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if you roll two numbers that don’t match one of your mice, you can force one of your opponent’s mice to act - move one out of position, make them initiate a wrestling move they’ll lose, etc.

I had a similar idea I was working on to yours, Simone, although mine was mechs. It was going to be kind of a Battleship set up, where you cut the postcard in half and folded it up, so you each had a little cockpit dashboard set up, and was kind of a secret dice placement to allocate points to different systems.

I didn't come up with it until the last week of the jam and by then I didn't have time to mock anything up.

I like Bun Fight, Vijil! I am increasingly into the idea of command friction, and not being able to control your whole force at once.

Played several times. Man, the time limit is tight on this one! You can't afford to make any mistakes on your push forward, but it still pushes you to make tactical decisions. Excellent game, and so good looking.

I love the orbital mechanics of it all

I think I have figured it out... So you start by placing obstacles on the board, not touching each other, so there is one block on each horizontal and vertical line of the L-shaped track, kinda like Sudoku rules.

Then each turn you place another block (2x1 this time) somewhere on the board or move a block that has already been placed.

Then both players pick a direction and move both their races as far as they can until they hit something.

Is that right?

I like how the terrain rules imply a kind of free-running aesthetic with very little rules overhead. Nicely done.

I could have missed it, but I didn't see rules for the agents moving.

A ninja needs to kill instantly, and cannot allow himself to be seen.

This asymmetrical game of ninjas versus guards has stripped everything out other than positioning and line-of-sight. No stats, no rolls, not even any damage or attacks. 

Really great job!

One wrinkle that I think could add a lot of strategy and complexity to the game is limit the Upgrades so any given player cannot have upgrades that total more than their total tech level. As I read it currently, the total tech level only limits when they can buy the upgrade. The way (as far as I understand) it works now, the players will tend to homogenize as they trade upgrades but don't lose them.

Although that removes the incentive to trade a bit, as you can no longer trade a player for an upgrade you can't develop yourself. hmm....

Are the players allowed to move around the table?

If they are, the game can be simplified even further by removing the monster movement rules.

I am a big fan of this design, though! An expansion I am eager to try is multiple monsters.

- Correct Ninjas can't be seen when in terrain. The intention is they don't cross line of sight while moving from terrain to terrain (think jumping from rooftop to rooftop or tree to tree), because they can only kill a guard by being in a lane they still have to expose themselves to danger in order to kill. That may be an interaction to look at for a revised edition.

- Guards can move in whatever direction the Opposition player wants. Picking a facing at the end of the move is meant to let the Opposition block off safe ninja movement paths.

- There can be any number of guards at an intersection, so for ease and clarity, it is best to make the intersections large enough to have guards back to back so they have clear sightlines.

- With terrain, I based it on the assumption of Infinity levels of terrain. Different sized squares works good, and adding some more organic shapes can create more dynamic lanes. I think a good rule of thumb is to fill as much as possible, with three way intersections leaving some blindspots. On my playtest board, there were 22 rectangular terrain pieces, with about ~32 intersections.

Honestly, the board should probably be a bit bigger. Or using smaller scale models, like 15mm or something.

Got it. The wording was "explodes on a 5 in addtion to a 6", so I was wondering if i missed where the dice usually explode on a 6.

For the "Energetic" special rule, it references exploding dice, but I don't see that term anywhere else in the rules. What is meant by that?

RE: expansions, I have some notes for AI directed guards, and/or multiple Ninja players.

I was very iffy on adding special powers to the ninjas because it would bloat the simplicity, IMO. But chrome for the sake of chrome is always fun.

20 may have been a bit much, lol.

You could easily reduce it to 10, just reduce the AI Deck to just the cards from 1-5. 

Oh yeah, tiles and counters would be super useable in this.

I was very inspired by Tenchu when designing this, so like one story village buildings are perfect. Predator is also a goo model, so you could make do with thick jungle as well.

Thanks for the comment!

There's definitely a handful of places a second draft of this could update.

Honestly, the unconsciousness mechanic is there at least partially as a workaround - i didn't have the space to work out human vs mon combat.

The thug class was a half-baked idea - i felt like it would be too easy to knock them out otherwise. The low innocence also makes it harder to win the game, since the sponsorship deal for the highest innocence character is a big payout at the end.

Quick clarification: do you discard cards when *your own* units or temples are removed, or when you remove one *of your opponent's* units or temples? I think it's the first one, but it seems like it could be the second?

At least the intention is for all the rolls to represent the Trainers' child-like innocence. Sometimes, failing that roll, not being innocent enough, can give you benefits, like being able to push your Mons to harder training or use the shady businesses, at the cost of your innocence.

To me, Redesigning Failure opened up the question: can there be times when failure is preferable?

In this game, I wanted to give players the option to play toward failure. Everyone wants to be the spunky, heroic kid monster trainer, who overcomes every obstacle through the power of friendship. But if you fail at that, you can at least try to overcome every obstacle through ruthless cynicism.

Having high innocence is a powerful bonus, but some of the most interesting effects happen if you fail your Innocence checks.