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Life Choice Game Manual // Kamil and Maciej
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.
The Line - "The Fishermen"
In our first podcast episode of The Line, Andrew, Nile,
Ameer, and Bronwyn discuss The Fishermen, a novel by Chigozie Obioma. In
this episode, we explore the figurate/literal meanings of the first
sentence of each chapter and the implications that these sentences have
for the story.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: The Eye Openers - Vivian, Tyreek, Jakob, Doniesha
In this podcast, we identified sections of the book that we wanted to discuss the literal and figurative meanings of the first two sections that we read. We found that there were certain themes that we wanted to highlight. The literal meanings behind youth of the main characters who are children and its impact on their overall beings through their parents. Going into the literal actions the mother takes on and digging deeper into why she treats her children they way she does. The figurative parts that we wanted to focus on was a violence and analyzing the actions that are happening and what’s the real and deeper meaning.
We still ask ourselves this question as we continue reading: “Why blue eyes? Why is this important?”
Also: Two of our members were absent this day.
Laughterhouse 5 - Book Club Podcast #1
In our first podcast, titled Laughterhouse 5, we start to discuss the literal and figurative meanings of the book. Deciding to delve into the more contextual and chronological aspects of the book, we have more of a focus on the main character, Billy Pilgrim. There are no clear winners because of the fact that there is only Billy, but if anyone's the loser then it is his friend Roland, which he killed.
NOTE: Embed code does not work. It keeps linking to "Alan Walker - Faded". This is the podcast:
Podcast 1: Giggling and Gabbing
David & David Podcast #1
Fire Starter: A HopGames Production
Play the Game!
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/272799931/#player
Group Members:
Kwan Hopkins, Jayla Wright, Meeghan Kersten, and Nicholas Ryan
Introduction:
Fire Starter is a RPG where you have the option to drive your story based on how you interact with other characters.
The game begins with you setting up camp overlooking a prairie. As the sun sets you begin to grow tired and you struggle to stay awake as the darkness embraces you. As you drift off to sleep, someone (or something?) lurks nearby. The mysterious figure gets to your camp and quietly rummages through your belongings, finding the most important thing you own: your sacred lighter. As he makes the figure makes their escape, you wake up to a loud crash. You wake up to see him running off into the distance. The game begins as you are thrust into your first decision...
Rules of the Game:
As a player you can use the options SHOOT or MERCY when faced with an adversary.
If you choose to shoot, you have the option to widen your stance, get focused, aim, or fire. If you intend to be merciful, you may bargain, talk it out, compromise, or sympathize.
When not faced with choices, it is your responsibility to scavenge and roam your environment to propel the story forward.
Justification:
We wanted to do something similar to the novel but not too closely related. We decided to have it related with the value system. Since the boy and the father have different ideas/opinions of what to do in certain situations we decided to have different options based on that. In a situation where the two would come upon someone else on the road the man would either ignore the person or threaten them if they posed as a threat. The boy would try and help them, give them food, ir invite them to come along. The boy shows compassion and the man selfishness. In our game you have something that is stolen from you that is of great importance. You go on a journey to get it back. Throughout the game you will make the choice to act a certain way either like the man of the child in the book. This creative choice allows the player to choose their own destiny without being guilted into or guided to make decisions. Ultimately, “The Road” told the story of someone with absolute power over his and his son’s way of doing things. Fire Starter embraces this bold decision making making the player decided for themselves whether or not to reflect the innocence and goodnature of childhood or the cold realism inspired by the actions of others and the world around them.
Concept Art:
The Road // Final Creative Project // Shana, Harlem, William
NATIONAL CATASTROPHE
SETTING (Read aloud at beginning of game): An unnamed disaster has caused humanity to face extinction and you must now survive with the remnants of a ruined world.
RECOMMENDED # OF PLAYERS: 4
GOAL: To be the last one alive
STATISTICS (STATS): Stats fall under three categories:
Health Points (HP) - How much damage you can take. As the game progresses, HP cannot exceed the initial given HP. When a player’s HP reaches 0 at any given moment, they lose the game, meaning FOOD cards can only be used prior to a player’s HP dropping to 0.
Intelligence (INT) - Your ability to use certain items
Strength (STR) - Your natural ability in combat situations
DICE ROLLING PHASE: Determine the STATS you will be playing with for this game
Players roll dice three times. The value rolled on the dice correspond to a STATS NUMBER (shown below). Each player will end up with 3 STATS numbers by the end of the DICE ROLLING PHASE. Players can assign their STATS NUMBER to any STATS above.
Dice Rolls and Corresponding STATS NUMBER:
1-2: 3
3-4: 4
5-6: 5
Write all the STATS and the corresponding STATS NUMBER on a piece of paper. Keep this for reference for the rest of the game. Make sure there is enough room to cross out and rewrite your HP as the game progresses.
HOW TO PLAY:
- Players roll a die to see who will go first. The person with the biggest number will go first AND decide whether turns will go clockwise or counterclockwise.
- There are 4 piles, one for ITEM cards, one for SCENARIO cards, and each type of card gets a DISCARD pile.
- When an ITEM or SCENARIO card is used, place it in the DISCARD pile. When ITEM or SCENARIO cards are completely used up, take them from their DISCARD pile, shuffle them, and place them back in their respective piles for reuse.
- On a player’s turn, they draw a SCENARIO card. The scenario is read aloud, which explains a situation or circumstance that requires a decision and the player follows any instructions.
- Food items can be used be any player at anytime during anyone’s turn
- At the end of each round, meaning the turn player has circled back to the starting player, all players’ health go down by 1 due to hunger
TYPES OF CARDS: There are ITEM cards and SCENARIO cards
ITEM Cards: May be food, tools, clothing, etc. Used for different scenarios.
- All item cards are placed face down in front of the player. Players may look at their cards at any time.
- Players may only have 4 ITEM cards at a time
- Cards are discarded after use, unless specified
- Anything more than three must be discarded at the moment the card limit is exceeded
- When a player has 4 ITEM cards and they draw another ITEM card, they must discard an ITEM card to replace it, or discard the newly drawn ITEM card)
How to read a card:
- Cards are either labeled WEAPON, TOOL, or FOOD
- Description: What the item is and what it can do
- INT: Determines if a player can use an item. If a player’s INT is lower than the INT written on the card, they cannot use it.
ITEM cards:
WEAPON: Used to deal damage to other players
Pocket Pistol (4):
Description: A ranged weapon for self defense. +2 STR.
INT: 4
Hunting Rifle (2):
Description: A powerful long ranged weapon used for killing. +3 STR.
INT: 5
Rusted Dagger (6):
Description: A close range weapon. +1 STR. If a player gets hit, flip a coin. If heads, they take 1 additional damage.
INT: 3
TOOLS: Various effects
Flare Gun (2):
Description: Used to direct attention. Can be used during any players turn. When used, a player is chosen to be the target of an interaction.
INT: 4
Old Crowbar (4):
Description: Used to open boxes.
INT: 3
Cart (2):
Description: Used to hold 2 extra items. Flip over to use. Attach ITEM cards face down to it. Does not get discarded. If stolen, attached cards get taken too.
INT: 3
Old Tent (4):
Description: Provides protection during weather. Player doesn’t take damage from rain or snow.
INT: 3
FOOD: Used to gain HP
Bottle of Water (2):
Drink to restore 1 health
Can of Pineapple (4):
Description: Restores 1 health
Jar of Corn (3):
Description: Restores 2 health
Crate of Beans (3):
Description: Restores 3 health
SCENARIO Cards: A SCENARIO card is drawn each round by the player. Follow the instructions on the card accordingly.
- Some scenarios may call for the use of a weapon (i.e. a roadrat attack) and others, a utility (i.e. a cold night). A few require specific items.
- If a player doesn’t have any eligible cards, they may take damage (if specified by the card).
- In all combat situations, a WEAPON card may be used during the battle phase to increase a players STR. Once a player chooses to engage in combat, they cannot back out until one player takes damage.
SCENARIO Cards:
- Night Time (4): All players are asleep. Turn player may flip a coin. If heads, take an ITEM card from another player. If tails, target is woken up and the two players fight. -1 HP for player with lower STR.
- It’s Raining (2): Heavy rain and strong winds. All players -1 HP.
- It’s Snowing (2): Dense snow and cold weather. All players -1 HP.
- A Roadrat Attacks! (2): If you have a weapon, you defeat the roadrat and you loot his corpse. Draw 1 ITEM card. Otherwise, -1 HP. If you chose to run, flip a coin. If heads, you successfully escape. If tails, he catches you -1 HP.
- Roadside Loot! (4): Someone must have abandoned it. Draw 1 ITEM card
- A Cave! (2): Flip a coin. If heads, you found someone’s abandoned belongings, draw 1 ITEM card. If tails, you got lost in the cave, -1 HP.
- An Abandoned Trailer! (2): Draw 2 ITEM card
- An Abandoned Town! (2): Draw 2 ITEM cards
- LIGHTNING! (2): You got struck by lightning. You are left with 1 health
- HUMAN ENCOUNTER! (4): You and the player to your left assume aggression from one another. Choose to fight or flight. If fight, player with lower STR -1 HP. If flight, flip a coin. If heads, you get away unscathed. If tails, you are attacked -1 HP.
- Four Eyes On One (2): You and the player to the right found the same loot. Choose to fight or flight. If fight, losing player -1 HP. The winning player get to draw an ITEM card. If flight, flip a coin. If heads, you get away unscathed. If tails, you are attacked -1 HP.
- Strike It Rich! (2): Today is everyone’s lucky day! All players find loot. All players draw an ITEM card
- EARTHQUAKE! (2): A strong earthquake struck. All players discard 1 ITEM card and -1 HP.
- Heavy Conscience (2): Give 1 ITEM card to another player
- Wooden Box (2): Owner must not have gotten a chance to use it. Can be opened with an Old Crowbar. When opened, player draws 3 ITEM cards
RATIONALE
National Catastrophe is a card game set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is facing extinction and the few that are left must fend for themselves with the remnants of a ruined world. Players will have to make choices, take risks, interact with other humans, and mostly importantly, learn what it takes to survive.
