Pride & Prejudice...and Pirates!

The game based on a movie about a book

What is Pride, Prejudice & Pirates?

Pride, Prejudice & Pirates (P,P & P) is a start to end board game based around the Jane Austen's popular novel, minus the Pirates. A game for 2 - 4 player, P,P & P surrounds the story of the Bennett sisters and their race to find a man. Mrs. Bennett is eager to have all four of her daughters married off as soon as possible and out of her household. As a result, each daughter will race through the board in an attempt to be the first to get hitched. 

On the way, however, there are several obstacles to overcome including Pride, Prejudice and, of course, Pirates! So where do Pirates play into the whole 16th Century era? Well, the concept is simple - Pirates want your booty! As they have for centuries, the Pirates in this game are after rare treasures which are believed to be obtained through the capture of young and single maidens. Heaven knows you've got to look out for the Jolly Rancher who isn't so forgiving should you land in his territory (rules are explained below). 

The game is quite straight forward and simple and must be played with its comical nature in mind. Though the game follows a certain so-called 'Code of Conduct', it is fast-paced and can be quite a lot of fun when played in groups of 4.

Game Time

The game can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour depending on the fate of every play. 

Contents

• 1 Six-Sided Dice

• 4 Player Gems

• 24 P,P & P Cards

Set Up

• Other than the game board, the only thing to set-up for play are the 24 cards which are shuffled and placed in the pile labelled 'Deck'.

• In addition, all player gems should be placed on the starting corner tile. 

Rules

• Once all 24 cards have been shuffled and placed on the game board and all 4 player gems are on the starting position, the game is ready to be played. 

• As stated in the Code of Conduct, first play goes to the last person to have read a Jane Austen novel or watched a movie based on one of her books. If no one has done so, play goes to the oldest person and passes left from then on.

• Once the dice is rolled, it's simply a matter of moving the displayed number of spaces and passing play on. 

• If a player lands on a P,P & P tile, it is his responsibility to pick up a P,P & P card from the deck. The effect of the cards vary with type.

• If the effect of a card lands a player on another P,P & P space, the player must not pick up another card but pass play on to his/her left. 
  
  
• An Honour card may be kept and saved to play whenever a player wishes. All other cards are effective immediately. 

• If a player finds themselves on a Jolly Rancher space (corner spaces - skull with cross bones), they must move back to the closest Jolly Rancher space before the one they are on. If the player happens to be on the first Jolly Rancher space, they must move back to the start. 

• First player to reach the end wins!

Game Overview

Pride, Prejudice and Pirates is a fun game to play when with friends. It begins with a player taking a roll and then moving to the appropriate space. The real fun begins when a player lands on a P,P & P space and must draw a card. Cards come in four different forms and are amusing to read. However, every card imposes a punishment whether that may be on the player picking up the card or another player based on the contents of the card.

There are four different types of cards:

Pride Cards

Pride cards generally display the negativity associated with having a chip on your shoulder and thinking you are better than most people in life. The purpose of this card type is to portray the manner in which Jane Austen attempts to explain to the reader how Pride can be harmful to the health of a relationship. This idea is especially expressed through the behaviour and fundamental attitude of Mr. Darcy who struggles with his pride to be with Elizabeth. Primarily, Pride cards hinder the player's own progression.

Prejudice Cards

The purpose of prejudice cards is to demonstrate how suffocating this trait can be towards the progression of love or marriage. Much in the manner that Elizabeth treats Mr. Darcy, Prejudice is meant to hinder other players (your sisters) from reaching the end and getting married. 

Pirate Cards

Although most of the game is quite clearly light-hearted, the most comical element within gameplay has to be the Pirate cards which are based off of absolutely nothing in a Jane Austen novel and have everything to do with the capture of booty. Pirate cards are simply  in play to extenuate the ridiculousness of the idea of pirate being present in a board game based on a story placed in the 16th Century. Pirate cards may hinder yours or another player's progression. 

Honour Cards

These cards are meant to be the only sane connection between Pride & Prejudice and Pirates. A code of honour is held with similar regard on the part of both 16th Century Ladies and Pirates. While Pirates may pillage lands and steal, cheat and lie, there has always been a code of honour between them. This shared ground is meant to benefit the player and may thus be played at will. 

Creative Process

When conceiving the idea for Pride, Prejudice and Pirates, my team spit-balled thoughts on different Jane Austen novels to explore. At first we thought about a card game built on Sense and Sensibility where it takes a good balance of both to win the game. However, we quickly decided to go with Pride and Prejudice due to the popularity of the book and the ease of information available online based around the novel. A central theme for game type was the use of cards, so we stuck with this idea and introduced it into a Start to End system. Since one of our options was a board game, we decided to run with it. 

