Montifax Board Game - Preliminary Ideas

If you recall the results our recent survey you may remember that a Montifax board game seemed to be the most popular of the merchandizing options. As I am interested in making a buck as well as board games I thought that I should try to design such a game, as there is proven market interest.

It seems that the obvious goal of the game should be to create the best blog post. The obvious players would be Cameron and Neil, with third and fourth players and Val and Rebecca. The game should be set on the McDal campus and surrounding areas in Montifax. After this the ideas have become a bit vague, I will include them below.


Ideas for game play

-One can have a good blog post by experiencing events. One’s proximity increases the quality of the experience. Through the game these experiences are accumulated and then, based on type and proximity, given a point value. All events experienced by a player are given a point value and then totaled, the player with the highest point total being the winner.

-There would be 2 six sided event die, capable of creating numbers 2-12. The value allocation would be reverse Settlers, so 2 and 12 would be the most valuable because they would be the rarest, 7, 6, and 8 would be mundane events.

-Maybe a large multi-sided (like approx. 24-36) that would correspond to the number of board pieces. This would dictate where each event occurred.

-Each player would be allocated a “schedule” (classes, lunch, drinking, emailing, library time, etc.) that they would cycle through, causing them to move about the board. I think that people should be able to trade schedule events, creating an interactive element. This would be done before the event and location dice were cast.

-Each player would be able to accumulate only so many of any one type of event, thereby making schedule trading relevant. All board locations would have to be covered by the various schedules, obviously a 2 player schedule would then be longer than a 4 player schedule, or the board smaller.

-Elements of travel and proximity need to be added. Just hoping all over campus doesn’t make sense. Trying to be in the right place to collect a certain type of event does.

-Proximity should be along the same lines of “degree of difficulty,” shared events should also be less valuable than those experienced along. The closest person should get the event. In the event of a tie the event goes to no one.

Preliminary Supplies

-personal score sheets
-board
-location pieces
-2 six sided dice
-1 large number die
-player pieces

I guess I imagine this game’s form to be relatively simple. PDFs or other such files could be used to transmit the board, score sheets, rules, and location pieces. Players could be expected to assemble the remaining pieces themselves (I guess this would mean that I wouldn’t be making a buck in the end, too bad.)

Suggestions are encouraged. I would like to make it a bit more interactive. At the moment I don’t think the mechanics are that great, as they are in the very early stages of development.


Several minutes ago I spoke with Nithum and we came up with the following.

-Side deck (cards that allow paradigm changes, or are similiar to Development Cards) can be purchased by cash, which can be earned through working (would be on schedule). When working one does not experience any events that transpire. Side deck will allow people to do such things as experience events from further away, determine event die, change location out of turn, etc. Final and full list will need to be developed. Shifts could be traded to experience more events, and vice versa, player would have to make a decision about what they want to do.