Tickets, please

Background for idea. Different countries ensure differently that people who use public transportation pay for it. I know that in UK, when you enter the bus you show the ticket to the driver. I never tried not to show the ticket, so I don’t know what they do in that case. Probably shout at your and go berserk mode.  

In the country I live, there is different approach. We use e-tickets. It can be on a card or on the phone. In most cases driver doesn’t care. However time to time the whole bus is stopped and when the team of three people (who look like security of the mall) climb into the bus and ask every one: could you show your tickets please? How often you can encounter them? Depends on the time you are using the public transportation and the route you are going. Sometimes you can meet them everyday, other times you can see them once a year. They somehow sense when you are late for the meeting, so they always stop the bus in that case and make you even more late.

And of course, if somebody has no ticket, he must pay a fine.

BTW, how do they check if you are paying for public transportation in your country/city?

In this game, you will be the guy/girl who is checking the tickets of the passengers and your goal, of course to catch the ones who ride with no ticket. 

Players count: 3-4

Inventory:

Dice: 3,

Passenger cards: 100,

Cheaters cards: 25,

Money: value 1 coin – 30, value 5 coin – 10, value 10 coin – 10,

Goal cards: 11.

Preparation for the game. Place passengers and cheaters cards (cheaters cards should be mixed before placing) in two separate decks, that it would be accessible to everybody. Place dice on the table that it would be accessible to everybody. Give each player two coins, place the rest of the coins on the side of the table. Pick one goal card for the game.

Determining the first player. Roll two dice, whoever rolls the lowest number that is the first player. 

Playing the game. At the beginning of the game each player starts with one dice. Player can acquire more dice during the game. One additional dice will cost 6 coins. 

Player takes all the dice he can and rolls. The number he rolled will be the number of passengers in the bus. So for example player rolled 6, so in the bus will be six passengers. He takes 6 cards from the passengers deck and doesn’t look at them. 

If the player rolled 4 or more on the dice he takes as many cards from the cheaters deck as the dice he rolled. So if player rolled two dice, he takes two cards. He mix the cheaters cards with passengers cards he took earlier. In the bus there still needs to be a number of passengers that he rolled on the dice, so he has to return some of the cards to the top of passengers deck. So if player rolled 6 with 2 dice, he took 6 passengers cards and 2 cheaters cards. He mixed 8 cards and after carefully mixing them, he places 2 cards on the top of the passengers deck. 

He places the cards he mixed face down on the table. This is the bus he stopped for checking. He can open as many cards as many dice he rolled for free and if he want to open more, he has to pay two for each card he wants to check. Following our example, there are 6 passengers in the bus and because he rolled 2 dice, he can also check 2 cards for free. 

If the card player has chosen is a passenger when that card is discarded (put into the trash pile). If the card player has chosen is a cheater, when player gets 5 money and can keep the cheater in his van until he will give cheater away to the police. Important: van has only 4 seats, if all seats are taken, cheater can’t be placed to the van and should be returned to the bottom of cheaters deck. 

The cards that player decided not to check go back to the top of the deck. 

Before giving the turn to another player, current player can decide to empty his van. He can get rid of as many cheaters as he wants, he can get rid of one, two or even all cards. He can decide to fulfill the goal (goal will require some amount of cheaters). He can decide to buy additional die if has only one or two.

After one player done his actions, the next player clockwise does the same. The game ends, when there are not enough passengers cards to fill the bus. Player with the most money wins. If there is more than one player with the same amount of money, then victory is shared.

Van – each player can keep 4 cheaters in their van, but no more. Before finishing they turn, they can decide to get rid of some of the van passengers. If the van is full, player can’t take cheater to his van. If three seats of the van are already taken, player has to decide if he want to put cheater in a van or not before looking for more cheaters. If he decides to take first cheater and when find another, he has to discard the second cheater. 

Cheater cards: There are five different cheater cards. Triangle – 6, square – 6, triple triangle – 6, triple square – 6, wild – 1. 

Goal cards – will require players to get specific combination of cheaters for additional bonuses.

1) Four cheaters – 3 coins.

2) Three different – 4 coins

3) Two of the same and one different – 4 coins.

4) One triangle and two different – 4 coins

5) One square and two different – 4 coins

6) One triple triangle and two different – 4 coins

7) One triple square and two different – 4 coins

8) One triangle and two the same – 5 coins

9) One square and two the same  – 5 coins

10) One triple triangle and two the same  – 5 coins

11) One triple square and two the same  – 5 coins

Dice: At the beginning of the game each player starts with one dice. Player can acquire more dice during the game. One additional dice will cost 6 coins. 

Design decisions. I don’t know if you noticed that there are interested things happening in this game. Let’s follow our example. Player rolled 2 dice and got 6, but it doesn’t mean that there are 2 cheaters in the bus. There is possibility that there are 2 cheaters in the bus, but there also could be 0 cheaters in the bus because player has to mix cards and return 2 to the deck. 

If player guess 2 times, doesn’t find any cheaters and decides to retreat after that, it means that the rest of the cards goes to the top of passengers deck. If the next player rolls 6 he can be sure that there are already 2 cheaters in the deck, because previous player didn’t manage to find them. 

Is it a good game? I don’t know, you tell me. What is bothering me, this game is all luck, there is not much strategy you can have, and I hate such type of games. On the over hand, luck games are good for beginners who wants to chill out and don’t think. I do believe that this game will give you emotions, because… well… you are guessing and hoping to win while everyone else is rooting for you to fail. 

This game is solitaire, because one player has no tools to impact another player on purpose. On the other hand Terraforming Mars is also solitaire. Yes, there are cards that allow to steal from other players of Terraforming Mars and I hate them, but that’s the only possible interactions between players as far as I know. 

Game Art. I tried to copy Total drama style. It’s a cartoon that you don’t need to know about. I would love this game to be in the style of Villagers, simple clean art. It would be great to have a lot of different passengers cards (even they doesn’t do anything different): some people just chillin, somebody reading newspaper, somebody is in the phone, somebody is standing, somebody is listening to music… You know usual crowd of public transportation. 

Would you like to playtest it? PDF file with game cards and PDF file with goal cards. However you will need your own dice and your own money. Any feedback is welcome.