Custom Expansion (work in progress) - Year 2: Ginger Island

[PixelProtectors]

NOTE: I posted this also to Board Game Geek's forums, so it's mainly a copy/paste from there, but thought I'd repost here to get some input as well.

So I've been working on this for a few weeks now, taking notes and figuring things out. I don't have it completely worked out, and I haven't playtested anything so I'm not sure if this is a great idea, or it's completely broken haha.

So how I had envisioned this working is, you can play Ginger island as a standalone 2 player game through one year, but may require some components from the original main game. Or you can connect it to the main game and play it up to 4 players, and adjust the difficulty as-needed, possibly adding a second year of the game (so 32 rounds - yeah I know, it would potentially be a very long game). I had a few ideas to include on the island that would incorporate the main game and make it flexible. Otherwise, some things you can completely ignore.

Here's what I have so far (it's a pretty rough photoshop design):

First off, there's a new character profession - the Adventurer with an upgradeable sword (still figuring this out). It will help in the volcano dungeon, as well as the mines on the main map. Here's some of the sword upgrade ideas: 1) Rusty Sword > upgrade for 5 gold / 2) Steel Small Sword > upgrade for 1 iron / 3) Tempered Broadsword > upgrade for prismatic shard / 4) Galaxy Sword (FINAL). Sell things to get gold, iron obtained in volcano dungeon, and prismatic shards will be hard to get but you can get them in the volcano dungeon.

The currency on this map is golden walnuts only. No gold. But all new tiles can be sold for gold if you decide to play this game with the main game. Golden walnuts can be found in a variety of ways, and from completing some goals.

3 new island dice. Ginger on 3 sides, Parrots on 2 sides, and a Golden Walnut on one side.

Season cards are specific to the island, with special island event cards happening. If you play both games, you would flip both season cards at the same time.

12 forage-able tiles for each season. New tiles include: ginger / coral / mussels / coconuts / tiger slimes / fiber / taro tubers / scrap notes / gems / golden walnuts

Movement around the map I have not totally figured out yet. It will be different from the main game for a few reasons... It's one island, not an entire huge town. So therefore, it's easier to get around faster. That's why movement will be different. So you will pick where you want to start, and you're allowed up to two action locations, and up to 3 white spots. In any order. Action spot, white spot, action spot, white spot, white spot, and end your turn. Every time you stop on a white spot, you will roll ONE of the new island dice. If you roll a golden walnut, collect a golden walnut. You've successfully searched the island's many hidden spots! Flip the white circle token over to indicate that it's been searched, even if you were unsuccessful. Getting golden walnuts will be crucial to unlock all the action spots on the island, and open up new Mr. Qi objectives. These circle tiles will be refreshed and flipped back over at the start of each season, allowing you to go back out and try again!

While I'm mentioning movement, you'll notice some red circles. These are like warps. Once you've paid and unlocked the parrot express transportation system, you can now use these spaces to move around the map of Ginger island much more quickly!

And speaking of unlocking spaces, a few of the spaces on the map need to be unlocked by paying for them with golden walnuts, 1 per player. The spaces below are already unlocked from the beginning: Mr. Qi's Golden Walnut Room / Birdie's Hut / Bird Puzzle / Volcano Dungeon / Island Field Office. These spaces are locked and need to be purchased to unlock: Dig Site / Island Trader / Water Crops (farmhouse) / Parrot Express. And these 3 spaces are available in the year 2 combination where you use both maps: Warp to Farm (needs to unlock - takes you to the water crops or animal action spot on regular map) / Make a Friend (needs to unlock - is the beach resort) / Boat back to pelican town (can take you back to any action spot in the regular map).

The Dig Site will be a place where you roll two of your three island dice and check the grid to see what you got. The top 4 spaces are a bit more common with "bone 1" being the space you really want - and bone 2 on the bottom row being the more rare one. This is the only way to complete the donations at the Island Field Office action space. These spaces will be randomly built and stacked one on top of another. Each tile space will have about 8-10 tiles on them I think (2-3 per season). So when you successfully roll what you need, you grab the top tile, flip it over and see what you got. You're looking for the fossils to donate, but you could also find all sorts of interesting things. Even the trash pile may have some good stuff in it.

