Combining my two loves- Minimates and Board Games

[Jeff]

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before on this site or have seen it mentioned in another thread—but I’d really like to combine my love of minimates with board games. Meaning, I’d love to have minimates as the game pawns and a game based around them. I have a large collection of almost all the X-Men and Fantastic Four so I could go either way. I like the recent addition of all the round single peg foot stands that come inside almost all the two packs.I’d like to use these and possibly alter them to include stats or at least flat colors for an upgrade indication- levels a player is at or whatever.

So I’m asking you- what would you like to see in a minimate board game?

I’m leaning more towards X-Men, I’m basing it off the adventures from the cartoon series- so lots of Sentinel battles, a final battle with Magneto and even Morph turning traitor and back again to keep gameplay different each time. Another thought was using different locations that could affect gameplay- like playing in the savage land (I’d need to get Sauron/Reaper of course) and having the X-Men lose their powers for a turn or two.

Here's a board I whipped up not too long ago:

Thoughts? Ideas? What gameplay mechanics do you enjoy that could be applied to this?

Edited April 10, 2013 by Jeff

[Donny B]

I always thought Minimates would work well in board game format. I had flirted around with the idea of making a game a couple years ago that combined elements from Risk, Monopoly, and Overpower (terribly original, I know)
The general gist of it was to take control of the whole board (Risk style) but to also have the traditional "spaces" that you'd move around (Monopoly style). You choose your character, which comes with one Minimate that you use as your piece on the board (like the car or boat in Monopoly), and your "hero card" (Overpower style) that tells you your stats.
As you move across the board, you have to amass resources and attacks (via Monopoly style "chance" or "community chest" type cards, but in an Overpower style for the actual function of the card) and when you land on a space that another character is on, your character 'challenges' their character. You then refer to your "hero card" (see the incomplete mockup image I attached to this post) to see what your base stats are (Overpower style) and you could either eliminate your opponent or integrate them to your "team" (depending on how many players there are)...

... I never got anywhere with it because it's a lot of work and I don't have a mind for it, I guess. But I still always wondered why DST never pursued that venue. Maybe there isn't as great a market for it as I would hope...?
Because I never ended up doing anything with it, I figured I'd share my idea here - If you like any aspects of it, feel free to use it (no charge, hahaha. I stole all the ideas from other games anyway )

Anyway, I like your idea. It's intriguing but not too complicated (which may make it more appealing to general players), and being a young tike when the animated series was out, the premise of your game seems pretty fun to me

Edited April 10, 2013 by Donny B

[UK Collector]

Awesome board. Interested to see what you come up with. I don't play board games (other than the obligatory expletive ridden family game of Monopoly at Christmas) so im afraid im useless from an input point of view, but this seems like a great idea.

Edited April 10, 2013 by UK Collector

[Jeff]

Donny B- I'm also a fan of Overpower and chatting with a guy who's got a whole group of playtesters, graphic designers, and artists making cards that replicate the look and feel of the original game. The only issue I have with it is that it's incomplete. They are only releasing a few cards, not enough to be able to play. I got rid of my cards long ago and don't want to be digging around ebay for cards just to play or once i get said cards, having to constantly be making deck after deck to play. That was one of my major turn offs of that game.

I like your thinking though. I'm a board game junkie and I'm currently working with an actual publisher on helping them revise their rule book among other things. I made a mod to Stratego years ago when I saw pics from a game con that showed a Marvel Universe Stratego that never was released:

Here's mine, pasting images on an existing normal board:

And the pawns:

I have to head out but I'll reply shortly....stay tuned!

[TBT!]

Jeff,

Nice stratego board!

I've often pondered now best to put together a minimate board game & came to the conclusion that what would work best is something like 'heroscape' for minimates. A base set with a map or some scenery and then sell 'booster' packs that were pretty much just minimate two packs with added in stat cards. DST could even sell decks of stat cards for previously released figures & it could span multiple licenses.

T.