The game has many connections to the novel, The Road. The first similarity is the setting and objective. Like the book, the game puts players in a world that has been destroyed, and all characteristics of a civilized people are thrown out the window. People kill and rob others for the sake of their own survival. And just as the book never explains what caused the world to become that way, neither is there is an explanation in this game.
Originally, we thought of creating characters that can be played, similar to the card game Bang! There would be a name, like John, and characteristics that go along with the character. Although people have nothing left but themselves in The Road, their memories and skills still remain. Building off the reality that all people are different and everyone is better at certain things, we thought the players’ experience playing should also reflect that. Players would have a pool of characters to choose from, each with different statistics, so that each player will need to play a little differently and make choices according their strengths. As we learned through the progression of the story, the father has shown skills in both combat and medicine, so we decided to include strength and intellect as statistics. Strength is a measure of a player’s natural combat abilities and determines how combat situations play out. Intelligence is a measure of how knowledgeable a player is with tools, and determines if they can use a tool or not. However, to reflect the randomness of The Road and how the people have neither names nor history, we decided against having predetermined characters. Instead, name has no relevance, just like in the book, and players’ statistics will be determined through unpredictable dice rolls.
We decided to have two types of cards: item and scenario cards. In The Road, the father and the son are on a constant journey traveling across the country taking whatever they can find use out of. There are times when they can’t find anything, and end up suffering either from the cold or hunger as a result. For this reason, we decided to leave item finds up to chance. Item cards are put in a pile and randomly drawn when the situation calls for it. There is an assortment of items that fall under either weapons, tools, or food, and that’s a pretty fair breakdown of the actual things that the duo come across. Weapons increase a player’s likelihood in winning during combat. A gun will provide an advantage over a melee weapon, just like how the father had an advantage over the road rat because he had a pistol and the other only had a knife. Tools have various effects that impact the player’s survival. Things like the flare gun and cart were actually in the book, and their uses are very similar. The flare gun is used to direct attention and the cart allows more items to be carried at once. At the end of each round, meaning the turn player has circled back to the starting player, all players’ health go down by 1 due to hunger. This was included to add more realism, as hunger was major issue in the book.
The father and the boy have no “long term goals” and constantly find themselves in tough situations. Scenario cards put players in similar shoes. Scenario cards are also drawn randomly so players don’t know what scenario they would find themselves in and they often require taking risks. Many of the scenario cards are reflective of the events that happened in the book, such as finding an abandoned town or getting struck by lightning. Finding an abandoned town allows players to draw item cards, just as the duo found useful things in the towns they scavenged, and getting struck by lightning leaves the player near death, just like the man who got struck in the book.
National Catastrophe requires players to think and plan ahead even when they don’t know what is to come. Resources are scarce and storage is limited. Players must be smart with how they spend their resources as well as which resources to keep. Sometimes it is better to play it safe but use resources inefficiently while other times you can afford to be more risky but get more out of your resources. Some items will have immediate impact, while others will require the player to hold on to it for specific situations, and in some cases, end up simply being dead weight. Players will find themselves in situations where they interact with other players, and can choose to either help, fight, or run away from them. Helping another player does not guarantee kindness in return, but may discourage players from choosing you as a target. Fighting someone usually includes a chance of gaining something in return, but you risk losing both health points and items. Flipping a coin determines the outcome of several situations, and it’s reflective of how some things really just come down to luck. There are no right choices, but players must learn to be resourceful and optimize their situation in order to increase their chances of survival.
Due to formatting limitations, use the link below for better reference:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17oPspcyW0R8cLcqV1W9Lvx2p2VzlnFfMffCQsJnYXoM/edit?usp=sharing
Rocky Road
Rocky Road
In the game of Rocky Road, Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic society will test your survival skills. Will your strategy and humor be enough to keep you going or will you collapse under the pressure?
Beware of the cannibals !
Contents of the game
Dice: 1 x weather & 1x number
3 stacks of cards: (Take Or Get Taken) & (Gain or Loss) & (Wild)
4 characters : The boy, Elye, The Man, and The Cannibal
How to Play
1. This is a game of 3-4 players (you may also have a team for each player). Each person must choose a character. Keep in mind that each character has a strength and weakness.
Ely: People give ½ their food & In the snow he moves back a space
Boy: Flare gun (gets to exchange an item when at beach) & Gets sent to lost when near a cannibal
Man: Gets ½ of people’s items in exchange for getting them out of lost. & Needs 3 cans of food at all times or else he cannot move.
Cannibal: Can eat people who land on the same space as him & Allergic to peaches.
2. Everyone must choose what package they want to start their cart with.
Starter Package
Package A: Lighter & knife & water
Package B: Shelter & gun & food
3. Everyone begins in the center of the board. Only one person can go down each of the four paths. Each person must roll the dice. {even number = city or woods} {odd = beach or mountains} Of the first two people to roll even, the person who rolled a larger even number gets to pick first. The same rules apply to odd numbers. If more than two people roll even then the third person has to choose an odd path.
4. During each person’s turn they are to roll both die, the numbered one and the weather one.
The numbered die determines how many step a player moves forward.
The colorful dice has 6 icons: snow, rain, sunny, dust storm, wild card, and the 2x. Each weather will impact the player’s wellbeing based on the area they are in. When you roll the weather dice you will either give up a can of food or use 1 /3 of water. Each area has one type of weather that requires specific supplies to be used.
Mountains: snow → (lighter: fire fuel = 2x) or (shelter: food = 1x)
Woods: dust storm → (shelter: food 2x) (no shelter: food= -2 steps)
City: rain storm → (Food = 2x)
Beach: sunny → (Water = 2/3x)
If your die lands on the W you draw a Wildcard. If your die lands on a x2 card then you get the same weather as the last person who rolled.
5. There are several spaces wherein if you land on them you can receive whatever item’s icon appears on it. For example, if the peach can icon appears you can receive one peach can.
Give up four item you own in exchange for claiming that space. If you own a space you alone can freely receive one item each time you land on it.
When other people land on your space they can only gain something by making the owner laugh within 45 seconds or they have to barter with the owner and exchange one item for another. If the owner laughs then the player may receive one item from the space. The player also has the right to simply land on the space and not ask for anything.
If a player has a lighter they can use three lighter fluids to blow up the store. If a person has a gun they can break into the store and steal three items.
If a store is blown up or stolen from the owner the owner can either pay the original price to buy the property again or give up. If the owner gives up the space returns to its original rules, providing one specific item to each player that lands there.
If a player is running out of resources they cannot keep their property. They can either sell it to someone else or just give it up. When they sell the space the items gained from that sale will be used to make up for the items the player needs to continue to survive.
Three decks of cards:
Gain or Loss cards:
These cards are a choice and are substantial. When you gain a certain amenity, you lose another. For example, if you find two gallons of water, you could sacrifice the steadiness of the cart.
Take or get taken from cards:
For Take or Get Taken cards, you don’t have a choice. You either get to take a certain amenity or lose one. For example, you could draw a card that gives you a new cart or you could draw a card where you have to leave your card and everything in it on the side of the road.
Wild Card
Life is wildly unexpected, the wild card can create some pretty unexpected moments in the game. For example it may say that you got lost for the next two turns.
Lossed
If you land on lost you must either call upon the man and pay the fee. If you are the man you must give up three items to another player of your choosing to be able to leave. The longer you stay lost, the more you lose. After three turns of being lost, you lose one meal’s worth of food. Theoretically, you could die in jail.
Bunker
In the bunker take all you need. Grab a can of food, or a weapon, or a bullet. It’s all yours! Except, you can only choose one.
Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel The Road features the story of a boy and his father on living day to day by scavenging for food, clothing, safety, and sources of happiness in a post-apocalyptic society. Danger lurks at every turn and through every ordeal, the boy and his father grow closer while the reader learns more about what makes their relationship as strong as it is and what they’re personally struggling with. In Rocky Road, our group explored events and theoretical situations and incorporated them into our version of monopoly.
General Set-Up
Essentially, the goal is to stay alive, as it is in The Road. The four characters--the man, the boy, Ely, and the Cannibal--travel the board landing on various spaces that allow them to do certain things. All four characters have certain abilities and drawbacks to choosing them for the game. Most of the spaces on the board are food or resource stores. These spaces are purchased by trading all of your share of that given material (ex: you’d pay for a peaches store with all of your peaches). If you land on a certain spot called “lost” you have to stay there (our equivalent of jail) until you roll a 6. There is no way to win.
Rationale:
Four characters
We decided to have four characters mainly because we thought they had the most impact on the book as a whole.
The man and the boy are the main characters and were no-brainers for us to include due to their journeys on the road. Both of their abilities reflect them as characters as well. The man’s navigation skills are impressive which is why he is the only person on the board who can get you out of “lost”. However, his health isn’t very good and often coughs blood (272). His poor health gave us the idea to prohibit him from moving without the proper amount of food. The boy’s relationship with the flare gun towards the end of the book (270) and how he wanted to fire it upwards to find help inspired us to give him a flare with unlimited ammunition to keep his unrivaled amount of hope alive. However, we thought it would be fit to make him get “lost” when on the same space as the cannibal due to his reaction when his father killed him.
We decided to include Ely because of how influential he was to forming the doubt that the man and the boy have in their mission for survival. He’s one of the only characters that the boy and the man interact with together, let alone converse with, and plant ideas in both characters head that survival is a burden (169). Similarly to the book, we decided to make it a requirement to feed him half of your food if you land on the same spot as him. The cannibal is a villainous character in the book and serves as one in the game. His abilities allow him to take half of all characters food if they’re on the same spot on the board as him. This is because of when he lied about surviving on people giving him food (171). We saw it fit to add a bit of irony to the game. However, he can’t withstand cold temperatures because of his scrawny stature and the fact that he’s old.
Components of the Game
Seasons: We decided to have several seasons due to how much the weather impacts what the characters wear, how able they are to move, and how it affects their mental and physical health. All of the seasons are seen in the book and split the board into 6 equal parts.
Wild Cards: With wildcards, the idea behind this is to just gain. This also allows you to go to the bunker. The bunker is a place where it is safe and has all things essential to survival. This is all for benefitting the players.
