Boardgame Design:
Disaster
on Barbuda
Instructor: Mamata ShahSpecial Thanks: Tony Chen, Yuanxiang Xu
There are 2 opposite groups of players: one is to “stop” the disaster, the other to “facilitate” the disaster. In fact, the player cannot really influence the process of the disaster itself, which means you cannot stop a hurricane from coming. But you can modify the result that would happen. What if the “disaster” itself can be an opportunity, to promote the reshuffling of money and power?
Conspiracy/Disater capitalism/Game
• 1 Board Map – Barbuda Island
• 1 Timeline Table
• 1 Time marker
• 1 Dice
• 150 foodtokens
• 100 building material tokens
• 5*30 Property Pieces sets, in different colors
• 13 urbantiles
• 18 invalidtiles
Game Setup:
• Place the main game board in the center of the table.
• Place the timeline table next to the game board. Put a marker in the first block.
• Each player chooses one color and takes pieces accordingly. Keep the remaining pieces in the game box.
• Players decide the parties they play. The investor takes 50 food tokens before the beginning of the game.
• The residents set the level 0 properties on all city and farmland tiles. At the beginning of each round, the residents take the resources adjacent to their properties.
How to play:
Players and Roles
The game accommodates 3 to 5 players.
Players are divided into two groups: Residents (2-4 players) and anInvestor (1 player). Teams are determined by drawing lots.
There are a total of 10 rounds in the game.
Property Pieces
There are four types of house pieces of varying levels in the game:
Shack (Level 0): Represents ownership of the land.
Basic House (Level 1)
Intermediate House (Level 2)
Advanced House (Level 3)
Residents can only upgrade their house by one level per round, while the investor can build directly to any level.
Round Actions
In the beginning of the game, the residents own all the city and farmland tiles.
Each round, residents first collect food and building materialsin a fixed order (mandatory), then they may choose to either upgrade or place new houses (optional).
After all residents have completed their actions, the investor may purchase or contest existing properties.
It is only possible for each player to choose one option per turn: to build properties on new land tiles, or to upgrade their properties.
Game Map
The map consists of 33 hexagonal tiles representing Barbuda Island, with different types of landuse: City (2 tiles), Forest (8 tiles), Farmland(5 tiles), and Beach (18 tiles).
City: Both parties can build houses, up to a maximum of 3 houses per tile. Residents start with 1 Basic House (Level 1) here.
Forest: Produces one building material per round. Residents cannot destroy the forest.
Farmland: Both parties can build. Both parties can only build up to a maximum of Intermediate Houses (Level 2). Resident houses adjacent to farmland can get 1 food per round.
In farmland and forests, investors can build up to Advanced Houses(Level 3), and once they reach level 3, the tile automatically become city, which will also be affected by subsequent disasters.
Beach: Resident houses can get 1 food per round from adjacent beaches unless an investor has built on it, making it private property. However, the investor can get food from that tile after construction, based on the level of the house. Residents cannot destroy the beach.
Basic House (Level 1) – 1 food
Intermediate House (Level 2) – 2 food
Advanced House (Level 3) – 3 food
*Game map design: White color as city, green as forest, beige as farmland, yellow as beach.
Disasters
Disasters occur between the 5th and 6th round, and the specific disaster is determined by drawing a disaster card after shuffling.
In the turn before the disaster turn, the resident side defaults to owning all city and farmland units on the map with level 1 houses on them. Disaster-affected areas do not have properties or ownership and may be expropriated by investors for building purposes.
Disaster types include: Hurricane (destroys all urbanbuildings), Drought (destroys all farmland buildings), Fire(destroys all forests and stops material production), and Tsunami(randomly destroys beaches - Beaches and their buildings must pass a dice roll, with 1-3 beaches permanently sunk, and 4-6 beaches retained)
Resources
The game features two types of resources: food and building materials. Food can be converted into building materials at a ratio of 2 foodfor 1 building material.
Forests produce building materials. Farmland produces food.
The investor starts with 50 food. It costs 4 building materialsto build a level 1 house, and an additional 4 building materials for each level upgrade.
The investor can initiate a forced sale, using food to purchase land and the houses on any tile.
When the investor initiates a forced sale, both the investor and the residents independently decide on the amount of food they can contribute. As soon as the final decision is made, if the investor’s food offer exceeds that of the residents, they gain ownership of the land and its buildings.
End of Game and Scoring
The game ends at the end of the last round.
At the end of the game, scores are calculated based on the number and level of buildings on each player's land.
Level 1 House: 1 point
Level 2 House: 3 points
Level 3 House: 5 points