This was well thought out, and looks like a pretty fun game to play. Not sure if I could convince any diehard boardgame/cards players to play it though. Seems a bit too scifiy for that crowd :D

Heh, yeah might be. Luckily I had a friend who was good enough to play-test it with me.

Thanks for the comment! I have a feeling there won't be that many more. :D

This is a pretty cool little game you thought up!

[Comments and ratings from this account come from various team members]
Will be downloading this to have a look at it for sure. Just need to convince someone to play with me :)

Nice idea to do a board game. Unfortunately, I don't think much people can/will bother to play this game. By the way, just for the board game, I gave you a lot in innovation :D.

disappointed you didn't invest the time to actually turn this into a video game, could have been great!

@Nightsjester: thanks!
@Evil Cult: Great! I'd love feedback!
@Naouak: Hehe thanks! Yeah I don't think so either. But I went into the compo with that in mind.
@jeffz: Thanks! The reason I decided to make a board game for this dare was that I've been suffering from RSI and need to stay away from the PC as much as possible. :)

Haha, I plan on playing this later. Board game for ludum dare ftw!

is that being playing on a 7x7 go board?

Sorry I can't play it. Interesting way to do the LD, I just checked the rules it doesn't say video games just games.

@pighead10: Great! :D
@omaha: It's a 8x8 Reversi/Chess board but playing the game on a 7x7 board should be possible. You just need another way of randomly placing planets other than the way that's used in the rules.
@Codexus: No problem. :) Yeah I actually checked the rules beforehand just to be sure. :D

The graphics are so lifelike ;)

Nice graphics. What engine did you use?

:D
(just trolling)

I found this great engine on a site, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4 really your imagination is the only limit! :)

Someone has been thinking out of the computer box literally!
I've read the game rules, now I need someone to team up with to play. ;-)

I couldn't rate your game because of these two darn annoying errors I keep getting when I try to run it:

"DeckOfCards.dll not found or missing! Try reinstalling TinyHugePlanet.exe to fix this problem."

and

"OtherPlayer.dll not found! Try going outside to resolve this issue."

:( But, it looks really, really, awesome!

Unfortunately, I don't have anyone to play this game with, but I would love to. Gave you 5/5 in innovation just because you are awesome! :-D

I don't have anyone to play this with so I can't rate it. I think however, you are a marvel of a human being. Kudos for you sir.

I'm thrilled to see a board game pop up on Ludum Dare! Good for you, and makes me wonder if BGG should organize something similar for board games.

Have some specific feedback on the game after playing a test round against myself. Overall I think this is a good start but I'd like to see the idea fleshed out further:
* Victory conditions aren't clear. I'm assuming "When last of your planets is gone" but then you don't start with any, so that's a bit odd.
* Are the rules for the "Create a Planet" card the same as for regular planet placement? If so, there's not much point in playing that if could very well help your opponent.
* I find roll-based movement to be really annoying. Coordinating a planetary invasion is VERY challenging as a result.
* I'm assuming units are stackable everywhere and not just on planets?
* Overall, the game is very much a game of chance driven by the die (especially in planet placement). I'd like to see more determinism and less randomization.

Good stuff so far! Keep working on this idea.

@Make A Game: Haha! Great, please do! :)
@john_conder9: That second error won't be that hard to fix if you're willing to do some work. Also, to fix that first error you can buy the on-release DLC for only $3! ;)
@summaky: Likewise! :D
@Lawrence Esswood: Haha, I'll have to say the same thing to you! :D

@scoopsy: Wow! Really great feedback!
First I have to say I've just started to take an interest in board games so this is my first try at making one. Balancing determinism/randomization is something I had trouble with. I think that most of the time I just slapped on the randomization just for the sake of it.

As for the victory condition, you are correct. And yeah it would probably make more sense if you started on a planet. :)

Yes, the Create a Planet card has the same rules. I was thinking that playing it would be sort of a gamble mixing the game up a bit which I guess it doesn't as there's no incentive to playing it. Playing enough Tiny Planet cards requires you to also place some new planets though. But yeah there isn't any strategic advantage to using it and I also felt like it was sort of unnecessary.

Indeed, I also found that you would just spend most of the time rolling a die and not making strategic decisions. All it really did was to spread the units over the board and make it obvious to the opponent what you were going to do.

Yupp, units are stackable everywhere. I'll have to clarify these things in the documentation.

I will definitely keep the determinism/randomization in mind when I improve on it. The first thing should be to remove unnecessary randomness.

Thanks a lot for trying it out and giving feedback, this helped me tremendously! I will try and work on the game more in the following week or two and update here as I go along.

if you actually coded it, you could do multiplayer and singleplayer AI, add some awesome music, chat and you'd have a winner!

You should definitely code this up!

Never thought of making a board game for ludum dare...I really like the idea! plan on playing it tonight

Have to find me someone to try it out. This looks pretty interesting.
Kudos to you for making a board/cardgame.

this is nuts :D! i really wish you would have programmed a game though

Oh this is a unique twist. The game looks interesting - I'll have to try it. Not a computer game so no scores for graphics and audio.