The Island Trader action spot will be a location where you trade goods for better goods. Ginger will be a very common forage item on the board. You can trade that in and get a taro tuber. You plant the taro tuber and get a taro root (doesn't have a quality side). You can then trade in that taro root and get a golden walnut! Check the chart on the bottom left of the board to see what you can trade. I'm not totally sold on what tiles are there, but it's something I'm still working on. I'm thinking of making one of the last things you trade be a prismatic shard, which would be beneficial to one of the Mr. Qi objectives (you can also obtain one in the volcano dungeon).

The volcano dungeon will be VERY similar to the mines on the main map, but only 10 levels instead of 12. The adventurer profession will be just as helpful here as the miner profession. The adventurer will be able to navigate the many enemies with their sword tool.

The farm has NO crows attacking it. And you can also grow ANY crop here at any time of the year. You can now also grow fruit trees here. Trade for a sapling at the island trader's spot, then plant it in space 5. It won't need to be watered. Every round you'll move the tree tile down until number 1, then on the next round, you will flip it over to it's fruit. After that it's up to you to "water the crops" and get it off the board into your inventory. You can sell it for gold, or use it for trading for the island trader.

So the main part of the game's goals would be your Mr. Qi objective cards, much like the community center. You pay golden walnuts per player to reveal an objective left to right. If you can complete all of them before the end of winter, you win! You can also modify the difficulty and have all of these face up at the beginning. Some of the objective ideas I had are below. The bottom ones are objectives to only be used with the main game side-by-side since their objectives and rewards are more specific to the main game.

Purchase and unlock all action island locations blocked by golden walnut purchases. REWARD: Horse flute (all players can make one extra move per turn).

Grow and ship 2 Qi beans (Qi fruit) per player. These will look and act like regular crops to grow and ship. REWARD: Pressure Nozzle activated (can water adjacent crops - left and right).

Reach the top of the volcano dungeon / forge. REWARD: Galaxy Soul (can be used to instantly upgrade any tool for any player).

Finish all 4 Island Field Office donations. REWARD: Ostrich Incubator (... not sure on this one).

Place 1 gem per player in the bird puzzle action space. REWARD: Island Item Card

Place 1 scrap note per player in the Birdie's Hut action space. REWARD: Island Item Card

YEAR 2 COMPATIBLE Mr. Qi objectives below:

Find a prismatic shard and drop it off at Mr. Qi's location. REWARD: Junimo Chest (can share items between players on different maps).

Give LOVED gifts to 2 villagers per player. REWARD: Pierre's missing stock list (you can buy ANY seeds from Pierre's store regardless of the season - should help with those pesky community center bundles that you need from older seasons).

Ship 15 gold worth of crops per player in one single turn. REWARD: Enricher (all crops start out as quality).

- - - - - - -

Let me know what you think of my ideas above and the new map. Very interested to see what everyone thinks and suggestions made.

 

[kailomonkey]

Cool idea and I'm sure a lot of fun to design.

My ideas would include:
- A more involved volcano versus the original mines, probably involving your new profession, important monster loot perhaps with greater danger
-- Maybe if you lose a combat the volcano goes back 2 or 3 levels
-- Combat nuts idea roll 3 dice on successful combat: Level 3-4 = roll all 3 nuts to get a walnut, Level 5-6 = roll at least 2 nuts to get a walnut, Level 7-8 = roll at least one nut to get a walnut, Level 9 = as 7-8 but rolling all 3 nuts gets three walnuts, Level 10 = number or nuts rolled is number of walnuts (must be very hard creature - details would be on the mine level/creature info so not having to remember)

- Unlock the resort where villagers are revealed in 2s or 3s and selected or recycled
-- Maybe alt village vacation cards with island specific perks for stand alone
-- For combined game use the standard villager cards but grab the vacation card when met randomly at the beach as above, or choose to grab the vacation card for someone you have already friended

- In place of crows have weeds destroying crops, and maybe make ginger island summer crops only for the combined game and depending how crops are required for the stand alone game

- A new mini game, darts in pirate cove

- Panning at the dig site, cos in the videogame it's the only place where it's really viable!

