Evaluation
This is the best game I have ever made. There is a lot of skill required to win, and I continue to find new winning strategies after playing for months. But with how simple the game is, I cannot reasonably market this game; there needs to be more to this game for it to be considered a finished product.
What I think would be the best path to take regarding this game is by turning it into a video game campaign experience to the likes of Inscryption. Playing against a computer could offer very unique experiences. For example, the computer could play with a piece that is too complicated for a human to rationalize and do it well. A computer combatant could be possessed by one particular strategy that the player would have to counter. With the small advantage of going first, the player may even be able to beat a computer playing perfectly.
To me, the next step forward would be to make a chess-engine-like thing to play against. This would be what the player plays against whenever they face a character in the game. I feel the strategies in this game are too complex to do any other route. I would also use this to hone my strategies and to balance the game. I don’t currently have the required skills for this, so it would require me to gain a better understanding of software development or find some help. This is my current roadblock.
Rules
The game is played by two players sitting across from each other. You play on a chess board, each player has 10 “meeples,” infinite “controlled territory pieces,” and there are five patterns in which you can play your pieces.
The goal of the game is to control the most area on the board by the end of the game. You can do so by placing a meeple and choosing one pattern to play controlled territory.
You can play a meeple in places orthogonally adjacent to your pieces that’s not also orthogonally adjacent to enemy pieces. You are also able to play on the nearest row of the board as long as it’s not next to enemy pieces.
To play, you must play one new meeple. When you play a meeple, you will try to play controlled territory pieces on the board in all of the highlighted spots of one of the given five patterns. (The green color is where you try to play the controlled area, and the gray color is where the meeple you played would be.) You may rotate the pattern any amount. Depending on what currently occupies the board on those highlighted spots, something happens: if the spot is blank, place a controlled area indicator there; if your opponent has controlled territory there, remove it; if you already have controlled territory, or if there is an enemy or friendly meeple, or if the board doesn’t extend that far, nothing happens in that spot.
If a player cannot play one turn, they lose. When both players have played all ten of their pieces, the winner is decided as who has more pieces on the board.