Connected: New Mechanic

Working on connected has been a little slow as of late. I have been doing most of designing in my head during dog walks or other down time. Then I catch up in my trusty notebook. One new mechanic I thought of for my game Connected was to have a shared goal for all of the players with a catch the bad part of not reaching it does not affect everyone the same.

The idea of adding this mechanic into the game was a thematic decision. I wanted there to be little more to deal with in the game a bit more complexity. I also wanted to add something that shows that the telecommunications companies not only have to deal with each other but there are other outside influences that to the complexity of building a network. Its not just customers and competition its governments and supply and demand that affect how and why networks get built.

I am trying to not make this a catch up mechanic but more of a strategic mechanic

A couple of examples of the goal are "Have at least one unbroken path (backbone links only) connecting the east coast with the west coast" and "Have at least X regional links - based on player count". This will give the players something they can focus on working towards together or not depending on the strategic value of doing so. The consequences will be for example the "The player in first place has to pay X victory points or remove X link tokens" and it could affect more players depending on player count. Alternatively if the goal is not met it could give a big bonus to the last place player in addition to or in place of the negative affect to the first place player.

I am trying to not make this a catch up mechanic but more of a strategic mechanic to add flavor to the game and make for some really interesting decision making. Its going to take a lot of work to get these to work balanced and right but I believe the time and effort will add a lot of excitement to the game. As always thanks for following along as I am working on Connected and please subscribe to the email list for more updates.