- If the nuts are supposed to be limited like the videogame, maybe a tracker bar instead of tokens, with checkpoints that once reached will rule out easier ways to get nuts
-- Like if you can get nuts by walking around exploring, that stops happening at half way
-- In between tier things would include things like fishing, panning, harvesting etc.
-- Getting nuts from volcano combat could be always an option
-- A fair few specific ways to get a single nut once (like completing museum) are never ruled out making them good options to keep aside for the finish, but delay you from their rewards
--- The more specific ways to make nuts are randomised at the start to create variety per game similar to grandpa's goals or bundles

- Nuts are no longer a currency but the main goal, I think this would keep the game focused but with previous point, still provide variety.
-- To save tracking spent nuts, maybe every 5 or 10 nuts reached lets you unlock any one thing
-- To scale with players, reduce how much you move up the tracker each nut (or eg by players each find is 4, 3, 2, or 1 nuts (12,6,4,3 more correctly balanced otherwise 2/3 players get an advantage))

 

[PixelProtectors]

Cool idea and I'm sure a lot of fun to design.

My ideas would include:
- A more involved volcano versus the original mines, probably involving your new profession, important monster loot perhaps with greater danger
-- Maybe if you lose a combat the volcano goes back 2 or 3 levels
-- Combat nuts idea roll 3 dice on successful combat: Level 3-4 = roll all 3 nuts to get a walnut, Level 5-6 = roll at least 2 nuts to get a walnut, Level 7-8 = roll at least one nut to get a walnut, Level 9 = as 7-8 but rolling all 3 nuts gets three walnuts, Level 10 = number or nuts rolled is number of walnuts (must be very hard creature - details would be on the mine level/creature info so not having to remember)

- Unlock the resort where villagers are revealed in 2s or 3s and selected or recycled
-- Maybe alt village vacation cards with island specific perks for stand alone
-- For combined game use the standard villager cards but grab the vacation card when met randomly at the beach as above, or choose to grab the vacation card for someone you have already friended

- In place of crows have weeds destroying crops, and maybe make ginger island summer crops only for the combined game and depending how crops are required for the stand alone game

- A new mini game, darts in pirate cove

- Panning at the dig site, cos in the videogame it's the only place where it's really viable!

- If the nuts are supposed to be limited like the videogame, maybe a tracker bar instead of tokens, with checkpoints that once reached will rule out easier ways to get nuts
-- Like if you can get nuts by walking around exploring, that stops happening at half way
-- In between tier things would include things like fishing, panning, harvesting etc.
-- Getting nuts from volcano combat could be always an option
-- A fair few specific ways to get a single nut once (like completing museum) are never ruled out making them good options to keep aside for the finish, but delay you from their rewards
--- The more specific ways to make nuts are randomised at the start to create variety per game similar to grandpa's goals or bundles

- Nuts are no longer a currency but the main goal, I think this would keep the game focused but with previous point, still provide variety.
-- To save tracking spent nuts, maybe every 5 or 10 nuts reached lets you unlock any one thing
-- To scale with players, reduce how much you move up the tracker each nut (or eg by players each find is 4, 3, 2, or 1 nuts (12,6,4,3 more correctly balanced otherwise 2/3 players get an advantage))

Wow I LOVE all these ideas. You came up with some great ideas. I really liked the idea of punch out tokens in the board game of gold and hearts to use as a tangible currency, so the idea of having the same punch out tokens of golden walnuts seemed great, but now your idea of basically a chart or tracker of golden walnuts seems pretty genius. Cleans up the board a lot, and limits the production. Or maybe you get them and place them on the tracker? I kind of like that too. I just like being able to have tangible tokens like the original game.

Yeah I haven't given much thought to the volcano dungeon either, and I really like all of yours. I definitely wanted the sword tool to be something that helps you get through monsters (skull spots on the map cards). I want it to be similar to the mines on the main game, but different enough. Thanks for these thoughts.

I really like your ideas on the beach resort with villagers. That's awesome because then the villagers could have specific cards for the island to help.

What were your thoughts on a pirates darts mini game? I'm not sure what to do there. Obviously would be a dice roll I assume.

Excited to hear your responses - you have some fantastic ideas! Thank you again! :)