Gain and Loss Cards: With gain and loss cards, as players travel on the road, or around the board game, they will come upon spaces that will say “gain and loss cards” on them. Once landed on this space, you will pick up the top card on the “gain and loss” cards deck. The idea behind this is that a player will have the ability to gain something that will benefit them, or that they find essential, but losing something valuable in the process. This could be finding two gallons of water, but the steadiness of your cart will be impacted. This act is played in the book, The Road, as they are constantly searching for essentials, but making sacrifices in the process/coming across life-threatening situations.
Take or Get Taken From Cards: With take or get taken cards, it is also a space that a player will land on as they travel around the board game/the road. When on one of these spaces, you will pick up a “take or get taken” card from the deck. This card is more straight-forward. You either receive something or lose something, there is no in-between. For example, you can find a brand new cart for yourself to keep, or you can lose all your belongings and that will be it. You will have to continue with whatever happened. The idea behind this is people in the story The Road are constantly having things be taken from them (The boy and the man going to homes and taking essentials) or the other way around, taking people’s things. This is all part of survival. In our game, we wanted to incorporate something similar to this. With the take of get taken cards, we believe it does a good job displaying how the book goes.
Laughing/Crying emotive stuff: In The Road, characters must attain survival materials at all costs. This can take the form of cannibalism, murder, hunting, etc. but one tactic that the boy and the man use is being merciful and emotionally available for each other. Mental health is something that is often overlooked in the book due to the fact that the characters are living day to day in dire straights and don’t have time to think about how they feel. Being compassionate allows the characters to stay alive, especially due to their underlying doubts about the importance of surviving. We decided to have an aspect of the game that addresses this. You can gain certain amenities by making someone laugh or smile in 45 seconds.
Set up of Board
Although we did get our idea from Monopoly, there are many aspects of the game that is different. Our set up of the board is shaped as if it was a road. There are spaces on this road that players will move through. Inside of how the road is formed, different locations that were in the story is drawn in there. We placed the mountains north, the beach east, the woods south, and the city/town west. The gain and loss, take or get taken, and wildcards will also be placed in this location, but not where it blocks the locations.
All players will start in the inside space, not exactly on the road yet. The players will have the option of taking different routes to get onto the road. You can travel going to either the beach, mountains, woods, or city/town first and then travel on the road from there. We made the game this way because these were the main locations in the story that people stayed at.
Players in this game will roll two die at the same time when it’s their turn. One die determines how many spaces the player will move and the other die determines what weather condition they are in.
Humanity- Darlenny, James, Alan, and Jahan
Darlenny, James, Alan, and Jahan
21 December 2018
The Road Creative Project (Humanity)
Synopsis:
In the game, each player is a survivor who ended up stranded in an island. Since there are a limited number of resources for everyone on the island, there is going to be a lot of acts of camaraderie and betrayal. Luckily this is all fated to happen by God himself. Whoever has the most humanity and/or food is destined to win by God’s will.
Rules/Instructions:
Humanity is a game about choices. Your choices decide on whether you win or lose the game. There are 2-4 players in Humanity. Each player can choose which mode of transportation represents them.
At the beginning of the game, you start off with five humanity points and five food points. When you land on a square with a symbol on it, you must draw a card that contains that symbol. If the card tells you to do something, you must follow what the card says.
Card Types:
Scenario (represented with a question mark): With this card, you get two options. One option might lower your humanity while getting food. The other option might lower your humanity but lose your food.
Hazard (represented with a brain): This card means something has happened in your travels. You might lose food or something worse.
Blessing (represented with a diamond): You are being blessed. God is watching you and your travels. This card will always have a positive impact on the player.
Sanity (represented with the letter s): Sanity can affect you in weird ways. Always keep track of them! You never know what's going to happen on one of these cards.
Other Features:
Roadblocks: Each player can setup 1 roadblock per game for the cost of 3 humanity point When another player passes an owned roadblock the owner of that roadblock can then take 3 food from that player for the price of 1 humanity point.
When starting the game, roll a dice to see who goes first. Once that is over, the person who rolled the highest number will start first and will start in a clockwise direction. Each player then picks an item that they want to represent them as they travel in the game.
You start the game with 10 humanity points and 10 cans of food. Make sure to keep track of your points as you play the game.
At the end of the game, you tally up all of your points. There are two ways for the game to end: reaching the end of the board and running out of food before reaching the end of the board. When a person loses all of his or her food points, he or she cannot play the game anymore due to starvation and has to put away all of his or her humanity points back into the pile. The game ends when everyone is no longer able to play the game. Once that happens, the humanity points and food points will be added up to get the player’s overall score. The player with the highest score wins the game.
Points:
Humanity: Humanity points are essentially the player’s consciousness. In the game, players will lose or gain their humanity based on their choices from the cards. When a player does not have any human points whatsoever, he or she will essentially lose his or her consciousness, but the player will still be alive if he or she still has food points. At the end of the game, each humanity point you have left is worth 1.5 points to your score.
Food: Food points are points that are essential to the player’s survival. He or she can gain or lose food points depending on the card he or she chooses. Since there are cards that incentivize players to take away players to take away food points from other players, this can cause people to lose food points. When a player loses all of his or her food points, he or she will die and cannot participate in the game. For every can of food you obtain, you add one point to your score.
Rationale:
We decided to base our game off of Snakes and Ladders because of its origins. Although it is unknown who created the game and when the game was created, it is widely believed that Saint Gyandev created the game (known as Moksha Patam) around the thirteenth century to teach children about morality and karma and kama (destiny and desire). Even though we did not add snakes and ladders to our board, we decided to incorporate roadblocks in order to encourage the player to make decisions similar to how the man and the boy have to make decisions essential to survival.
Although The Road is about a man and a boy following a road, there are bumps and obstacles along the way such as facing the weather conditions, encountering cannibals numerous times, and confronting a looter. As a result of that, we decided to make our board game curvy rather than linear. By making our board curvy, we emphasized the nonlinear path the man and the boy take in the book. Regardless of the circumstances, the man and the boy are able to progress. Because of this progression, we decided not to add snakes to our game since it would contradict this idea by having players regress.
For the pieces players can use in the game, we settled on different modes of transportation. As for the environment in the game’s lore, we decided on making it an island since it would emphasize the peculiarity people would experience in a mysterious world like The Road. To make the island have a feeling of danger to it, we decided to add roadblocks that would prohibit players from passing without making a decision. Although our game is about players who are stranded on an island, we did not choose to represent the different modes of transportation as tools players can use to traverse the map. Instead, we chose to have them represent the items the players would carry similar to how the boy would carry a toy truck with him.
We decided to have two different types of points for our point system: humanity and food. In the book, these two aspects help define the man and the boy. For instance, when it comes to humanity, every character displays their qualities and flaws. The man shows how selfless he can be towards the boy, but he also shows his colder side through the act of murdering people with the boy around. As for the boy, he shows compassion towards other people, but he also pressures the man to save others despite the man’s struggle to keep them both alive. By having humanity points, the player can gain or lose his or her humanity throughout the game.
Along with humanity points, we chose to incorporate food points into the game to reflect the protagonists’ need for consumption. Throughout the book, there are many moments where the narrator mentions food. Without food, the man and the boy would die from starvation. In a world that has a scarcity of food, the notion of starvation can be reflected by the main characters’ lean appearance. Because of the necessity of food in The Road, we decided to make a rule that emphasizes it through food points. If the player no longer has any food points left, he or she dies and cannot play the game anymore.
As for the cards, we based them off of the cards from Monopoly. In Monopoly, besides property cards, there are two types of cards players would receive when they step on that tile: community chest and chance cards. Since this game does not involve money, we decided to have four types of cards that would match the situations in The Road like hazard, blessing, scenario, and sanity cards. Although hazard and sanity cards seem to be similar from one another, we decided to separate them into different categories because of the slight differences between them. For example, hazard cards involve situations where the player is facing situations that could be fatal while sanity cards involve situations that would degrade the player’s mentality or actions a player would do because of his or her mentality. From situations like the boy witnessing a cooked human infant and the man receiving a shot from an arrow, we believe hazard and sanity cards would help reflect the nature of the book well.
In contrast to the hazard and sanity cards, there are blessing cards. Even though the world the man and the boy live in can be gray, we decided to add blessing cards because of the good moments in the book such as when the man and the boy encounter a bunker with plenty of supplies. In addition to that, we decided to call these types of cards “blessing cards” because of the man’s faith in God. When a player receives a blessing card, would only gain humanity points and/or food points rather than losing them. From that, the player is able to have more of a chance of winning the game. With blessing cards, we believe these cards can help give some relief to the players when they stumble upon these cards.
Even with sanity, blessing, and hazard cards, there are events in the story that are not related to any of them. Because of that, we made scenario cards that would reflect other moments in the book that are not entirely hazardous, traumatic, and blissful. For instance, we included the time when the protagonists encounter Ely by adding a scenario card where it states that the player that he or she gave food to an old man. With the scenario cards, we think it can help show the ambiguity in The Road. However, even with ambiguity, we still want to include other motifs that might contradict it such as faith.
Since faith is reflected heavily in the book, we chose to contribute it to our game’s lore. In our board game, we want to mention God and how he determines who would be the winner and the choices the players make because of the man’s belief in fate. For example, the man believes that he has been chosen by God to protect the boy at all cost. With this mindset, the man is inclined to protect the boy even if he kills others in doing so. Although it can be argued that the man is destined to kill others to protect the boy, this skews the belief that the man is entirely a good person since the act of murder is usually seen as an awful act to commit. In our game, we want to emphasize ambiguity. By having the idea of a winner being determined by God, it creates a feeling of faith similar to the man’s faith in God; however, it comes at a cost of loss.
Because there are some cards that require the player to choose someone to take away humanity and food points from, there are times where players are bound to have conflicts with one another. Even though it might make the game a bit challenging to play with other people, we want to show how people in The Road stumble upon conflicts at times because of contrasting perspectives. For instance, there is a moment where the man and the boy argue over the outcome of the looter; the man believes killing the looter is right while the boy condemns the man’s act. Similarly, when a player chooses another player to take away points from, the person losing points will probably have a different perspective of the situation than the one taking his or her points away. In a world with scarcity like The Road, this creates competition between the players.
