TINYforming Mars

GamerMike on BoardGameGeek, gave himself the challenge to shrink the game of Terraforming Mars down to a 9 card PNP (Print ‘n’ Play) using a fraction of the cubes used in the original game. He used 2 of the cards to make a drastically cut down player board, and the other 7 to make double sided cards, with 2 projects on each side. I have printed and played Version 0.1, and it does a reasonable job stripping the game to its barest essentials, whilst keeping the important mechanics. It feels like playing a pocket size version of Terraforming Mars, in 15 minutes.

TINYforming Mars Cards

Tinyfying a Game

New game designers are advised to design a small card game as their first design. It’s a way of keeping things simple, as you’re learning, and a lot of creativity comes out of constraint. The one small card game I have come up with, has run its course, until I find a way to incorporate it into a bigger game. It was a fun simple idea, but not enough to sustain a whole game.

But remaking a bigger game that I enjoy, into a 9 card game is something that I could sink my teeth into. My first thought was Pandemic, but yay, someone has already done that for me. My mind went to Charterstone next, but any Legacy game would be very hard to replicate with 9 cards. The next serious contender was Everdell, which prompted some ideas, and I will possibly do down the track. But I think better choice is a game that I don’t own, and therefore can’t play anytime I want. So Wingspan it is.

Overall Idea

Wingspan Components

There are a lot of components in Wingspan, which will have to be supplied by a player. Cubes, eggs, food, which will have to be cubes, and the special dice will be replaced by regular dice.

Double sided player boards will be 2 of the 9 cards. That leaves 7 cards to represent the bird cards, which number 170 in the original game. 4 birds on each side of a card will be doable, but hopefully I can split the card into 6ths. This will allow 5 birds on each side, and leave 1 square for an end of round bonus. 70 different birds and 14 bonuses should give enough variation to get a fair bit of play out of the game.

We can’t move the bird cards on to the player boards, so cubes will represent them. This effectively means that birds can’t have row activations, but can still trigger one time bonuses when you recruit them. Row activations can still exist, but they need to be printed on the Player Board. Double sided Player Boards, mean there are 4 different ones that you can play, for more variation. The other main problem with not being able to play actual bird cards, is keeping track of their points. I think a score pad will be needed, with bird points being written down as you go along.

I think that’s enough talking, with nothing to see, so I’ll post again when I have something mocked up.

Continued in 9 Card Wingspan – An Overview

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