A Couple of Piecepack Ports

["frater_corvus" <hoshi.yonagi@...>]

I've recently acquired an oak piecepack set from Blue Panther; all I
can say is that I'm really impressed with it. As I wanted to give it a
shot, and my girlfriend wasn't around to play against, I figured I'd
try my hand at porting a couple of games over to it. To give me
something to experiment with outside of Tula.

---=== PieceHack ===---

Players: 1
Length: 5 - 15 minutes
Required Bits: one standard piecepack

It's a straightforward dungeon crawl based on the computer game
"Rogue." It's quick to play and about as random.

1.1 Setup

Place 3 sun coins (suit side up) in front of you to represent
character health. Shuffle or place the tiles in a bag. Use one pawn to
represent your character.

1.2 Gameplay

Draw your first tile to represent the first room. Match the suit to
the following chart:

Arms : Place 1 arms coin (suit side up) in front of you, see 1.3
Crown: Combat, see 1.3
Moon : Empty.
Sun  : If you have less than 3 sun coins (health), gain one.

Once a room has been resolved, move the pawn to an adjacent area,
drawing a new tile.

1.3 Combat

The number on a crown tile is the amount needed to meet or beat on a
single die roll. If you succeed, place the crown coin in front of you
to represent a win. If the roll is lower than the number on the tile,
lose one health (discard one sun coin). Combat continues.

Each arms coin represents a one pip bonus on the die. Rolling a null
value with two arms coins is a total combat result of two.

1.4 Victory

A player wins by defeating all creatures generated by the crown tiles,
basically collecting six crown coins.

---=== ZombiePack ===---

Players: 1-2
Length: 10 - 20 minutes
Required Bits: one standard piecepack

A basic survival boardgame inspired by the "Zombies!!!" boardgame. I
own it, but I wanted to see if I could do something akin to it.

1.1 Setup

Choose a pawn to represent your character. Each player uses 3 arms
coins (suit side up) to represent weapon tokens and 3 sun coins (suit
side up) to represent health.

Set aside the ace of arms tile and shuffle the remaining tiles.
Randomly select 16 of the tiles and set those into a pair of stacks.
Shuffle the ace of arms tile into the stack designated as the second
(or lower half) stack.

Draw the first tile and place it grid side up to represent the
starting location. Place your pawn (or pawns) on this tile.

1.2 Gameplay

Roll a die to determine the length of movement. Movement is orthogonal
only, no diagonal movement is permitted. A null value means the pawn
is distracted and does not move this turn. When a pawn is moved off
the edge of a tile, draw a tile from the first stack (second stack if
the first is empty) and look at the value of the tile. Place the tile
grid side up in edge contact with the tile the pawn had moved from.

The suit of the tile determines the following:

Arms : If a player has less than 3 arms coins, gain one.
Crown: No benefit
Moon : No benefit
Sun  : If a player has less than 3 sun coins, gain one.

The value of the tile determines how many zombies appear around or
near the pawn on that tile (maximum 3). All zombies are represented by
either crown or moon coins (suit side up). Zombies can not be placed
on a pawn. A player with remaining movement may continue forward and
combat a zombie then use movement to continue forward again until all
movement is complete.

After movement is completed, one of the players rolls a pair of dice.
One die represents the number of zombies that can move; the other die
determines how far the zombies move. Null simply means no movement is
done or no zombies move. All zombie movement is considered
simultaneous, so zombies can never occupy the same square with each
other. If one zombie lands on a pawn, the others begin to surround the
pawn.

1.3 Combat

When a player steps into a square with a zombie on it, or a zombie
moves onto a square with a pawn on it, combat ensues. Resolving combat
is rolling one die against a value of 3. If the die meets or beats
that value, the player wins. If the die result is less than 3, the
player may expend one or more arms coins to increase the result by one
pip per coin used; the alternative is to lose one sun coin and reroll
the result. Combat continues until the zombie is defeated or the
player is dead.

1.4 The Second Half

Once the first stack is depleted, the players draw from the second
stack. As soon as the ace of arms is found, the escape point has been
located. Move the player onto the tile and fill the previous tile with
zombies if there are any left to deploy.

1.5 Victory

If the ace of arms tile is empty when the player begins his or her
turn on it, the player wins. If not, the player must continue
combating the zombies until the ace of arms tile is clear.

1.6 Variants

If you happen to have a treehouse stash, you could use two colors per
player and possibly expand to 3 players. That would leave 24
zombies for the board.