The Road Creative Project By: Alan, Jahan, James, Darlenny
Darlenny, James, Alan, and Jahan
21 December 2018
The Road Creative Project (Humanity)
Synopsis:
In the game, each player is a survivor who ended up stranded in an island. Since there are a limited number of resources for everyone on the island, there is going to be a lot of acts of camaraderie and betrayal. Luckily this is all fated to happen by God himself. Whoever has the most humanity and/or food is destined to win by God’s will.
Rules/Instructions:
Humanity is a game about choices. Your choices decide on whether you win or lose the game. There are 2-4 players in Humanity. Each player can choose which mode of transportation represents them.
At the beginning of the game, you start off with five humanity points and five food points. When you land on a square with a symbol on it, you must draw a card that contains that symbol. If the card tells you to do something, you must follow what the card says.
Card Types:
Scenario: With this card, you get to options. One option might lower your humanity while getting food. The other option might lower your humanity but lose your food.
Hazard: This card means something has happened in your travels. You might lose food or something worse.
Blessing: You are being blessed. God is watching you and your travels. This card will always have a positive impact on the player.
Sanity: Sanity can affect you in weird ways. Always keep track of them! You never know what's going to happen on one of these cards.
Other Features:
Roadblocks: Each player can setup 1 roadblock per game for the cost of 3 humanity point When another player passes an owned roadblock the owner of that roadblock can then take 3 food from that player for the price of 1 humanity point.
When starting the game, roll a dice to see who goes first. Once that is over, the person who rolled the highest number will start first and will start in a clockwise direction. Each player then picks an item that they want to represent them as they travel in the game.
You start the game with 10 humanity points and 10 cans of food. Make sure to keep track of your points as you play the game.
At the end of the game, you tally up all of your points. There are two ways for the game to end: reaching the end of the board and running out of food before reaching the end of the board. When a person loses all of his or her food points, he or she cannot play the game anymore due to starvation and has to put away all of his or her humanity points back into the pile. The game ends when everyone is no longer able to play the game. Once that happens, the humanity points and food points will be added up to get the player’s overall score. The player with the highest score wins the game.
Points:
Humanity: Humanity points are essentially the player’s consciousness. In the game, players will lose or gain their humanity based on their choices from the cards. When a player does not have any human points whatsoever, he or she will essentially lose his or her consciousness, but the player will still be alive if he or she still has food points. At the end of the game, each humanity point you have left is worth 1.5 points to your score.
Food: Food points are points that are essential to the player’s survival. He or she can gain or lose food points depending on the card he or she chooses. Since there are cards that incentivize players to take away players to take away food points from other players, this can cause people to lose food points. When a player loses all of his or her food points, he or she will die and cannot participate in the game. For every can of food you obtain, you add one point to your score.
Rationale:
We decided to base our game off of Snakes and Ladders because of its origins. Although it is unknown who created the game and when the game was created, it is widely believed that Saint Gyandev created the game (known as Moksha Patam) around the thirteenth century to teach children about morality and karma and kama (destiny and desire). Even though we did not add snakes and ladders to our board, we decided to incorporate roadblocks in order to encourage the player to make decisions similar to how the man and the boy have to make decisions essential to survival.
Although The Road is about a man and a boy following a road, there are bumps and obstacles along the way such as facing the weather conditions, encountering cannibals numerous times, and confronting a looter. As a result of that, we decided to make our board game curvy rather than linear. By making our board curvy, we emphasized the nonlinear path the man and the boy take in the book. Regardless of the circumstances, the man and the boy are able to progress. Because of this progression, we decided not to add snakes to our game since it would contradict this idea by having players regress.
For the pieces players can use in the game, we settled on different modes of transportation. As for the environment in the game’s lore, we decided on making it an island since it would emphasize the peculiarity people would experience in a mysterious world like The Road. To make the island have a feeling of danger to it, we decided to add roadblocks that would prohibit players from passing without making a decision. Although our game is about players who are stranded on an island, we did not choose to represent the different modes of transportation as tools players can use to traverse the map. Instead, we chose to have them represent the items the players would carry similar to how the boy would carry a toy truck with him.
We decided to have two different types of points for our point system: humanity and food. In the book, these two aspects help define the man and the boy. For instance, when it comes to humanity, every character displays their qualities and flaws. The man shows how selfless he can be towards the boy, but he also shows his colder side through the act of murdering people with the boy around. As for the boy, he shows compassion towards other people, but he also pressures the man to save others despite the man’s struggle to keep them both alive. By having humanity points, the player can gain or lose his or her humanity throughout the game.
Along with humanity points, we chose to incorporate food points into the game to reflect the protagonists’ need for consumption. Throughout the book, there are many moments where the narrator mentions food. Without food, the man and the boy would die from starvation. In a world that has a scarcity of food, the notion of starvation can be reflected by the main characters’ lean appearance. Because of the necessity of food in The Road, we decided to make a rule that emphasizes it through food points. If the player no longer has any food points left, he or she dies and cannot play the game anymore.
As for the cards, we based them off of the cards from Monopoly. In Monopoly, besides property cards, there are two types of cards players would receive when they step on that tile: community chest and chance cards. Since this game does not involve money, we decided to have four types of cards that would match the situations in The Road like hazard, blessing, scenario, and sanity cards. Although hazard and sanity cards seem to be similar from one another, we decided to separate them into different categories because of the slight differences between them. For example, hazard cards involve situations where the player is facing situations that could be fatal while sanity cards involve situations that would degrade the player’s mentality or actions a player would do because of his or her mentality. From situations like the boy witnessing a cooked human infant and the man receiving a shot from an arrow, we believe hazard and sanity cards would help reflect the nature of the book well.
In contrast to the hazard and sanity cards, there are blessing cards. Even though the world the man and the boy live in can be gray, we decided to add blessing cards because of the good moments in the book such as when the man and the boy encounter a bunker with plenty of supplies. In addition to that, we decided to call these types of cards “blessing cards” because of the man’s faith in God. When a player receives a blessing card, would only gain humanity points and/or food points rather than losing them. From that, the player is able to have more of a chance of winning the game. With blessing cards, we believe these cards can help give some relief to the players when they stumble upon these cards.
Even with sanity, blessing, hazard cards, there are events in the story that are not related to any of them. Because of that, we made scenario cards that would reflect other moments in the book that are not entirely hazardous, traumatic, and blissful. For instance, we included the time when the protagonists encounter Ely by adding a scenario card where it states that the player that he or she gave food to an old man. With the scenario cards, we think it can help show the ambiguity in The Road. However, even with ambiguity, we still want to include other motifs that might contradict it such as faith.
Since faith is reflected heavily in the book, we chose to contribute it to our game’s lore. In our board game, we want to mention God and how he determines who would be the winner and the choices the players make because of the man’s belief in fate. For example, the man believes that he has been chosen by God to protect the boy at all cost. With this mindset, the man is inclined to protect the boy even if he kills others in doing so. Although it can be argued that the man is destined to kill others to protect the boy, this skews the belief that the man is entirely a good person since the act of murder is usually seen as an awful act to commit. In our game, we want to emphasize ambiguity. By having the idea of a winner being determined by God, it creates a feeling of faith similar to the man’s faith in God; however, it comes at a cost of loss.
Because there are some cards that require the player to choose someone to take away humanity and food points from, there are times where players are bound to have conflicts with one another. Even though it might make the game a bit challenging to play with other people, we want to show how people in The Road stumble upon conflicts at times because of contrasting perspectives. For instance, there is a moment where the man and the boy argue over the outcome of the looter; the man believes killing the looter is right while the boy condemns the man’s act. Similarly, when a player chooses another player to take away points from, the person losing points will probably have a different perspective of the situation than the one taking his or her points away. In a world with scarcity like The Road, this creates competition between the players.
Cards:
Our Board:
The Road Hunt//Rivera, Rogers, Wentzell
The Road Hunt
The Rules of The Road:
Players:
Man, boy, army, cannibals
Order of the game:
Identity:
Everyone is given an identity card. You can’t share it with anyone else and nobody else knows who anyone else is.
Significance:
In The Road, nobody has a true identity. It’s dangerous to tell anyone who you are, your name, or anything personal. It’s every man for himself.
Beginning:
After everyone is given an identity card, they are sent on a journey throughout the school. There will be more around the school are note cards with different things written on them.
Each player starts with 90 years of life. At the end of every challenge the players’ years of life are deducted and calculated. The the top 50 percentile players (with the most life remaining) will move onto the next challenge. If a player loses all of their life, they are removed from the game.
Challenges:
Apple Picking Challenge
Race
Obstacle Course
The player with the most years on their life at the end of all of the challenges is the winner.
Character Special Abilities:
The Man:
If gets attacked by another player, or gets the trick human card, the one who is the man gets to use their gun one time to either fend off the trick card or kill the other player.
Cannibal:
If you are a Cannibal from the beginning of the game, you get to attempt to form an alliance with someone, and if your life is threatened at some point during the game, you get to make a Moral Decision; Will you kill your partner to survive? Will you lead them on and gain their trust, but eat them at the end of the game to better your chances of winning?
Army:
You are part of the army in this world. If you happen to make an alliance with a Cannibal without knowing, and they attempt to kill you at some point in the game, you can counter and decide to kill them instead.
Justifications:
The courses are specifically designed to make players lose just enough lives for each round to continue as planned. The most average players will lose naturally without being weeded out by the mechanic of the top 50% of players moving onto the next round. This is to ensure that players must actually be good at the game and not rely on just being better than everyone else. In The Road, survival of an individual is just as important as strength over others. Characters in The Road must not only face other characters, but also face the wrath of nature.
The point of the food hunt game is to demonstrate how hard it is for the man and the boy in The Road to find food that wasn’t human. There are less real food cards than there are human food cards which also represents how much harder it was for the man and the boy to live without them. Human food cards don’t give you more life than regular food cards but when you’re starving and the point of the game is to survive, you’ll take what you can get. The purpose of having two types of human cards is to reenact the risk the man and the boy take every time they come face to face with another human. They never know if they’re good guys or bad guys. There were a number of times where they took risks, Ely is only one example.
