Life Choice
Goal: Get to the end of the road with the most amount of Life Points.
Setup:
The game can be played with as little as two people or as many as six. Each player begins the game by taking a game piece and placing their piece on the beginning tile of the Road. The deck of Food cards is first shuffled and each player is given three food and given three Life Point cards to begin the game. Each player rolls the die to see who goes first.
Place each of the piles of cards in each of the corresponding places that are drawn on the board.
Gameplay:
Players will roll a die to determine the number of spaces they will move forward. At intersections, players are forced to make a choice of the path they wish to take. The length of the paths along with the types of tiles along each of the paths will never be same. The players must make decisions accordingly to their current situation. When a player reaches an intersection and according to the roll of their die, they still have spaces to move forward with, they continue moving after selecting the path that the player wishes to take.
Throughout the games you have the chance of landing on one of three tiles; the Human Encounter tile, the Location Encounter, or a Food card.
Food Cards:
Each turn after each player first turn, they must pay one Food card at the start of their turn. Food cards can be obtained by landing on a tile with the food symbol on it or potentially through the Human Encounter cards or Location Encounters. If a player runs out of Food cards and is unable to pay a Food card, the player loses a life point per turn they cannot pay and their movement is reduced until they pay a Food card. Rolling a 1 or 2 allows the player to move only 1 space, a 3 or 4 allows the player to move only 2 spaces and rolling a 5 or 6 allows the player to move 3 spaces. This continues to go on until the player finds a food card for which they can pay for the very next turn.
When consuming a food card you discard from your hand into the designated area on the board. If you possess a food card labeled as +2 food, then after the consumption of one turn, place it down in front of you in a horizontal position to mark that it is half eaten. You must consume this food card the very next opportunity you receive to consume food and then discard it afterward.
When a player has no Food cards and is unable to pay, another player has the ability to donate a Food card to the player in order to prevent said player from losing a life point and having his movement reduced. In return for donating a food card the player which had given the donation receives one Life Point card. Donations of food can only be given when a player has no Food cards. If more than one player wishes to donate, they both roll the die and the player which rolls the higher number gets to donate and receives the life point. If they both roll the same number, players keep rolling until one rolls a higher number.
Many different food cards exist which will be available to the players. Some food cards will force you to sacrifice a Life point in order to use the food. Cards which force you to sacrifice Life points CANNOT be donated to other players. When a food card specifies that it counts as +2 food, it cannot be donated if it already is used once. When choosing to donate a card that has +2 food, you will in return receive +2 Life Points.
Human Encounter cards:
When a player lands on the Human Encounter tile, they draw a Human Encounter card. Carefully read the card and follow the instructions. Below are all the different Human Encounter cards which you may come across throughout the game.
Thief (Roll a dice: If the number is even you lose -1 food)
Cannibals (Roll a dice: If even you kill him and -1 Life Point. If odd, you run away move back 3 spaces (ignore tile))
Old guy (Option: Give him -1 food and gain a +1 Life Point // Ignore and lose -1 Life Point)
Army (Roll a dice: if number is 1, you move back 10 spaces (ignore tile)
Dog (Option: Consume him for +2 food and lose -2 Life Points. // Give him food for -1 food and gain +2 Life Points // Do nothing and lose -1 Life Point.)
After a player performs the action required on the card, they put the human encounter card back into the deck and the player that went BEFORE the player who had drawn the card must shuffle the deck. If a player is required to move spaces back and they reach a crossroad, they must continue back but once they move forward again they must take the opposite path (the one they had not taken prior to the moving spaces backwards). If a player is required to give up a Food card and does not possess any, they will be required to pay in Life points.
Other players are unable to cover any costs that human encounter cards ask for. If a player chooses to consume the dog for +2 food, hold onto that card and use as directed when holding a +2 food card (can be found in the food section above).
Location encounter cards:
When a player lands on the Location Encounter tile, they draw a Location Encounter card. Carefully read the card and follow the instructions. Below are all the different Location Encounter cards which you may come across throughout the game.
Gas Station (Roll a dice: If 1-4 draw +2 food. If 5-6 then lose -2 Life Points because you got exposed to a toxic substance.)
