ASHLAND

Each turn, players spend Action points to traverse the board, encountering opportunities to draw Event and Loot cards, discover care packages, visit smaller cities and engage in combat.  Loot cards are resources, such as copper, aluminum and gold, each with an attached point value.  Players can use Loot cards to fulfill their quest, purchase equipment or amass points.  Event cards consist of one-time encounters that players could face on their way to Ashland.  These encounters can either help or slightly hinder the player’s progress. Care packages are tiles placed on the board that operate on a first-come, first-served basis.  At these tiles, a player can pick up three of the Loot cards located at that tile. On the way to Ashland, there are smaller cities that players can visit.  Visiting cities allows players to purchase equipment, conduct trades with other players, improve their health and protect themselves from dust storms.  Players can engage in combat by landing on a combat tile, through an event card, or by landing on the same tile as another player.

Ashland was influenced by a post-apocalyptic theme, modeling some of the mechanics of The Game of Life.  Our game parallels The Game of Life in regards to collecting items on the way to the finish.  In The Game of Life, the goal is to collect assets on the way to the Millionaire Estates.  Similarly, in Ashland, the player’s goal is to collect resources and bandit hands as well as fulfill his/ her quest on the way to Ashland.  In Ashland, players have 20 turns to reach Ashland whereas in The Game of Life, there is an unlimited number of turns to reach the Millionaire Estates.  The board in Ashland is different from the board in The Game of Life since the board in The Game of Life is linear whereas the board in Ashland offers multiple potential paths a player can take to reach Ashland.