DESTINATION: THE MOON
ROLE
Game Designer & Illustrator
DESCRIPTION
Destination: The Moon is a Racing Party Game for 2 to 8 players.
In which a toy austronut wants to reach the moon.
Your mission is to help her reach her goal of life!
- Flick on the Movement Board and collect resources around
the Map
- Build Rockets and use Hand Cards to gain advantages!
- Need more resources? Call for a Trade with other players.
- Beware of Events and other actions! Things could change in a
blink of the eye.
- Compete with your family & friends and collect the most
Winning Points to be the winner!
Game Rule
Components
Components in this game include a movenment board, map, five types of cards, movement pieces, marking dots, and Avatar pieces. Components are in different colors for clearer presents of the function or distinguishment of the players.
The setup of the game is shown here.
How to Win
The goal of this game is to help the astronaut to reach her destination.
There are two ways for the game to end; either the first half players reach the destination, or one player collects the two easter egg event cards that end the game right away.
After the end, all players will count the winning point, which is collected in two ways: Racing prize (based on the racing rank) and In-game winning points (written on player's cards)
The player with the highest Winning Point will be the Winner!
How to Play
When the game starts, each player will have their turn. On one turn, the player of the turn could choose one turn between the movement turn and the trading turn. During the turns, with the exception of the 1-time immune card, players could use up to two hand cards anytime for effects.
Movement Turn
In the moving turn, the player will first flick the movement piece on the movement board, determining how many steps they should take on the map. Rockets are used to improve the effects.
Each player will have two chances to flick; if the movement piece land past the one-more-time line, the player will gain a third chance. If more than two movement pieces are flicked outside the board, the player must draw a punishment card.
Movement Board
Map
On the map, the player will move the avatar pieces. If the avatar pieces land on any colored steps (action spots), the player will draw a corresponding card. The marking dots are used to cover up the used action spots.
Trading Turn
In trading turn, the player of the turn could call for a trade and hold out cards for others to view. Others could choose to hold out a card as an offering. The player of the turn could then accept a trade.
Cards
There are five types of cards in the game. Parts cards, knowledge cards, and events cards are the one player can gain through the map. Combos of parts cards could be exchanged into rocket cards. Only parts cards and knowledge cards can be traded in the game.
Most Event Cards and Punishment Cards will be active on the spot, and some of them will be placed on the table for view with all the parts cards and rocket cards.
Knowledge cards are hand cards that are hidden from other players.
The cards on table is shown as in this picture.
Iteration
This game has gone through quite a lot of changes from the beginning. The first plan and GDD are shown here.
The size of the first version movement board was set as 35cm to 75cm, which is a long rectangle. The flick rule was set as one time per player; if the piece is flicked past the line, the player could gain another flick. Punishment cards will be drawn if any pieces are flicked past the board. (For more details, please check the board game GDD)
For the first list of cards, the events cards and knowledge cards are too similar for their function; they were decided at that time to be put on the table for show.
The first beta test was a small test with primarily the function of the map, cards, and movement board. The art of the map still needed to be finished at that point.
Many problems were found, including the major problem with the movement board. It was too long for any pieces to land in the right place and too hard for players to move. The map also has this problem: too many walls stop players from doing anything, and the game is too long and tedious with insufficient action points.
Therefore, after the first test, rules were changed, such as if an avatar hits a wall, it will bounce back the leftover steps, instead of staying in the same place. The movement board was changed to 35cm x 60cm. Players could now flick up to three times with the one-more-time line, and it takes two bad flicks to earn a punishment.
The knowledge cards are now changed to hand cards, while the special events are effects that act on the spot.
The map setting was also changed; I redrew the walls and added more action points.
Last, the identity cards are removed from the game; colors are enough to show each different player.
In the second test, the new movement board now acts smoothly. This time, the map part was tested on my iPad as a mock-up test. The card problem arose again as too many event cards were left unused, and knowledge cards needed to be increased. The number of cards was also an issue. For eight people, we had a shortage of cards.
So, I changed the rule again. Now that most of the cards the player use immediately return to the pile, fewer cards will be kept in stasis at the player's hand. This recycling of cards solved the problem. Also, the contents of the card were changed to reach a balance between the event cards and knowledge cards.
The map was finished and printed as a mini-test version for the third test. This time everything runs much more smoothly. The final version is based on this test; only small things such as scores, winning points, and the art itself was changed.
