Welcome to the “Starship Havoc” Elective. We’ll be playing and tweaking a simple game for the next hour or so with the intention of filling some holes in the design.
Starship Havoc is a spaceship racing game. Anywhere from three to 6 players compete in the “Havoc” space derby in an attempt to win an Atomic Space Modulator attachment for their space hubcaps.
Cards: All players start with 8 Move cards, 8 Attack cards, and 8 Defend cards.
Player Representation: Each player is represented by a spaceship.
Board: The game is played on a simple board of 20 spaces. All the spaceships start on the first square and move toward the last square.
The game is played in “rounds” of 6 “turns.
At the beginning of a round, each player secretly picks 6 of his cards, at least one of which will be played each turn.
Turns begin when each player places one card down, visible to all players. This is to be done simultaneously by all players.
Legal plays are: A Move card, a Defend card, or an Attack card. Deciding what a successful attack should accomplish is the goal of this elective.
Movement Phase: Count the number of Move cards that were played by all players. This is the speed that all ships will move forward. (These space-warping engines benefit from the distortion field of competitor’s ships). Thus, the more players who chose Move, the greater a distance they All will move.
Attack Phase: Next, each player who played an Attack card chooses a square (board location) to attack. All ships in that square are considered to be under attack. Attack choice is made simultaneously by all attackers after movement has finished.
Any player that has played a Defend card at the beginning of his turn is immune to all attack that turn.
The number of ships attacking a square is called the “Pending attacks.” Ships may defend against some or all attacks by playing Defend cards from their hands. One Defend card defends against one Pending Attack. There is no limit to the number of Defend cards that a player may choose to play (though it is easy to see that this could never be greater than 5).
End of Round: After playing 6 turns (or fewer if players run out of cards due to Defend cards being played during turns), permanently discard 3 of the cards that were played (out of the 6).
Next Round: Players are free to pick any 6 of the remaining 21 cards to play for the next round. Note that players have great latitude as to which cards they are willing to give up. However, if a player chose 6 Move cards, we know that 3 of them are permanently gone from play.
End of Game: The game is over when the first player enters the winning zone on the 20th square or when no player has a movement card available at the beginning of a round. In the latter case, the winner is the player closest to the finish line.