Looting MiniSkull Castle

Looting MiniSkull Castle
2-4 Players - 45-60 minutes
Development Period: July/August 2016
Status: Playtesting

Looting MiniSkull Castle is an entry in the 2016 PnP Game Design Awards!  Please take a look at 8 Seconds and all the other great, free PnP games here.  Voting is open through March 15, 2017.  http://georgejaros.com/PNPGDA/?GID=41

In Looting MiniSkull Castle 1-4 heroes (a solo variant is available) are back at MiniSkull Castle, but instead of stealing treasures from the caverns beneath the castle, this time they are searching for loot in the castle rooms. All the while they are being chased by a monster guarding the castle. How much loot can they steal and bring back to sell at the Port Tiny Black Market?

PnP Files:
Cards & Scoring Track - Support me on Patron!
Rules - http://georgejaros.com/Files/Looting-MiniSkull-Castle-Rules.pdf
NOTE: Also needed is six D6 dice, 5 pawns, 4 score markers, 80 cubes (or beads, or other bits) in three different colors, and a draw bag.

Looting MiniSkull Castle consists of:

Included in PDF Files:
  • 36 2.5"x2.5" square cards:
    • 20 Room Cards
    • 1 Entrance Card
    • 1 Back Door Card
    • 1 Black Market Card
    • 1 Smuggler's Cove Card
    • 1 Dangerous Road Card
    • 6 Market Trade Cards
    • 4 Player Cards
    • 7 Monster Cards (+7 bonus Monsters)
  • 1 Scoring Track
Must be provided:
  • 4 Hero Pawns
  • 4 Score Tokens
  • 1 Monster Pawn
  • 6 D6 Dice (optionally 3 standard D6 dice and 5 0/1/1/2/2/3 battle dice)
  • 80 Loot Cubes
    • 45x Red = Strength
    • 20x Yellow = Weapons
    • 15x Blue = Treasure
  • 1 Draw Bag
With small cubes (8mm) and dice (12mm) and a small draw bag (like Love Letter) this should all fit into the 7cmx10cmx2cm box required for the 2016 Microgame Print and Play Contest on Board Game Geek.

Updates:
7/15/2016 - Uploaded initial rules and components.
7/23/2016 - Updated rules and components (only one card changed - the Black Knight monster card). In the rules I clarified a few things, added an inventory limit for Heroes (15 cubes), made a few tweaks to the rewards/punishments for battles, and limited the sale of Strength cubes to 3 per turn.
7/26/2016 - Updated rules and components.  Changed all the Market Value cards so that money can be earned a bit quicker.  This will hopefully speed up the game a tad.  Also changed the Found Some Loot rooms so that if there is a Hidden Alcove players can remain in the open to collect all the Loot from the room, or use the Hidden Alcove to only collect one Loot.  Several of the Monsters have also changed their strengths and abilities slightly and a new end-game condition is that all monsters are defeated (slaying a monster is worth $5 at the end of the game now).  I also clarified some issues when acquiring more than 15 Loot items and a few other spots in the rules.
7/29/2016 - Updated rules and components.  Changed one Market Value card and added some components for 4 player games.  An additional exit (The Back Door), market (Smuggler's Cove), and a road between the back door and Smuggler's Cove that may have thieves on it.  Also changed the monster combat so that a successful hero gains 2 Loot Cubes from a defeated monster to encourage battling the monster - that seems to work well.  Also added rule for how to resolve attacks when there are multiple Heroes in a space.  Also added 5 additional cubes of each color.
7/30/2016 - Solo Rules!!! - Last night I came up with an idea for solo rules.  I tested out a few games and have a working set of rules for solo play now!  In the solo version one Hero searches the castle while battling all four Monsters.  The object of the game is to see how much money you can earn while looting the castle and killing all four Monsters.  The game ends when your Hero perishes or you destroy all four Monsters.
7/31/2016 - No significant changes, just added a little clarification to the rules about what to do with the various decks during setup and when they are depleted.  Also added some additional tiebreaker rules.
8/4/2016 - Good playtesting session last night and incorporated a bunch of changes.  Clarified some text on a few cards, adjusted the Market Value cards a bit.  Changed the starting amount of $ and added a rule about refreshing up to 3 Strength when entering the Black Market.  Adjusted the end of game sale amounts.  Heroes can now sprint past monsters by expending 1 Strength.  Minor Monsters are a tad bit stronger.  Also made a number of changes to the main Monsters.  There are now 7 Monsters and 4-6 will be used in the game, depending on the number of players.  The last Monster will be a Boss Monster and will start with double its initial values.  The game ends immediately if the Boss Monster is defeated.  The round is finished if another endgame condition is met.  A number of other minor tweaks have been made as well.
8/8/2016 - Mostly just clarifications in the rules.  Fixed a few typos as well.  Also added 7 additional unofficial monsters that aren't technically part of the game due to the space restrictions of the contest, but they will become official after the contest is over.
10/4/2016 - The winners of the 2016 Microgame contest on BGG were announced!  Looting MiniSkull Castle was the winner!  First place overall, best theme, most innovative, and People's Choice!  And with that I've posted some updates that I was working on between the end of the contest and now.  I made a few tweaks to the rules to clarify a few bits, fixed some balancing issues with some of the monsters, and made a few other adjustments after a few more playtests.  Also, all the monsters are now officially part of the game.
10/24/2016 - Looting MiniSkull Castle was playtested at Protospiel Madison and got great feedback!  There were some ideas to change the game up a bit (like allowing players to cooperatively fight the monster to share treasure), but I'm not sure if those changes will make it into the rules.  As it stands right now, this game most likely won't be changing for some time.

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