The Jash: Episode 1
It’s catchy and fun it’s not boring.
It’s catchy and fun it’s not boring.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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