In the book the man has a disadvantage since he has to take care of the boy. All the food he gets he has to share with the boy, all the supplies have to be split for two people. In the piggy-back race it is purposefully easier to win for those who are on their own. It makes it harder for those who have been forced to make an alliance with someone because they have to piggy-back race down the track. Not only is this inconvenient all around, but it forces you to quickly problem solve and it can potentially slow you down. This is true for the man and the boy because the man would be much more efficient and faster by himself but with a child to take care of, it makes the whole journey harder, especially when they’re trying to run quickly. This also represents how hard it can be to lug a cart around the woods in the mud and dirt.
The Game of Morality
The Importance of Morality
Taylor Green, Dayanna Hughes and Tai Bailey
INTRODUCTION:
In a world where human customs have been lost and concepts cease to be, your goal is to survive and to make it to a normal civilization that has preserved humanity. This game is a tale of exploration where you and other players are traveling through a post-apocalyptic world trying to survive. Are you willing to test your luck and lose all sense of morality in order to make it to your destination first? Or will you be able to stay sane and keep your morality intact?
RULES AND ELEMENTS:
The game is played on a game board that represents a trail to a better destination. In order to travel, you will have to roll a die. Along the trail are symbols relating to four different types of cards. If you land on one of these symbols you have to pull a card pertaining to that symbol. The four types of cards are risk, reward, health and morality. A risk card will have a negative impact on your player (i.e., your player enters an empty house however in search of food, however they get hurt instead). A reward card will have a positive impact on your player. (i.e., your player finds multiple canned foods that are still good quality). A health card will affect your player’s physical and/or mental health (i.e., your player gets sick and their health goes down). A morality card will present you with a decision that will have a negative or positive impact depending on what you choose. This can increase or decrease your morality but benefit you in the game overall. You can keep track of these statistics by using a tally system on the note cards provided. Your main goal is to get to the end of the board first. If you do, the value system won’t apply to you.
VALUE SYSTEM:
Throughout the game, the three main things that players should keep track of is their health, food cans, and morality. Knowing the amount of these things will affect the choices that players will be able to make in the game and their survival. It will also affect the outcome of your character. Whoever reaches the end of the board first is the overall winner and has no negative setbacks no matter their stats. After the winner, the person with the lowest morality loses all sense of humanity. They steal, kill, and seek havoc with no remorse or care. The person with the lowest physical health dies. The person with the lowest mental health loses their sanity, and becomes a shell of who they used to be. The person with the lowest amount of food takes all the supplies and abandons the group. The players don’t know until the end who will have the worst fate. In this world where everything is forsaken there is really no glorifying circumstance. There are just some circumstances that are better than others.
CONNECTION AND JUSTIFICATION:
Within The Road, the world has been reduced to its basic elements. Because of this throughout the novel McCarthy plays with the aspect of morality, showing that although there is an evident line between good and evil a world where there are no social constructs makes it subjective. This is what makes it difficult to survive. This can be seen on page 88-89 when McCarthy writes, “The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion...The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality.” This quote is basically saying that principals and words that signify them have been forgotten in a post-apocalyptic world. For our game, we wanted mortality and morality to play a big role and go hand in hand similar to the novel.
Luck is also an important aspect of the game, hence why this is a standard board game with a die. Having it this way, leaves the game strictly up to chance. There is no way to get over, or boost your chances of succeeding. Similar to the book, luck determines the boy and the man’s fate. For instance, on page 138 they find a bunker full of food and supplies. It was described as “crate upon crate of canned foods.” This was pure luck, them being there at the right time provided them with the things they needed. With the whole idea of luck, there is also an equal amount of unluck. One is not over the other, you can get either or.
Slides:
It's Not Blue - Lilly, Jacobo, Lauren
Kind of Game: Card/Strategy Game
Objective: Survive the longest
Players: 2-8 players
Game Start
Separate the game components into five piles
Resource Deck >
Event Deck >
Stats Pieces >
Character Cards >
Discard Box >
Each player must pick one character to simulate during the entity of the game. All characters have different strengths and weaknesses that are listed on their description card. They may pick one out of four categories:
Man
Boy
Woman
Cannibal
Hand out the following pieces according to how many are prescribed for the character:
+15 Health > Boy, Woman, Man (-5), Cannibal (+5)
+15 Will > Man, Cannibal, Woman (-5), Boy (+5)
Gun > +1 Bullet. The only resource card characters cannot lose
Mile Tracker
Shuffle the Resource Deck and allow players to draw one card from the deck. This is their starting resource. If the resource comes with a bonus, allow them to add it now.
Cannibals do not start with a resource card.
Players, do not allow others to look at your resource cards unless instructed by an event. Keep them close to your chest and hidden.
Collect pieces if instructed.
Determine who will begin first and move clockwise. Players are now ready to begin.
How Turns Work
Players have the option of first choosing a card from the Event Deck. They may choose to forfeit this option and move onto Step Two.
If the player chooses to pick up an Event Card, they must follow the instructions on the card.
Players may be able to gain the varying amount of competent such as will, health, or additional resource cards
Players may only pick up one Event Card per turn until they reach 8 miles. Then, they may pick up to +5 Event Cards with each turn.
At this time, Players may choose to exchange +1 health for +2 miles, or as many as they see fit.
Discard the health accordingly and add miles to your Mile Tracker
A Player may choose not to move for two consecutive turns. Any longer and they will have to forfeit -3 will for every extra turn they chose to stay.
Turn is over. The Player to the left may now take their turn.
End Game
The end of the game is very simple, the last one standing wins. After each round players will either lose or gain both health and will. When a player loses either all the will points or all the health points, the player dies and must exit the game. In this game, there are no ties. Players will keep playing until all but one of them dies.
A note to the victor: Congratulations! You are the last person standing! Now, you are alone.
Rationale
Characters: With our game, we wanted to put each player into the shoes of the main kinds of characters that you can see in The Road; a man to represent the father, a boy to represent the son, a woman to represent the lady that the son meets at the end of the novel, and a cannibal to represent the constant predators of anyone travelling on the road. Like the characters in the book, the players have predestined strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and disadvantages. These can affect their success on the road.
Event Card: The players have the ability to make some choices that can involve strategy, morality, knowledge, luck, and skill. The characters in The Road were often faced with decisions and their needs heavily influenced their actions. Two of the major components in It’s Not Blue are will and health. While reading The Road, you can see how frequently events occurred that affected the will and health of the man and the boy. We wanted the players to experience the challenge of being affected by an event because of the cards they were drawn. Hence, the purpose of the event card. The outcome of the event is determined by how many will and health points you gain or lose.
Resource Card: In the story, resources are limited and can determine how soon death may come for that character.
______________________________________
Card Images:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Kdnfm3UyB74AVoyTNXGAsFX_9W-u1Wcup0oOrL9nWPc/edit?usp=sharing
Rule Document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lGj0c0hBLmYElJD0WmWQoniQ9aRIJ1uVkQQzJVKFTM0/edit?usp=sharing
Who's Safe ? By: Naima, Kyianna, & Hamidou
How to play:
This Game is for 3 to 9 people.
Shuffle the Resources deck, every player grab two cards
Players should keep the cards that they have (Resource deck) to themselves unless they decide before the first Direction card is chosen that they would like to play as a team with up to one other player. If two players decide to become a team they will have to share their cards from the Resource deck throughout the entire game.
The first player or team rolls the set of dice, they then to pick out that same number of cards from the Directions deck, read the last card from you choosing and put the other cards back in the deck
Players follow the directions on the cards and complete the actions.
The game continues with each player/team picking cards from the Direction pile.
The game is over when there are no more Direction cards
Whoever is holding the fire card from the Resources deck is declared the winner
If a player runs out of Resources cards while the game is still being played they have “died” and are out.
Rationale:
In the novel The Road, Cormac Mccarthy uses many items to represent the connections between survival and perseverance. Our game “Who's Safe” will makes the connection from the novel to tell the story in a new format. There are two different decks that are used, one is the Resource deck that contains item that the farther and son frequently came across like food or drinks or virtues that were important like dreams. One example novel resource that was used by the man to help the boys survival was the shopping cart. They use the shopping cart to carry useful items which help them throughout the novel. The direction gives a guide to hopefully help the players survive just like the road. The Road was used to give a guide the boy to safety and left the man to die. The dice are used to help the player collect as many cards which would help them move toward safety.
Quotes for gun, cart, the fire, and dreams
Throughout the novel the man is often seen dreaming about terrible situations but his dreams do vividly link him back to the life he once knew. When elaborating about the dreams and their place he said, “He mistrusted all of that. He said the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and death. He slept a little and he slept poorly. He dreamt of walking in a flowering wood where birds flew before them he and the child and the sky was arching blue but he was learning how to wake himself from just such siren worlds.” (Page 18)
This is why we chose dreams as a survival mechanism because they can keep the player sane and in this case alive in the game.
Fire
“You have to carry the fire. I don’t know how to. Yes, you do. Is it real? The fire? Yes, it is? where is it? I don't know where is it. Yes, you do. It’s inside you. It was always there.I can see it. Just take me with you. Please. I can’t. Please, papa. I can't. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I can't.”
Page: 278
cart
“They collected some old boxes and built a fire in the floor and he found some tools and emptied out the cart and sat working on the wheel. He pulled the bolt and bored out the collet with a hand drill and resleeved it with a section of pipe he'd cut to length with a hacksaw. Then he bolted it all back together and stood the cart upright and wheeled it around the floor. It ran fairly true.”
Page:
The gun
Unit The Last Moment
Until The Last Moment
By: Miguel Rivera, Raymond Rochester, and Ayala Silverman
INTRODUCTION
In a post-apocalyptic world, the choices you make determine life or death. You only have your mind and fellow travelers to guide you. The year is 2010 and the world is up in flames. The ground you walk on is gray and black. You are in northern America at the beginning of autumn and you’re heading south. You have to make it south before winter starts or else you’ll face certain death. It will be a long and hard journey, but it is the only way that you would be able to survive, at least for a little while.
MANUAL
OBJECTIVE
Throughout the game, you will be on a quest of survival. You will be counting on the food, tools, and weapons that you obtain through gameplay in order to survive different situations. Your goal is to get to the south within 5 weeks, before the start of winter. The game will restart once you reach the south or if everybody dies.