When we got down to designing the board we decided to make the game as compact as possible, to make it easier on us when it came to designing the game itself. However, this was a decision I later regretted as outlined further below. We worked on several different options in using the board space and we came up with a monopoly-style manner of spreading out the blocks players will move on. We toyed with the idea of having a dice arena to avoid dice rolling off tables, but we decided to scrap the idea since it would make our game board less portable. 

We then decided to place the rules directly on he game board and to have the cards placed in the middle with a discard pile for used cards. Another idea being thrown around was the possibility for the game to go on should a player roll a number greater than what they needed to land on the end space, causing them to go in circles till they finally got lucky enough to land right on it. However, this idea was also scrapped as we figured the game had the potential to drag on for hours and eventually the 24 cards would run out and the game would begin to get boring once the cards were recycled more than once. 

Now that the prototype has reached completion, I think back on what could have been done to improve the gameplay mechanics and several thoughts come to me. For one, I'm disappointed with the lack of spaces to extend gameplay. If I had the opportunity to change anything, I would most certainly increase the game space to take up an entire bristol board. I would create more interesting cards and perhaps introduce an interactive aspect where players challenge each other to see who comes out on top. I might even stick with the idea of going around the board more than once by making the spaces bigger and having it so that players have to attend certain events and build up their reputation in a community to gain notice from suitors and eventually be married after certain criteria has been met. Pirates would act as random comical obstacles to the progression of your love story and the player must find a lady-like manner of dealing with such scum buckets without demeaning her integrity within society. 

Conclusion

After all the work that has gone into Pride, Prejudice and Pirates, I can honestly say that I am pleased with the result. It has been a challenge to integrate the strange world of oversea criminals into the 16th Century while maintaining a theme to base an entire board game around. However, this assignment has most definitely been fun and the end result is that perfect mix of witty, zany humor one can come to expect from the Innovative Innovators.  

Corporation Exploitation

Corporation Exploitation

Sometimes it's more important to play by the rules

What is Corporation Exploitation?

Corporation Exploitation is a turn-based Territorial Acquisition which is all about collecting the most resources, but also looking after your empire once you learn to build it up. 

The basic premise of the game revolves around the players' ability to spend their money wisely and buy out resources in industries such as oil, rare gems, grain, rubber and steel according to their point values and the bonus they get from improvements built on the resources. There are both civil and industrial improvements that can influence the game and benefit the player in several different ways. The game is also based on happiness as a simulation of the realistic struggle between industrial expansion and its effect on the people whose lives it influences. 

Though the rules can admittedly take more than a few minutes to read through and fully comprehend, the game mechanics are quite straight forward and work as most territorial acquisition games do, except that players have to be wary of the negative effects of their territory on its people. 

Game Time

1 or more hours (since the game is turn-based, it really depends on how strategic players are, as well as how much time each player takes on their move). 24 turns.

Contents

• 2 8-Sided Die

• 1 10-Sided Dice

• 64 Industry Tile Cards

• Various amounts of money ($500, $100, $50)

• Gems (of different color) representing player-controlled territory

• Gems (of different color) representing industrial and civil improvements

Set up

• To begin, all cards (64 tiles) are shuffled and laid down in an 8x8 grid. 

• Each player is given $1000 of play money.

• The bank is set up with the rest of the money.

• The gems representing each player's territory is handed to the player.

Rules

• Each player has their chance to purchase industrial tiles of their liking based on their funds and strategy. The tiles and associated information is displayed below. 
• 
  

  Name	Cost	Points	Income
  Grain	$200	3	$+100
  Metal	$400	5	$+200
  Rubber	$600	7	$+300
  Oil	$800	10	$+400
  Gems	$1000	15	$+500

• The first purchase must be at the edge of the board.
• A gem representing the player's territory (all gems will be of the same color) must be placed on all the tiles that the player owns.
• The last player to make a purchase over $100 goes first and play moves clockwise from then on. 
• Each turn, a player must:

1. Collect income (based on the worth of their industrial territory).
2. Roll the disease die (2 8-sided die must be rolled). 
3. Purchase Improvements. 
4. Trigger Events.
5. Purchase Territory.
6. Economically Conquer Territory.