[WookieFodder]

i thought of a game a few months ago using different dice and two decks of cards which acted as the board. I even bought a bunch of mini decks of cards to make the game more manageable. It ended up being kind of boring. My friends didn't appreciate me making them try it.

I used something similar to a Mage Knight kind of game fighting mechanics and various layouts and setups. I think it was 8 guys per team, and 4-5 for shorter games.

It was a combination of Stratego and Risk and a little bit of Chess.

I think those are the best games to mirror. and of course Marvel Avengers Alliance rpg on facebook.

[Prowlar]

There are already a couple of X-Men Board games that use minatures as playing pieces. It's been a long time since I actually unpacked it and I have to admit that I've never tried substituting Minimates for the pawns. Mainly due to the fact that I didn't have the right mates at the time and now because I don't have anyone else around that is interested in playing the game.

[Jatta Pake]

I have to chime in as I, too, love board games. I've got a closet stuffed full of them. So my obligatory 2 cents:

I think Minimates would work very well in a board game. You could shoe-horn Minimates into any number of games, but you don't really end up with a "Minimate" game. You end up with a themed version of an existing game - Minimates Monopoly for example. So rather than being just pawns, I think there should be an original game mechanic that utilizes the Minimates design. Ideally, the Minimates art aesthetic would also be incorporated into the overall design as well. So what the hell do I mean?

Mainly, the interchangeable Minimate pieces lend themselves nicely to a "character building" game mechanic. You could have four players taking the role of Iron Man heroes - Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy. They start as regular civilian Minimates. As they move around the board achieving objectives they acquire pieces to the Iron Man suit of armor. As the armor is added to the figure, new abilities and powers come into play. Every fifth turn, an Iron Man villain Minimate appears on the board and the players must work together (or not) to defeat him/her. Pretty straight forward but slightly boring. To flavor the game, you could allow players to "mix and match" different kinds of Iron Man armor. For example, your character could acquire Mark 9 gloves, Silver Centurion Chest, War Machine legs and a Crimson Dynamo helmet, each lending some different mix of powers and abilities. After a set number of rounds, the players all fight each other in a winner-take all battle (or go Euro-style and whoever earned the most points wins). You could even add an "area control" element as characters take control of different gameboard spots for added advantages and abilities.

Hope this isn't coming across as criticism of any existing ideas or asinine pontificating. But my overall point is that Minimates themselves have some inherent properties that would make a game unique and original if used the right way. Given the tremendous creative power of members on this board, I think a truly amazing game could be designed by folks here using Minimates. I hope my comment sparks some ideas as the toy itself would make an excellent vehicle for a board game.

I can't wait to see what you come up with Jeff!

[sky_dive]

Jeff, would your board game happen to be inspired by this?

I loved playing this game, and with minimates, it would seem even better than those little pieces of cardboard.

[Jeff]

UK Collector-
Thanks! Board games in general have vastly improved from the days of just what our parents had in their closets, handed down from their parents. You should really hit up boardgamegeek.com and see what they have to offer. I highly recommend Survive: Escape from Atlantis, The Adventurers: the pyramid of horus, DC Deck Building Game, AMC’s Walking Dead, Police Precinct, Jamaica, Elder Sign, Kill Doctor Lucky, Dungeon!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and Rumis to name a few. (:


TBT!-
I too had the Marvel Heroscape at one point but could never get my friends excited to play it when Heroclix was the go to super hero game. I ended up selling it off but keeping afew of the pawns and actually replacing those on the dials as they were way better sculpts than the early spotty ones.


Wookie Fodder-
I haven’t gotten into the Facebook Avengers game- I’ll have to look into it more to see if there’s anything worth translating.


Prowlar-
Are you referring to the X-Men Under Siege game? I had a whole other thread dedicated to my variant to that game- that’s originallywhere this whole thing started. I was going to use my minimates to replace the gray figurines but I too ran out of characters- no Maverick for example. So I instead went with the Heroclix route and added a few support characters that were also made into heroclix- Lockheed, Leech, etc.