PLAYERS
There will be a Game Master that narrates and directs the game. The Game Master will have the ability to provide the players with events in which they will have to act accordingly. A day will end with the successful conclusion of two events. If players are following the strand form of playing, they would reach the South with 10-13 events.
Players (in a group of at least 2-3) will be guiding their characters through the game’s world. The Game Master and roll of the dice will impact the way the players navigate through the game.
Every player will take a turn and can choose an action that they wish to do. There is the possibility of their action failing based on their die roll. Players will also have the choice to pass on a turn, which can result in a loss of supplies.
CHARACTERS
When making your character you get to choose attributes that will help him or her in certain situations but will also not be as much as an advantage in other situations. Attributes assigned to the characters will affect how they interact with the world around them. This game utilizes character customization: the players will be able to create their characters, including choosing their attributes. Players will roll a pair of 6-sided dice in order to find how many points will be allotted to each attribute. Certain attributes will be beneficial in certain scenarios, while others will have no effect or can even be detrimental. The higher the number a player rolls, the more points they might be able to allot to their desired attribute. Workaround the scenarios of the game master, make the right choices, and survive as long as you can.
DICE & ROLLING
The role of dice in the game will be prominent in two areas: creating your character and determining the outcome of an action. During gameplay, the result of a roll multiplied by an attribute* will be used to determine the result of the event and whether it’s good, bad, or neutral. The Game Master will determine the amount of points needed to get a “good” result before the player rolls by rolling a pair of dice and subtracting that number by subtracting 3. In order to calculate the points needed to pass an action, the player will have to add the number they rolled and the points of the Ability or Attribute that they’re using in the situation.
* check under CHARACTER & ITEMS SYSTEMS for more information
STORYLINE/SCRIPT
-- guide for Game Master
BEFORE PLAYING
The Game Master will give the players a list of items for them to start the game with. Characters have a limit of 3 items*, excluding their weapon. The weapons will be chosen by rolling a die.
* see list of Materials for items to choose from
SETTING - at the beginning of the game
You are standing at the edge of the woods, the road stretches out in front of you, disappearing beyond a hill on the left and stretching into the distance on the right.
LIST OF POSSIBLE EVENTS
You see a line of smoke trailing in the sky. You move closer to the source and hear the faint murmurs of people talking.
You or a party member becomes sick.
You come across a potentially inhabited farmhouse.
Food stores are becoming low and there have been no places to scavenge.
You are walking along the road when the sky darkens and it begins to storm.
You encounter a stranger in the road.
You are exploring a potential shelter for items when you hear a noise from another room.
Someone steals your backpack, taking your food supply and extra clothing with them.
You see someone dying on the road and have all your food taken.
The bottom of your backpack rips open.
You suspect that someone is following you.
A group of people surrounds you on the road.
A party member gets mildly injured during the day, forcing you to stop and continue your journey during the night.
A party member gets lost.
You find an old man on the road in need of food.
You find water due unsure if it will make you sick.
CHARACTER & ITEMS SYSTEM
The players will have the opportunity to create a character. Customization includes assigning physical and personality attributes. Players will also be able to choose what items their character starts out with at the beginning of the game.
Food items must be eaten within the lifespan or it becomes useless. Players have to eat a whole item of food or half of two items each third day. They must have one item of food with them at all times. If they don’t, they must find at least one item within the day. Players must drink 16 oz of water in three days as well.
The points under attributes will affect a character’s abilities (i.e. more Strength = better Athletics = able to walk longer). The items that a player decides to bring on their journey will also have the possibility of affecting your ability and attribute numbers, thus changing an event’s outcome.
A player can pick up to 3 Abilities to give to their character. In order to find your Ability points, find the corresponding Attribute and half the amount of points you rolled for that. If an Ability has two corresponding Attributes, combine the halves of both those numbers. In the event that an Attribute has an odd number of points, half the number and round the decimal down.
While playing, in the event that a character needs to use an Ability to help in a situation, it’s up to the player to pick which Ability will be most effective.
ATTRIBUTES
Strength
Strength measures bodily power, athletic training, and the extent to which you can exert raw physical force.
Dexterity
Dexterity measures physical agility and reflexes.
Intelligence
Intelligence measures mental acuity, the strength of recall, and the ability to reason.
Wisdom
Wisdom reflects how attuned you are to the world around you, representing perceptiveness and intuition.
Charisma
Measures your ability to interact effectively with others. It includes such factors as confidence and eloquence.
Luck
Control the severity of a situation for a better outcome.
ABILITIES
Athletics (involves speed, agility, & endurance)
Your Strength check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, climbing.
Affected by Strength and Dexterity
Deception
Determines whether or not you can convincingly hide the truth, either verbally or through your actions.
Affected by Charisma
Insight
Determines whether or not you can tell the true intentions of a creature such as when searching out a lie or a predicting someone's next move.
Affected by Intelligence and Wisdom
Intimidation
When you attempt to influence someone through overt threats, hostile actions, and physical violence.
Affected by Strength and Charisma
Scavenging
The ability to find things useful to your survival such as food, tools, weapons, shelter, etc.
Affected by Wisdom
Medicine
A wisdom (Medecin) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness.
Affected by Intelligence
Stealth
Determines how well you can slink past and hide from your enemies.
Affected by Dexterity
Survival
This is the heightened ability to follow tracks, track wild game, guide your group through wastelands, predict the weather, and other elements to survive the deathly setting that you are in.
Affected by Strength and Wisdom
Perception
Your Wisdom check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something.
Affected by Wisdom
Value System
The value system for each player is different within the game. The players have to determine how they will survive and actions that they take to get to the end. People can do whatever it takes to get to the end or try to help fellow travelers along the way. Our goal in creating this game is to show how hard it is to survive in a post-apocalypse world and question people’s definition of humanity. This will be a difficult task for many because many players will try to keep their character alive while simultaneously trying to help others. Over time, as players play the game and lose supplies, they will be forced to make decisions to either keep themselves alive or keep their morality intact by helping other travelers. It’s entirely possible (and expected) for the values a player might have at the beginning of the game to change as they continue playing
CONNECTION TO THE BOOK
Throughout the book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the skills and knowledge of the father is what keeps him and his son alive. The choices the man makes affected how he and the boy lived presently and in the future, which is just like the concept of a tabletop RPG, such as D&D (and consequently Until the Last Moment). In the game Until the Last Moment, you can't win. You can only survive and have better luck than your co-players, but the end result will be the same for each player -- death. In the book, there is no way to completely escape the deathly world that they live in, which the game is meant to reflect. There is only trying to make things better for yourself, although your luck could eventually run out.
The father and the son were on their journey with the goal of survival on their mind. There were a lot of times where they had to scavenge for tools, food, and sometimes weapons of self-defense. They “had no food and little sleep” (McCarthy 105) for the majority of their journey in the book. This is also a concept replicated in the game. The players will have to make a lot of their own choices as well as react to situations out of their control (like if there’s a storm). The players, like the man and boy, will have to be cautious and think about the consequences of their actions if they wish to survive. They must find out for themselves if they are “carrying the fire” (McCarthy 283).
The game is also based a lot on luck, such as the dice affecting what items and the amount that you get while playing. Similarly, in the book, the good things that happened to them were based off luck. You don’t know how an action will play out in the game, much like in real life and in the book, and the players will have to be prepared in case their luck turns.
Game Destination
Compassion vs Cruelty - College English
Compassion vs Cruelty
Lauren Nicolella, Aysha Siddiquee & Greg Tasik
This is a card game similar to the format of Cards Against Humanity, but with fewer cards and many different prompts and situations that pertain to The Road.
The rules:
Each of the 4 players starts off with 8 cards, 4 compassion and 4 cruelty. During each round, the person who’s turn it is reads a context card and gets to judge their favorite answer in response to the scenario. They have the power of which card makes most sense to them, that may make or break the situation you’re put in. The player with the most scenario cards at the end of the game wins.
Objective:
Obtain the most cards in the end, while managing to survive through the different scenarios of survival.
How it’s played:
Shuffle two separate decks of 16 compassion cards and 16 cruelty cards.
Each player gets 4 cruelty and 4 compassion cards.
One player draws one scenario card out of the scenario card pile.
The other 3 players choose one of the 8 cards to respond to the scenario.
The player that draws the scenario card chooses which scenario they like best. (very subjective and random, such as how the characters in the story act)
Repeat steps 3 through 5 till all scenario cards have been drawn.
Player with the most scenario cards at the end of the game wins.
Categories of cards:
Compassion cards (morality)- 16 cards
Cruelty cards (immoral)- 16 cards
Context cards (scenarios)- 8 cards
Explanation & Connections:
The main concept of this game is to make the personal decision on whether something is moral or immoral based on the scenario and decisions the players are given to choose from. In The Road, the man and boy had very limited options of how they could survive and get through another day, which is why we are giving each player a random choice at being cruel or compassionate. The scenarios we chose the players to engage with are either ideas based on the novel, or were major scenes that had taken place and affected both the relationship and well-being of the man and boy. There are connections to cases of starvation, cannibalism, violence, and relationship-building that the man endure on their journey together and it is up to each player to decide which way they would want to live. If it gets picked is up to the judge that round, so keep in mind of who is in charge of that since everyone has different views on survival.
Value System:
The value system is based or morals, and it is up to the players of what is valuable to them in the situation they are given. We wanted this to be interpreted as they are given tiny yet significant details of compassion, and more harsh cruelty cards since it is more of a reality in a survival setting. In The Road, there were encounters with different kinds of people who reacted differently to both survival and with others, and it is their choice to be compassionate or cruel to who they come across. The most valuable part of this game is obtaining as many context cards as possible, so making sure that the people playing you are conscious of how to win you over.
Risks & Rewards:
The main risk is losing all of your cards (if the game ends up going to every round) since there won’t be anymore options for that player and will ultimately die. Whoever has the most cards secures a safe spot in being alive, and is the first to go in the next match.
Compassion Cards- These are the cards that correlate with the situations and actions that occur to the Man and the boy’s journey that revolve around kindness.
Compassion: 16
Share half of your food rations with 1 person.
Allow 1 person to join you on your journey.
Help out 1 injured person.