• Each tile generates a certain amount of revenue each turn. Happiness will increase or decrease this value by a third. For example, +3 happiness generates 200% revenue, whereas -3 happiness generates no revenue. 
• When the disease die is rolled,  the first dice rolled concerns the rows, while the second dice roll concerns the columns.  The tile corresponding to the combination of both values (ex: 3, 4 = the tile in the 3rd Row, 4th Column) is infected and has its happiness reduced by 2.
• Players may purchase improvements for their listed cost (based on the table below) and place them on the territory of their choice. The effects stated are then applied to the territory and either a civil or industrial improvement gem is placed on the tile. NOTE: Industrial improvements must be purchased in order from top to bottom as outlined on the upper left of the tile. However, civil improvements may be purchased in any order.

•  

  Icon	Name	Cost	Points	Happiness	Income
  	School	$250	1	+1	$-50
  	Sanitation System	$500	2	+2	$-100
  	Hospital	$750	3	+3	$-150
  	Ore/Gem Mine	$200	1	-1	$+100
  	Oil Well	$200	1	-1	$+100
  	Grain/Rubber Farm	$200	1	-1	$+100
  	Refinery	$400	2	-2	$+200
  	Smelter	$400	2	-2	$+200
  	Irrigation System	$400	2	-2	$+200
  	Jewelers Workshop	$400	2	-2	$+200
  	Factory	$600	3	-3	$+300

• Players may purchase events to trigger on an industrial tile of their choosing based on the table below.
• 
  

  Name	Cost	Happiness
  Propaganda	$250	+/- 1
  Industrial Sabotage	$450	-2
  Entertainment Event	$450	+2
  Tax Rebate	$650	+3
  Hire Rebels	$650	-3
  Disease	N/A	-3

• Players may also purchase tiles that are currently unoccupied as long as they are connected (even diagonally) to the rest of their industrial territory.
• Players may attempt to economically conquer territory from another player as long as the tiles are connected to their industrial territory. For this, the two players involved must roll the 10-sided dice. The attacker's negative happiness (based on the adjacent attacking tile) will reduce the number of his roll whereas his positive happiness will reduce the number of the defender's roll. In addition, players can pay to increase their roll by one ($100). The highest roll gets the territory (the defender gets to keep his territory). 
• Players can trade territories to the players' discretion and at the players' will. Whether a direct swap takes place or there is a monetary offering involved, a player may not trade for territories that do not touch their own.
• Strategic alliances are allowed and are to the players' discretion. 
• After 24 turns, players tally up the points for their controlled territories and improvements on territories. This includes each territories individual happiness value added to the territory's value and improvement score. The player with the most points wins the game. 

Game Overview & Creative Process

Corporation Exploitation has the potential to be a game of strategy and clever alliances once you get passed the complexity of the game mechanics. The limited number of turns is helpful in suppressing the time it takes to the play the game although most of the time spent playing the game can be attributed to the understanding of the game rules. 

Beginning a game, every one of four players (or two) pick a corner from where to commence the building of their industrial empire. From here, it's just a matter of strategically balancing out the size of your industry and the happiness of the people it effects. Though triggering effects is a good way of slowing down your competition, it is important to remember that strategic alliances may perhaps be more helpful. There is always the choice as to whether to be kind and merciful or to be ruthless and cunning, much the way most corporations are run in real life. There is always an ultimatum behind every decision made by a corporation and thus there is an ultimatum behind every player who makes a move. It is important to think 3 steps ahead and plan out your approach to increasing your resources and maximizing your happiness factor while doing it. 

The thought for Corporation Exploitation came about when one of our team members, Chris, came across an article from the Globe and Mail concerning the hunt for Africa's resources. This article can be found here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/african-and-mideast-business/africa-next-the-quest-for-africas-riches/article4562456/?service=mobile

Upon reading the article, Chris realized that while most territorial acquisition games may be about corporate takeover, not many games explore the truth in the matter; the fact that a corporation's decisions affect more than just it's employees and shareholders. From here Chris got the idea of creating a territorial acquisition game where the player is held responsible for his corporate actions determined through a happiness meter which can aid the player in building his resources (and, in turn, his income) or which has the potential to destroy the player's income by reducing the amount of revenue generated by tiles with negative happiness on the meter. 

Conclusion

Although the concept for the game may not mimic real time applications of corporate strategy, it is an eyeopener and a statement that has been made in the form of an entertaining board game. Corporation Exploitation is a game that is meant to make players aware of real problems faced by third world countries all over the world and how helpless their people can be in the face of corporate expansion at the hand of money-hungry tycoons with only progression and increased revenue streams on their mind.