Jatta Pake-
What are some of your favorite games? Love the interchangeable part idea to upgrade characters. Very smart idea. I agree with everyone involved on this we could make something spectacular….maybe even to a kickstarter. I doubt it with Disney owning everything nowadays- but you never know…


Sky_dive-
Never played that game- or were you just referring to Pokemon in general. I know the characters from Smash Bros but that’s about it.


I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to devote to this project as I have multiple things going on already plus the birth of my son or daughter (waiting to find out!) in a few weeks plus on top of that I just found out I was being let go as the result of corporate restructuring. The good news is I’m still getting insurance/payment through July and offered a decent severance package in addition to having my resume and online portfolio up to date. So it could have been much worse but it still sucks regardless. I may be posting a few if not all my customs here for sale to help make ends meet. I’ll keep you guys posted. Thanks.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Jeff

[UK Collector]

UK Collector-

Thanks! Board games in general have vastly improved from the days of just what our parents had in their closets, handed down from their parents. You should really hit up boardgamegeek.com and see what they have to offer. I highly recommend Survive: Escape from Atlantis, The Adventurers: the pyramid of horus, DC Deck Building Game, AMCs Walking Dead, Police Precinct, Jamaica, Elder Sign, Kill Doctor Lucky, Dungeon!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and Rumis to name a few. (:

Thanks for the recommendations. I'd love to start, just need to find a couple of like minded people to hang out with!

I still have a Star Wars Risk game that I bought a couple of years back and have never played, although now one of my buds is back from traveling I should be able to cajole him into playing.

[Jatta Pake]

I have a ton of games I like. My brother is a big boardgamer too, unfortunately we live 1,600 miles apart. He got me Small World for Christmas which we played a lot. We also played Puerto Rico and The Lords of Waterdeep when I was basck visiting. I really enjoyed both. I don't get to play as much as I'd like but I've gotten family and relatives into playing Settlers of Cataan and Pandemic. From my old school days I played a lot of Axis and Allies, Shogun, Fortress America, Supremacy, and Space Hulk.

When I was in highschool (late 80s-90s) I invented a boardgame that my buddies and I played a lot. I called it "Empire". It makes me smile thinking about it as the game was fairly simple but resulted in so many nerd fights and arguments. We'd play for six hours straight, drinking Mountain Dew, and listening to 80s rock music. The "board" was six pieces of poster board sprawled across the family room floor in one of our basements. After six hours of shifting alliances and military build-up one player would launch a devastating attack on another knocking him out of the game. The angry victim inevitably stood up and smashed across the board like Godzilla scattering thousands of pieces across the room.

[Jeff]

Update--

I always liked the X-Men arcade game and the simple gameboard of Monopoly so I combined the two:

The game (as I'm currently developing it) plays similar to Monopoly-without money involved or putting hotels on the board. Instead, players move around the board landing on the colored spaces with the sentinels and must roll a die to see how many Sentinels appear there. On their following turn, they do battle with two dice. One for the X-Men's attack the other, for the Sentinels defense:

*If a Sentinel head is rolled on the X-Men dice along with an explosion on the Sentinel dice- the X-Man takes 1 hit and the Sentinel is destroy (this simulates the sentinel throwing/shooting an object before it is destroyed).

Players would keep of their health and special ability on this stat card:

A player can't fight a boss space until the other remaining spaces are cleared from the Sentinels (marked with a 'cleared!' token) Should a player land on a boss space- they'd treat it the same as the other spaces and then fight the boss when landed on a 2nd time.

Players must defeat all the bosses before they can go after Magneto.

The cave spaces can be used as a short cut to move across the board.

Spaces with Xavier have replaced the Community Chest/Chance card.

I'd use these for the pawns:

I've yet to test it but I can't help but stare in awe at how fun/cool the board looks. More to come...I hope!

Edited May 20, 2013 by Jeff