Feed a wild dog you find.
Share a Coca-Cola with 1 person.
Find a new lighter.
Save 1 person from being eaten by cannibals.
Teach 1 person how to swim.
Use first aid-kit on an injured person.
You find an abandoned house to stay in.
Share multiple cans of food with 1 person.
Bury a dead body.
Teach 1 person how to swim.
Share your dream with 1 person.
Make grape flavored-water.
Snap out of a distracting memory.
Cruelty Cards- These are tragedies that correlate to the obstacles that the man and the boy have to face during their journey.
Cruelty: 16
Kill off the person you across from you.
Take the items and clothes of 1 person.
Get shot in the leg with an arrow.
Shoot at the army passing by.
Eat 1 person.
Steal all of the belongings from 1 person.
Develop a horrendous cough.
No access to food for five days straight.
Kill a baby to have a meal.
Kill the person to your right.
Get invited into a truck on the road.
You get distracted by a daydream.
Face the harsh reality that your partner will die soon.
Have false hope.
Murder a man who innocently crossed paths with you.
Get lost in the woods.
Conext Cards- These are scenarios that correlate to the situations that the man and boy find themselves in throughout their journey
Scenarios (Context)- 8
You find multiple people scared and naked in a barn, what do you do?
You are starving and are resorting to alternate methods. What will you do?
You wake up in an abandoned house and hear someone walking into the room you’re in, what do you do?
Everything you had was stolen and you follow the tracks of the culprit, what do you do?
You get discovered by the army, what do you do?
Another person on the road asks you for your help, what do you do?
It’s between your life and your partner both of you are to cross the bridge, but it’s only strong enough for one, what do you do?
There is a strong wildfire approaching the area you’re camping in, what do you do to survive?
Photos of game:
The Road Creative Project
3 to 8 players with a closed hand are dealt a knife card, clothes card, and 3 food cards. This is their starting hand. At the beginning of each turn, players scavenge, or draw one card from a stack of 52 called the “scavenge pile.” Better weapons, additional food, additional clothes, and a rare cart can all be scavenged from that pile. Players are constrained to a maximum of five cards when their turn ends. On a turn, players have several options. First, they can attack another player. In doing so, the attacking player has to consume and discard a food card, while the defending player does not. Both attacking and defending players reveal their highest quality weapon. Every weapon can attack without restraint, except for the gun. If the attack, or defending player has no bullet, the gun cannot be used, and if not backup weapon is available, they lose immediately. Both players are assigned dice according the quality of their weapon. Knife cards receive one dice, flare gun cards get two, bow and arrow cards get three, and gun cards get four. Each player rolls their die and counts up the total amount that they rolled. Whoever has the highest total wins the fight and the other player dies. Both attacking and defending players can die. When a player dies, they reveal their hand and lay their cards on the table face up, and the winner of the fight can steal up to two card from the dying player’s hand. Second, players can steal rather than scavenging. If a player has died or is sleeping, they reveal their cards and lay them on the table face up. Instead of scavenging, players can steal only one card from any of theses piles, and then can proceed to other actions in their turn. Third, in the case that a player is running low on food, they can sleep that turn. Sleeping players cannot scavenge, steal, or attack on their turn, and they reveal their hand. At the end of each turn, players consume and discard a food card, as if to eat. Players that cannot eat at the end of their turn die. Sleeping players do not have to eat at the end of their turn. In addition, if a player has no clothing cards at the end of their turn, they die. Lastly, at any time during their turn, players can discard any card they do not desire. These discarded but not consumed cards are placed back into the scavenge pile at the bottom. Good Luck!
The novel revolves around survival. That is the characters’ only real struggle and we wanted to reflect that in a survival game. We decided against a game involving teamwork because, even though the man and his son work together, the world they live in is truly every man for himself. There are some examples of teamwork, but for the most part, the man and his son are alone and helpless. When creating items we kept in mind the value of each. For example, there is only one gun in the entire deck. In the novel, a gun was considered the most valuable thing one could find. There are also only two flare guns for the same reason. The bow and arrow however, are more common in the deck as they can be easily created in the novel. We also used similar reasoning when assigning dice quantities to each weapon. We gave the gun four dice as it is the most powerful weapon one could possess. It can only be used with a bullet, so we decided to keep the two separate and rare. A bow and arrow has similar characteristics to a gun but less powerful and less accurate. Therefore, we gave it three dice. The flare gun cannot kill as efficiently as the previous two weapons, but possesses the range that a knife does not. We gave it two dice. Lastly, the knife is the weakest weapon and we it allotted one dice. Warm and food are also huge factors in the novel’s characters’ survival and we implement this into the game as well. Players die without food or clothing so maintaining the two are important in the game, as well as in the book. We added stealing and the related game mechanics into the game to mirror the instances in the book where the characters were stolen from. While the game is played with a closed hand, players that steal from others can inspect their victim’s hand and choose a card. In the book, the characters are stolen from when they were unable to protect their belongings and the thief had the chance to inspect their stores. Finally, each turn players scavenge a card. At every opportunity, the characters scavenged what they could to survive, and so we decided that every turn players scavenge a card. In addition, a cart was added to echo the cart the characters used to carry more item than usual. There are some aspects that we added to make the game playable. Sleeping was added to give players a way to preserve their life and remain longer in the game. There are disadvantages to sleeping, so players are forced to either sleep or attack. The competitive aspect was also added. There is some competition in the novel but it is rare. The competition our game creates is to make the game more enjoyable and engaging. The book was slow and dull at some points and we did not want to make a game as such.
The Road
Fire and Ice
Our board game consists of moral choices that not only affect one group but all groups involved in the game. The objective of, Fire and Ice, is to make it to the coast at the same time as the other team. We felt that since the coast was the man and the boy’s only goal in The Road that it would be fitting to make it the end of the game. There are two paths that lead to the coast. The longer (less difficult) road represents the road that the man and the boy took, and the shorter (more treacherous) path represents the forest that’s beside the road. Within the game two groups work together in order to reach the end at the same time. Throughout the book, the boy and the man are on their own and don’t really work with other people in order to survive but the boy constantly thinks about other people and how they are being affected by the world they live in. The boy has compassion for others and always wants to help even when they have barely anything to offer such as when they ran into Ely or when they returned the one handed man’s clothes after they took them away. Along with the man and the boy thinking about how their choices would influence one another throughout the book such as whether to “take a look” in a house or to camp out a night. Without them thinking about each other they would have ended up pushing each other away making it harder to survive. We wanted to add the compassion and teamwork element to the board game by adding two teams that must work together to reach a common goal but subsequently end up being the same group since they reach the coast at the same time. It makes the moral choices from the demon cards harder to make since it will be influencing both groups.
Each group gets camp cards and supply cards. Camp cards allow them to lose a turn in order to help teams reach the end at the same time. Supply cards are enough food, water, ammunition, etc for one person to survive the game, without a supply card the person evidently dies. In the book supplies is the most important thing for their survival which is why we added the supply card aspect to the game. It makes the moral decisions that they will encounter harder if it involves losing a card, possibly killing a member or taking on another person which means you would need a supply card in order to take care of them. Throughout the game each turn a group will roll a dice in order to decide which card they will have to work with, demon cards or angel cards. Demon cards deal with hard moral choices that people would run into while living in an apocalyptic era. These choices range from bad weather taking away a supply card to finding a child and having to make the decision to either take the child or not with the possibility of going back two spaces if you don’t, and losing a supply card if you do. Along with choices that can affect the other team such as pawning off a child onto them or taking a supply card from them. The team with these decisions would have to think about how their decisions would influence the other team and themselves bringing up the compassion element from the book along with the fact that within this kind of apocalyptic environment moral decisions are very important to survival. The boy and the man run into these decisions very often throughout the book where these choices that they make can influence the rest of their journey. Angel cards deal with the random strokes of luck that the man and the boy have run into such as finding a bunker or finding a tarp. Things that help with survival and make life just a little easier. Angel cards are hard to roll since you must roll a seven in order to earn them. You have the chance to earn supply cards easily or to move forward faster through out the game. There is also an opportunity to get both cards at the same time by rolling doubles. The man and the boy run into strokes of luck by getting supplies or finding a safe space but at the same time they have a hard moral choices to make such as staying the bunker. The man and the boy found a bunker which gave them enough supplies to survive for months but they had to decide how long to stay or wether to stay at all. In this kind of environment luck and choices go hand and hand so we wanted to make sure we included that aspect into our game.
Getting Started
Based on age. The oldest have to make the choice for the youngest. Do they want them to take the harder path with less choices compared to the easier path with more choices.
Start off with a 100% then throughout the game things are taken off of it.
Objective: Both teams reach the coast at the same time.
Items in Box:
Two dice
Timer
The board game
Angel cards
Demon cards
Supply cards
Camp cards
Rules:
2 or more people should play. It is okay to have an odd number of team members.
When playing with more than 2 split into teams based on your choice
To decide your path you roll the dice.
Larger number gets longer path, other group gets shorter path
Each group gets a set of cards
Supply cards: each group gets 1 card per person, 1 additional card for group use only
Supply cards contain supplies such as guns, food, water, clothing, tarp, etc.
You must have the same number of supply cards as people in the group when you start. Throughout the camp you may earn or lose some.
Group with longer path gets 1 camp card
Group with shorter path gets 2 camp cards
Camp cards give you the opportunity to camp out at night forfeiting a turn
Each turn you roll the dice, for each choice you have 5 seconds to answer
7: Angel card
Demon Card everything else
Go back and forth till both of you reach the coast at the same time
You win by both teams surviving and reaching the coast at the same time
You lose by killing the other team or dying
Dying: No more supply cards after 4 turns
Not reaching the coast at the same time
Emily Pugliese, Shilo, Antonio DeRock and Lei
The Road --- Creative Project
Members
Wes, Sharron, Waverly, Sashoya
Title: Carry the Fire
Player(s) should be metaphorically “carrying the fire.” The idea is to protect and keep your fire throughout the game and stay alive.
The Board
Approximately a 4 by 3 foot board. Two inch squares that extend around the board to form a swirly path. The beginning point is titled “Darkness” and the end point is titled “The End of the Road.” Every few spaces reads “Draw Card.”
