4-tile Bonus building for no cost if you own no utilities or Rail Stations. Utilities allow their Developers to build Bonus buildings 1 tile smaller NIMBY buildings 1 tile bigger (up to 4 tiles). NIMBY buildings cost the Property owner K500 per block to remove. Bonus buildings merely occupy prime real estate. Developers with Rail Stations can build up to 10 subway stops for M30 each on any Property.

9. Rail Stations allow their owners to build subway stops during their turn. Subway stops allow any Developer to go between any Properties with subway stations or rail stations. Developers can advance to any other Property with a station as long as they pay the rent of both Properties. You must pay C5 to travel between your own Properties.

10. Landing on a Utility Company has a variable bill equal to the multiplier specified by the card times the value of 2 dice rolled.

11. Developers who land on the VIP Bridge spot may build the VIP Bridge for M50, where the builder charges others for passage (minimum C5, maximum M5). The VIP Bridge offers a shortcut without subways but still requires the Developer to move the amount of spaces specified by the dice (or card). The spot is a Movement space otherwise

12. If you don’t have enough money to pay rent to another Developer, you can mortgage Properties for their rent value or sell R/C/I for 75% cost (paying full price to rebuild in addition to selling your Properties.

13. Industry Tax, Land Value Tax and VAT/Sales Tax cost M1 per Industry unit, empty Property and Commercial unit respectively.

14. A time limit (such as 2 hours) or turn limit (such as after everyone has gone 50 turns) can be implemented to shorten the playtime. If the game is ended before everyone besides one goes bankrupt, the Developer with the greatest net worth wins. Otherwise, the last Developer standing wins.

15. Jail time, fine and impact of dice rolls for getting out of jail depend on Ethics Points of Developers. Without Ethics points, arrests result in 4 skipped turns AND M4 fine. Ethics Points decrease fine by K500 each; Corrupt Points increase jail time by 1 turn each. Developers can pay M3 per skipped turn to get out early but they can still do everything from jail besides move. If enough ethics points have been earned to eliminate the bail, each subsequent point removes a skipped turn until arrests only set you back without skipped turns down at 12 Ethics points and speeding goes unnoticed.

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city-developers-test.pdf

  Edited May 29, 2017 by OcramsRzr  
updated with final info and graphics

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Keep going Marco.  I know of one undergrad who sold a product to Microsoft and as a result has become quite well fixed.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

The pale green spaces allow anyone who lands on one (with enough money) to build the VIP Bridge. The corners are Pay Day, Jail/Visiting, Free Rent (gives a card that forgives rent), and Arrested. The colored squares are properties (there are 9 property districts/color groups). The light grey squares are Rail Stations while the dark grey squares are utilities. The white squares are events (chance, charity, auction, tax). The white rectangles next to the VIP Bridge are movement spaces (they give "Move X spaces instead of rolling" cards). The dark grey side-ways U is the path (it goes from Pay Day in the bottom-right to the left, then up (VIP bridge can skip the inner loop), or right then left in the inner loop, then right, then down. The light grey rectangles adjacent to the path will have the prices of the properties on them. There is a tunnel between Seaside Park and Boardwalk that is only open to thru traffic. If you stop on the space, you must pay $100 (or 1 credit) to cross via private ferry.

 

If I were to sell this game, my options would be limited to Hasbro/Parker Brothers.

[Hikapunk 3]

This is a neat idea! Ever consider crowdfunding it instead of licensing it to a board game maker?

[Linoa06 1,374]

Interesting idea :>

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I finalized the rules, board, and card designs last year, printed out some prototypes for my friends and I a few months ago, and just recently finalized the design for the 3D game pieces.

 

If anyone wants to "print and play" I can provide the originals, or PDFs for everything, including the random chance cards (Chance, Charity, and Movement) I have not posted here (since there are so many). I recommend getting interlocking centimeter cubes for tracking construction and bingo chips, pennies & nickels, or paper for tracking ethics (and unethical) points.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233962987

 

Now available in Tabletop Simulator!

Please let me know what you think!