City block house (Roll a dice: If 1-2 draw +1 food. If 3-6 then move back 2 spaces (ignore tile))
Bunker (You found food! Draw 4 food cards)
Grand House (Roll a dice: if 1 or 2 you get caught by people move back 5 spaces and lose -1 Life point., If 3-6 you draw +2 food cards.)
Cabin (Roll a dice: If 1-3 draw +1 food. If 3-6 then you got spooked and dropped -2 food.)
After a player performs the action required on the card, they put the human encounter card back into the deck and the player that went BEFORE the player who had drawn the card must shuffle the deck. If a player is required to move spaces back and they reach a crossroad, they must continue back but once they move forward again they must take the opposite path (the one they had not taken prior to the moving spaces backward). If a player is required to give up a Food card and does not possess any, they will be required to pay in Life points.
Other players are unable to cover any costs that human encounter cards ask for.
End Game:
Once all players have reached the end, count up every player's Life Points and the player with the highest sum wins!!
Rational
The game Life Choice is a board game where players go throughout the game board facing different post-apocalyptic scenarios and are forced to make decisions which will determine their survival. Characters in The Road had been faced with various scenarios which they had to make a hard decision based not only on their physical needs but moral as well. We wanted to take this essence of decision making into our game and really hone in on why these decisions are made.
An inspiration for our game had been Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is a pyramid which shows the basic needs of humans and then continues to possibilities of selflessness and individuality by people. The very core and foundation of our game closely related to the beginning of Maslow’s pyramids and that are the Food Cards. People need to satisfy their physical before they can think of anything else. These Food cards essentially are the physical needs of the players. Each turn, players must pay one Food card or else they are faced with harsh repercussion. This habitual payment each turn shows the daily need of food by the players. Now some of the Food cards factor into that difficult decision making forced onto the players. Some Food cards force the player to sacrifice a life card in order to avoid starvation or the repercussions. Life cards are most important in the game and are what determine the winner of the game. To sacrifice one would be a big decision for the player but that must be weighed against the players' physical needs. Now we have also implemented a factor of collaboration in the game where players have the ability to help each other out if they so choose. When a player runs out of food cards, another play may help that player out but it comes at the cost of food for them. A player wouldn’t want to sacrifice food if they didn’t have very much left but or the other hand, luck may be in their favor and a certain player may be plentiful with food and will be happy to help out. In return for such kindness, then the player donating food receives a life point, the essence of the game. This decision of donation may also be weighed by how close the player into the end of the game. In the Road, the father had not taken any of his food right before he had passed away and if a player is near the end, they may want to build up as much of their life points before the end. Life points determine the goodness of people and are not just based off of physical needs but emotional ones. Whether you help out others or do the right, moral thing and in the end, this is what really matters in life but moments in our lives are riddled with factors which don’t allow us to always to the right or selfless thing as can be seen in the novel.
With the game design, we incorporated an aspect that allows players to ‘challenge’ one another where they are able to roll die to steal each other's resources. This was a feature that allows players to intentionally harm other players, and to have that sense of survival where it is only their lives that matter in this world. It also proves that when you have the ability to harm others, people will almost always take it when it comes to winning the game.
When traveling through unknown areas, the path ahead of you isn’t clear and there certainly isn’t a single way of going about. We give the players to choose their path as they have to calculate the risks of both going the long way, with a higher chance of finding unraided places with food, or the shorter way with more danger. This also gives the players the sense of not being able to achieve the end, where you need to really think about your food supply and which route is more appropriate.
A reoccurring event that takes place in the food are these human and location encounters. It brings out the action of the book because due to these two there is a chance of finding more food to further to survive or another threat to their lives. These are a big aspect of the game as they dictate your journey going throughout the board, they help determine your food supply. To add the unpredictable factor with almost every location, we designed the cards so that almost every card could be both beneficial or detrimental. This was due to the reality to honestly not knowing what each location can possibly hold in store for the protagonists. There were also some morality cards where the player has to choose what to do when encountering certain people, all having their different outcomes. This was a strong addition because we saw throughout the book that the man and the boy clashed with what to when encountering certain people and now we give the player that same choice with no one else to counteract their decision.