Gameplay
To start, each player is given 20 tokens. 10 of these tokens are survival tokens and the other 10 are fire tokens, the former representing overall player health and the latter representing the player’s overall compassion “level.” For each players’ turn, a die is cast and the player must move a corresponding amount of spaces along the board. If the player lands on a “Draw Card” space on the board, the player must draw from a stack of “Chance” cards and read their card out loud. Chance cards throw the player into a situation that they are out of control of and will ask them to either give up or collect one of the two categories of tokens (they typically concede or rescind 2 to 3 tokens). Additionally, players may opt to go down certain routes on the board to the “Scenario” locations, where they must draw a card from a separate stack of cards. The cards will present various scenarios, most of which will instruct the player between surrendering a certain amount of one type of token in exchange for the other. This way, strategy is introduced into the game. If a player loses all their survival tokens, they’re out of the game and pronounced dead. However, the goal is to reach The End of the Road with fire token still intact, and the player with the most fire tokens by the end of the path is the winner.
Explanation
Our game combines player strategy with an inevitable construct of luck, or lack thereof. In the book, the father and the boy face a series of unfortunate events that out of their control, such as rainstorms and earthquakes. Many of our scenarios reflect this randomness. However, one of the underlying conflicts worked into the novel is the boy’s unwavering compassion for life versus the father’s self-centered will to survive, and how both dispositions simultaneously interfere and cooperate with certain aspects of the human identity. In an attempt to recreate this conflict, we have made it so that the goal of the game is to collect fire tokens, but all fire tokens will be null and void should someone lose all their survival tokens.
Often in the book, the man and the boy must together come to a consensus of what the right thing to do is. When their cart is stolen, for example, they track the thief down and the father nearly shoots him, but the boy implores him to let it go. When they come across a feeble old man, the father wants to play it safe and show him no attention, but the boy wants to help him. In scenes like these, McCarthy means to demonstrate two divergent conditions of humans: kindness and selfishness. In such a desolate and dead world, decisions like these could mean life and death, and we made the game based on that premise. Accordingly, there are many scenarios that mirror real events in the book. Of course the Fire tokens are a direct reference to the “carrying the fire” motif that most notably appears in the novel at the end, when the man, dying, expresses his faith in his son’s ability to make a brighter world, even in the darkest of circumstances. In this sense, the boy’s compassion ideals triumph over everything in The Road as the most important saving factor. This was our reason for making the collection of Fire tokens the objective for the game; we want to make the statement that value of goodness in the world will always outweigh the benefits of selfishness. We imagine that while playing, players will have an earnest conversation about personal morals and how they affect our world.
Memory Reconstuction
The bell rings, a mob of kids filled the hallways every one of them stopping at their lockers. “Aye Johnny what are you about to do?” an unfamiliar voice said in the distance. I look began looking around but I can’t determine where it came from so I just put on my jacket and walked out the door. I was walking over to the bus stop to head home. Once I got home no one was there, I tried calling my mom, and dad but no answer each and every time. This left me confused they normally are always here before I get out of school. Then my grandma pulls up and tells me to pack my things and that I had to come with her. She says “Your mother and father, left all of us.”
I was confused by this I replied, immediately thinking the absolute worst,
“What do you mean?!!”
“ I mean that they probably are not coming back”
“ Where are they?”
“None of us know. They just left us a messages saying that you would be left in the house. Alone.”
It couldn’t be true. Why would they leave me behind like that? Do they just not care about me? Why!!?
The sound of the water running while I look at myself in the steamy foggy mirror. “I hate going back to that time.”, I said to myself. My phone begins to ring, “Hello, this is Jonny, CEO of Z-Star, How can I help?”
“ Boss, we have another orphan.”
“Ok, make sure you take care of them”
I love that I’m able to make sure no one will ever feel the same pain that I did, I will make sure to give them the love and care they deserve. When my parents abandoned me, and I was forced to live with my grandma, it caused me great pain. I wanted to give up on life at that time but instead of ending it all, I managed to make it my motivation to do better.
Big Sean – One Man Can Change the World Lyrics | Genius Lyrics
I was inspired by Margaret Atwood’s writing style and how she really gave her characters their own personalities and thing like that. I chose to try that approach while writing this, by making his childhood something that would trigger your emotions and cause you to feel bad for him. Then I made it so that he helped the others who had the same kind of issues that he was suffering from.
Bits and Pieces: Reconstruction of Memory: Bea Gerber FINAL
Plastic protected my bitten fingers from the glass but I was still bare. At mercy of another; powerless to change his mistakes. The bass still bumped, matching my heart beat. I had to walk away. Find comfort in less danger, away from the shards, away from the glares. I wanted to be warm again. But that was too much to ask. I wasn’t protected anymore. But that is life. The fog lifts eventually. We have to grow up. If you don’t prepare for it, you will be left cold, shivering. It took too long for me to see this. Took shards covering the floor where children played. They would never know. They didn’t have to know. We glued their snow globe back together with our stories. We kept them warm.
There were pieces everywhere. Sharp, shattered, sparkling. The music masked the clatter, but only long enough to shield younger eyes. Sometimes it’s better to be left in the dark. The room filled in and flowed out, empty buckets, clanking trash bags, and soaked rags trickling with them. I am cold, but it was summer, and I had been warm only seconds before.
My happiness drained through my toes. The shouting was loud but I wasn’t listening, there were too many busy faces and furrowed brows to distract me.
I can’t believe he went straight through it. Destroyed the glass that separates children from adults, shattering a sense of innocence, bridging the gap. A conflicted frame of staggered edges. I heard, but I couldn’t see him. I searched for his tangled blonde mop in the crowd but he had already disappeared. The others whizzed around. Suds flew. Towels rolled. Bodies on autopilot. An organized frenzy. I couldn’t control the mess. It was going to last longer than the blood. My skin crawled.
He was rescued. Removed and absorbed by the bustling herd. No longer at stake. We picked his pieces off the floor, shard by shard, drip by drip. We removed the evidence of destruction, but a heaviness lingered on my chest. I hated that he put me in danger.
My time there had been long and short. Summers don’t last forever but they happen every year. Each time it feels like we never left our bubble of independence and responsibility. Our own heated snow globe full of children, held delicately in our palms. But his hand broke the glass. He shook too hard. Disturbed the comfortably settled dust. We let him. So we fixed it. Patched his hand and the door. Closed the young eyes. Shielded him by shielding ourselves. Everyone is affected by weak links.
Plastic protected my bitten fingers from the glass but I was still bare. At mercy of another; powerless to change his mistakes. The bass still bumped, matching my heart beat. I had to walk away. Find comfort in less danger, away from the shards, away from the glares. I wanted to be warm again. But that was too much to ask. I wasn’t protected anymore. But that is life. The fog lifts eventually. We have to grow up. If you don’t prepare for it, you will be left cold, shivering. It took too long for me to see this. Took shards covering the floor where children played. They would never know. They didn’t have to know. We glued their snow globe back together with our stories. We kept them warm.
Author's Note:
I took a lot of inspiration from Kesey because of the format of this assignment. I liked that there didn't need to be much context, so I could be as vague and sharp as I wanted because I didn't have to tie it back to a full story. I tried to take some of his stylistic elements: short sentences, blunt phrasing, reactions in the moment mixed with reflective ones, sharp scene changes. I wanted to confuse the reader by throwing them into something hectic. I also tried to humanize things to make them relatable, and I tried to use contrast with warm and cold like Atwood does to show how situations change from ideal to scary in seconds. I tried to give away as little as possible so that you would feel the emotions and the scene itself wouldn't really matter.
Artistic Piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PnLiT2v2Q
I chose "The Babysitter" by Dar Williams because it is a song that is about childhood innocence and how it fails to see adult hardships at first, but is eventually faced with growing up. It follows the same emotional journey as my piece but with a little less intensity which I think is a good balance.
Reconstruction of a Memory - Matt Reed
I stood at the window, poking my head out. Clueless as to the horrors about to take place. Observing the environment around my house. Looking up and down. I locked the door, slowly dragging my body up the stairs. I made my way into my bed and kissed my wife on the cheek. She slept so soundly, like a kitten. I laid my head down on the pillow.
I woke up and yawned. I could feel my heavy bladder. I walked down the dark hallway. What was that weird smell? Leaky pipe? Spilled hairspray? It had a strong metallic scent. I walked into the bathroom and struggled to flip the light switch on, and took a piss. I approached the sink and scrubbed my hands. What was that smell? Was it me? I squeezed out more soap and scrubbed harder just to be sure, applying some deodorant as well. I hurried back to my bed and laid down. Why am I all wet? My pants were drenched with something, the smell had also gotten a lot stronger now. I got up from my bed and turned on my lamp.
I turned around and dropped to my knees. The tears instantly came running down my face. My wife. MY WIFE. I grabbed her hand, it was covered in blood. Everything was covered in blood. I stood up and looked for my phone. Where did I put my god damn phone? I ran down the steps and to the kitchen. Sweat was dripping down from every part of my body. I tried to pick up the landline, but I couldn’t grasp it. What was that noise? Sirens? I ran to the window. Red and blue violently bled into my kitchen, blinding me before I even opened the curtain. I put my eye up to the fabric and peeked through a small opening. Police surrounded my home. Who called the police? I took a deep breath and walked out the door. The men saw the blood on me, pointing their firearms at me in response. They approached me as I yelled. “ I didn’t do it”.
They wrapped the cold cuffs around my wrist as shock ran down my body. I was shoved in the back of the police car.
As I sit in this dark cell, I dread that night. Every second of it, but I can’t forget it. I’m alone and as clueless as I was when this all started.
Authors Notes:
I didn’t know where to start when we first got this assignment. I thought about what would be a very unforgettable memory. A traumatic one. Then, I thought about one of the close readings we did in class. I thought about the one from the Handmaid’s Tale, where Offred remembered Luke killing the class. Atwood added Offred’s mental state into the story. How scared and confused Offred was at the time, and I wanted that to be in my story. So, by doing this. I would have the main character ask lot’s of questions during the memory to show what was going on inside his head. I also wanted to add little hints as to what was about to happen, and at the end of the story leave it off so the reader is just as confused as the main character.