I have given you 5 stars on innovation =). Will try to update the fun category if I get a chance of trying it out.

A very surprising and cool entry.

Perhaps would have been great to include custom cards ready for printing =D

I loved this game, and I'll tell you why I gave you 5 stars everywhere. Because it's a board game that I played with my family. The mood set when you're playing with four people is better than any other game in existence. The laughs you get when you crush someone into oblivion. And nothing beats the live trash-talking soundtrack, provided by my competive wife and kids. The graphics were also excellent. Even on my old table, the shading and reflections were excellent. I could not spot a single rendering malfunction anywhere. And because I could play it with other people, I'm giving you a five in fun as well. So, 5/5. This is the best fun I've had all LD. HOWEVER, we had some questions about the rules.

GENERAL QUESTIONS:

Do you have to take all moves when you're attacking?
Do you have to take all the moves when you're trying to land on a planet?
Can you trade cards?
Do you have to reveal your hand?
Can you play multiple production cards on one planet?
Can you play multiple production cards on one turn?
What happens when all of your pieces leave a planet?
Does the "Tiny World" card place a planet randomly?
When generating the starting four planets, do you have to place one in each 4x4 quadrant, or does the dice roll determine that?
Do you have to own the destination planet to teleport to when using the "Matter Transport" card?
When a person dies, does the person that killed him get the cards/planets?
Can you play more than one "Super Duper Lazer Beam" in an attack/defending?
Can you move on top of a player and attack from there?
Do dead units disappear forever?
How many units are you allowed to have on a planet at a time?

DEFENDING QUESTIONS:

If you are attacking a planet, do all the tokens stacked on the planet combine for defense?
If someone attacks a piece outside of a planet, can other units adjacent to the one attacking help defend?
If multiple units can defend, do all the defending units die upon loss?

COMBAT QUESTIONS:

If I understand the instructions correctly, you can only attack/invade at the beginning of your turn. This means that you have to move next to someone, wait for them to try to attack you, then you can retaliate when it's your turn again. Is that right?

COMMENTS:

Wife - "If you stack more than 4 units on a planet, it's invincible, since only 4 can attack at a time

Kid #1 - "It's like risk, but one that doesn't last weeks."

Kid #2 - "If I win, do I get to keep the money?"

Thanks for the cool game, and if you fix them, I'll keep a copy of these rules around :D

Thanks to you and your family for taking the time to play the game!
As for the questions:

Q:
Do you have to take all moves when you're attacking?
Do you have to take all the moves when you're trying to land on a planet?

A:
No.

Q: Can you trade cards?
A: I don't see why not, that could be interesting.

Q: Do you have to reveal your hand?
A: No

Q:
Can you play multiple production cards on one planet?
Can you play multiple production cards on one turn?

A:
Yes

Q: What happens when all of your pieces leave a planet?
A: That planet is no longer occupied and you will not be able to put created units on that planet. If you don't occupy any planets you won't be able to produce new units.

Q: Does the "Tiny World" card place a planet randomly?
A: Not sure if you mean the "Planet Building" card or not. The "Tiny World" card does not place any planets. The "Planet Building" card places a planet randomly.

Q: When generating the starting four planets, do you have to place one in each 4x4 quadrant, or does the dice roll determine that?
A: You have to place one per quadrant. This is to avoid too much of an advantage for one player as they could all be placed in one quadrant. Probably should have made this more clear.

Q: Do you have to own the destination planet to teleport to when using the "Matter Transport" card?
A: Yes that was the intention.

Q: When a person dies, does the person that killed him get the cards/planets?
A: I didn't think of that. I only ever playtested with two players so I guess I never stumbled upon this. I'd say it could be fun to try to give the cards to the other player. Planets however would not be transferred as if a player has no units he does not occupy any planets.

Q: Can you play more than one "Super Duper Lazer Beam" in an attack/defending?
A: Yes

Q: Can you move on top of a player and attack from there?
A: No

Q: Do dead units disappear forever?
A: Well you can use the same tokens to represent new units that you produce if that is what you mean.

Q: How many units are you allowed to have on a planet at a time?
A: I realized it was probably a good idea to have a limit after I finished the game for LD.


Q: If you are attacking a planet, do all the tokens stacked on the planet combine for defense?
A: Yes

Q: If someone attacks a piece outside of a planet, can other units adjacent to the one attacking help defend?
A: No, the intention was that it was safer to move in stacks than individual units.

Q: If multiple units can defend, do all the defending units die upon loss?
A: Yes

Q: If I understand the instructions correctly, you can only attack/invade at the beginning of your turn. This means that you have to move next to someone, wait for them to try to attack you, then you can retaliate when it's your turn again. Is that right?
Yes, post-LD I actually changed quite a lot of the rules which made it a quite different game. One of them was that the planet actually added a "unit" for the defending player but only if he was defending which discouraged the defending player to attack as he is more powerful when defending.

Thanks again for trying the game out! I've taken most of your questions and improved the original ruleset a bit to hopefully make things more clear and improve the rules a bit. You can find the updated ruleset on the Google Docs version.