junye

This game is a 1 vs 1 board game based on Chess board and Pieces, and it is inspired by the game Train, so it is more like an experiential on-off game.

Initially GM will tell both players one side will be the terrorists and the other will be the soldiers and they are not allowed to tell their identity. However, the twist is both sides will receive the same identity card telling them they are the army of justice and their opponents are the terrorists.

Pawns now act as civilians. Players can choose where to place their civilians on their half of the board, but the civilians are uncontrollable. Players can choose to capture those random pieces as well. Both players will be told that the terrorist side has the ability to turn one of their civilians of their choice into their own piece that acts as a bomb, and can kill the opponent’s piece when they are on the vertical or horizontal surroundings. 

However, the fact is since both sides are the army of justice as they think they were, there will actually be no terrorist at all, and all the civilians they are being motivated to murdered during the gameplay are innocents.

The gameplay are the following:

1. Players can choose how to arrange their pawns/civilians on their half of the board.
2. Players initially will only have one piece of their choice.
3. Players can recruit a new piece every 3 rounds. For pieces besides queen, they can recruit both of the same piece if none of them are currently presented on the board. (If there’s none knights on the board, they can recruit 2 at the same time. If there’s one knight already on the board, they can only recruit the one left)
4. All army pieces will spawn at the bottom line.
5. Once a piece is captured, it can be recruited back again.
6. Both sides can call out national mobilization once in the game, which will mobilize one of their civilians into other army pieces besides the queen.
7. Players can give up playing at any point of the game where they won’t be able to win or they find the game not fun anymore.

There will be no winning objective, the player will need to make their opponents surrender/quit the game to win the game or they can also give up playing at any time once they feel tired of this game. The king is now removed, and the other pieces besides the pawn move in the same way as Chess. 

In the original version, the winning objective is still capturing the opponent’s king, but the ways pieces maneuver are different from Chess, but it does not reflect the nature of the war that much, so I removed the winning condition and let the players themselves decide when to stop and quit playing.

Also, letting players decide how to place their civilians also reflects part of the war. They can choose to place their civilians in a rather safe area or use them as a human shield to block the opponents movement.

Playtestings

Human shield vs Protecting civilians setup

Identity Cards

This game is a treasure hunting game that tries to strengthen the importance of green spaces in cities, and intervene with urban planning, lack of green spaces, and the prioritization of commercial and residential developments over public parks and recreational areas. Every treasure location will be a green area in downtown Boston. The treasure will be plant’s seeds which can somehow motivate players to take more care of the urban environment and try to intervene with it by growing plants on their own in the city. This Game will be a long term game that will last either 3-7 days fully online via social media such as Discord channel or Group DMs. The GM (me) will post hints everyday on social media, including a screenshot on the general green area of where the treasure is, and 2-3 pictures shot from the POV of the location of treasure. The idea of fully virtual and no NPC is involved in person was inspired by the game Uncle Roy All Around You, but the ultimate goal of this game is about helping environment instead of helping random strangers.

The initial idea was inspired by Pac Manhattan where is conducted and intervening in downtown city. It was only a 1 day treasure hunt event and it will take multiple stops to reach the final treasure. However, I feel like making it a long term event will better strengthen the importance of green space since it encourages players to visit a green area to seek treasure and receive different plant’s seeds everyday. Moreover, instead of giving a set of instructions of where to go, giving a general area and some visual hints will be more fun to play from a player perspective, because this creates more affordances for players to move on their own rather than simply following instructions.

DAY1 Hints

DAY2 Hints

DAY3 Hints

Unfortunately, I only had 1 playtester for one of the daily treasure hunts. This seeking part is definitely fun and not too difficult, but the reward may seem a little unsatisfying since it basically plants. Perhaps adding more rewarding treasures on to plant’s seeds will intrigue more players to join this game.

Where the treasures are:

Playtesting:

Rules:

• The rules in each half follow the respective chess rules.
  • Western Chess Rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess 
  • Eastern Chess Rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi 

• Since the two chess sets use different mapspace, thus when crossing the border, players can decide which near line/grid they want to enter.
• Rooks, Queen, Chariots, Canons, and Bishops will need to take a turn to pass the midline, while knights and horses don’t.
• Western pawn can be promoted into any eastern chess piece besides the general when it reaches the end, and eastern soldiers can be promoted into any western chess piece besides the king when it reaches the end.
• King can no longer cross the middle line

This appropriation is inspired initially from Duchamps and his chess art pieces. The concept of this appropriation is to demonstrate aesthetic and cultural differences between western chess and eastern chess where both of them were adapted from the same origin. The game deliberately let the chess pieces follow the moving rule of the respective board space they are in because there is an old saying in both western and eastern cultures called “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” (or ru xiang sui su in Chinese). Both of them mean when visiting a foreign land, follow the customs of those who live in it. Also, taking an extra step to cross the middle causes it to be very difficult to move one’s piece to the other side because it will be relatively easy for the opponent to defend, which somehow demonstrates that it is very difficult for a culture to enter another. 

Gameplay wise, since these two chess sets have different pieces and different amounts of pieces, this game will be an asymmetrical PvP game. In respective of game balancing, for the western sides, it has 3 less special pieces (pieces besides pawns), but it has the queen which is the most powerful piece amongst all. Moreover, bishops & knights are similar but stronger than elephants & horses where knights will not be blocked by other pieces like horses do, and bishops can move in any amount in a diagonal but elephants can only move 2 grids in diagonal. For eastern sides, it has half of the amount of soldiers compared with western pawns, but they are a bit more powerful because they can capture forward or horizontal when they cross the middle where pawns can only capture in diagonal. Eastern chess has advisors and canons but advisors can only move in the 9 grids surrounding the general which has no use in offending, and canons are not as powerful as the queen. In short, western chess has less special pieces but they are more powerful and it has more pawns, whereas eastern chess has more special pieces but less powerful, and less pawns(soldiers) but a bit more powerful. Therefore, the gameplay is somehow balanced.

During the playtesting, I found that the game is relatively stagnant since it is difficult to cross the middle line, so I want to give more power to certain pieces to make the gameplay more engaging and offensive. The knights and horses are a good choice because they will not be overpowered like rooks or chariots if they can cross the middle line without taking an extra turn. Also, kings can no longer cross the middle line just to remain symmetric with the eastern general.

Disclaimer: There are no political implications in any form, anyhow, anywhere in this game.

Playtestings

Other Variation (Speed Chess + Extend the board by 4 rows, the middle line now is between 2-3 on the western board)

Find a place peace and silent,

where nobody is around,

and where you can see the sky.

Close your eyes and take a deep breathe.

Play your favourite music and look up in the sky.

And you may leave when you begin to feel the silence.

The following pictures are some playtests conducted.

Top floor of the Columbus Garage during night

Park near the Carter Playground

Top of the apartment building

This score is inspired by Yoko Ono and the idea of this score comes from an art game called Loneliness, which is basically a game where player control a black square and wander in the emtpy gamespace, and can’t interact with the surroundings. When I was playing that game, I had a feeling of silence and a sense of relieveness besides the loneliness. Therefore, I want to create a score that will somehow generate similar feelings. This Yoko Ono’s style score is actually similar to meditating, but it must be conducted alone in a place where nobody is around in order to generate similar atmosphere with the game Loneliness. Also, feeling the silence is not about hearing nothing or being quiet, but is to feel the silence internally, so the score delibrately ask the conductor to play music while seeking the silence to create the contrast and let the conductor feel the inner silence more obviously. Personally, I like to find a high place such as the top of a building where nobody is there and conduct the score, but the place really depends on individual’s preference.