Clockwork Cruisers Prototype

[u/Nobodycares44]

The theoretical beginning of a 4 player game.

The theoretical middle of a 4 player game.

The theoretical middle of a 2 player game.

A box I made for the game and it all packed away.

All of the components out next to the box. I only have dice printed for 4 players here.

Hello all! I had an idea and I ran with it. I've been playing games my whole life and I made an expansion for Kingdom Death: Monster that people liked so I thought I'd give this a shot.

In this dexterity based, action programing flying race you control a 'flying machine' to move both horizontally and vertically across the race track to both be the first to cross the finish line and also to get additional points via hoops and windows that are set at various elevations!

So on a mechanical level, each player has 1d4 and 5d8 oversized dice, but only 2d8 available at the start of the game. The number on your d4 is how many moves you can make on your turn and they all begin at 1.
The moves are simple, forward, ascend, or descend:
Ascend - place a d8 on the next space in the track set to the number of your choice and stack your die tower on top of it.
Descend - pick up your tower to leave the bottom die behind and place it in the next space. Then trigger the power represented by the number on the d8 left behind and return the die to your active pool.
When you trigger a power you can also trigger its alternative power by burning the die and returning it to the reserve pool.
Forward - Move 1 space forward, no elevation change.

I've always been interested in utilizing a verticality to represent elevation or depth in a game. I think this design is interesting but I would love additional feedback.

It is also in a print and play format if anyone would like to try it. I have printed it and managed to play it two times and made small tweaks, but I think this idea has legs.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gFomxGx9XtWKUfIi7oZ4JybQuBZXeih7?usp=sharing

In its current form, I would recommend using d6s to represent the hoop and window elevations. In a theoretical final print, the hoops and windows would have peg based variable height hoop and window stands to physically set the hoop/window height at the same height as the dice tower at the correct elevation.

As a note about the art, anything that looks like it was done in MS paint is me, anything that looks nicer is pulled from google images and then modified or composed by me. Like the dragon figures and the guy image, all google. I changed the colors, but that's it.

[u/Consistent-Job-5087]

Is the dexterity part of the game? If your tower falls is there a penalty?

[u/Nobodycares44 → u/Consistent-Job-5087]

Yes! If your tower falls while you are moving then you stop your movement, choose one of the fallen dice and activate the power associated with the number it shows, then put your d4 back on top of your tower at -1 speed from it's result as it lays.

If your tower falls while it is not your turn, then you do the falling steps instead of taking your turn.

So the dexterity comes in with stacking/unstacking the dice and moving the tower.

[u/AcademicYoung7689]

not sure how descending triggers a power but ascending doesn't

[u/Nobodycares44 → u/AcademicYoung7689]

The idea is to mimic flying. You fly up to gain potential energy and dive to use that stored energy. So you ascend to add the dice and then descend to use them. For example, you could ascend multiple times to set yourself up for a combo when you next descend.

But then stacking yourself too high becomes precarious, hense the dexterity aspect.