Collapsi Devlog - Day 1

Collapsi is an abstract strategy maze game in which players are trying to be the last one able to move their pawn.  Every time a player moves, the tile they began their turn on "caves in".  As soon as a player is unable to make a legal move on their turn, the game ends.  The player who was able to complete a turn last wins.

Played 5x5 grid: 1-6x4 + joker
Played 7x7 grid: 1-6x8 + joker

My very first playtest was with a 5x5 grid.  I used cards Ace - 6 in all four suits and then included one joker.  That deck was shuffled and dealt to form a 5x5 grid.  Wherever the joker is dealt, that is where the pawn starts for the game.  We played with the following rules:

• Player one may move the pawn up to six spaces
  • the joker is turned face down 
• From this point on turns alternate
  • a player must move the pawn according to the number of the card it is on
    • aces = 1, 2's=2 and so on
• Play continues until a player is unable to complete the move required on their turn
  • The last player to move wins!
• Some more rules include:
  • players must always move onto a new card during their turn, no backtracking!
  • starting cards are turned over (collapsed) as soon as a player leaves it
    • it is impossible to return to the same starting card 

After completing a game with a 5x5 board, we immediately tested a 7x7 board with the same rules.  I just doubled the deck, so there were eight of each rank and one joker.  This made for a longer game, but using playing cards made it quite the table hog.  We enjoyed the 7x7 board better.  I won both games, and my strategy was to keep placing the pawn on the higher number cards so my opponent always had to make big moves.  

Most likely, Collapsi will remain a game one plays with regular playing cards, so I would like to keep the table footprint as small as possible.  If I were to design actual game pieces for this, I would use smaller square tiles to help with the footprint.  The cool thing is, the game is pretty modular.  You could, in theory, make the grid as large as you want by adding more copies of ranks 1 - 6.    

At the end of this first session, I had the following ideas to test:

• Try a 3x3, 5x5, and 7x7 grid with “wrapping around” allowed.  
  • Wrapping around means a card can move off the board on the left and enter it again on the right in the same row (think Mario Bros. or Pac-Man).  
  • In Collapsi, the player can also wrap around top to bottom.
  • Aces are portals to other aces  
• Try each player gets their own token.  
  • Same rules apply.  
  • Each player starts on the joker OR shuffle two jokers into the deck and remove a number 6.
• Ideas to consider
  • Are there ways to incorporate some take-that?  More crossplay action?  Item collection and usage?
  • What happens with 3 or 4 players?
  • What happens with different number distributions?
  • Items that can be picked up such as a number modifier, a portable portal, a “wall maker” that can flip a card, a “wall breaker” that can turn a wall back over to a number

And that brings day one of my weeklong game jam to a close!  My ultimate objective is to have the game as "ready" as possible to show my family this coming Saturday.  I would like to know by then how many players can play, and I would like to have any special rules/cards/items established.