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Nice Games Jam: "Ants of Destiny: Morsels of the Queen"

Episode 143 Published 6 years, 10 months ago
Description

Ellen is back to help out with a Nice Games Jam! Our prompt: create a JRPG-inspired game in under an hour. But like any good JRPG, it took twice as long to complete as expected...

Ellen's handwritten notes are worth a look! (PDF)
And here's the Wikipedia page for Weevil, which Ellen wanted you to see.

Prompt
What would the Nice Games Club take on a JRPG be? Do that
Game type
Paper prototype
Player count
2
Setup

A two-person pen-and-paper RPG. One player portrays the party of ants, and the other player controls all enemies and narrates the story as the GM.

The Story

Your queen is dying, and for unknown reasons (foreshadowing!) your colony is running out of resources. You, a young worker ant, and your party of misfits must set out from your home to collect the extra food and supplies needed to save your colony, battling foes and overcoming challenges along the way!

Rules

The Party

Worker Ant (Player protagonist)
Bite (attack): 2
Carry (inventory): 5
Exo (armor): +0
Ability: "Defend" - Once per encounter, secretly choose (and write down) a party member. The next attack against that character will automatically fail. This remains in effect until an enemy attacks the selected player, or the player uses their ability.

Soldier Ant
Bite (attack): 3
Carry (inventory): 4
Exo (armor): +2
Ability: "Command" - Once per encounter, use this ability to grant an automatic success on a party member's next attack.

Flying Ant
Bite (attack): 1
Carry (inventory): 3
Exo (armor): -1
Ability: "Fly" - Once per encounter, choose an attack target, then exit play for this round. This character cannot be attacked by a non-flying enemy until they return at the start of the next round, when the attack is executed (as long as the target is currently in play).

Weevil (in disguise)
Bite (attack): 1
Carry (inventory): 4
Exo (armor): +4
Ability: "Push" - Once per encounter, you can select an enemy to remove from play until the end of the round. This enemy cannot attack or be attacked.

All party members have 10 hit points (HP).

Party stats
Move: 4

Overworld
The GM prepares a map on a 20x20 grid, with multiple paths, each ending with a resource. This map is kept hidden the player. The player has their own map, which starts out blank. The GM draws new information on this map as the player uncovers it.

Each path on the map has the following information/stats:

  • Sense threshold (the number the player must roll above to detect its existence)
  • The shape and length of the path on the map
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