Spirit Island for Kids -- a concept to teach core mechanics and skills
I agree to the terms for creating Spirit Island game elements set forth in the FAQ.
As a father anticipating his child being old enough to play games with my wife and I, I've thought a lot about what games to start them out with. There are plenty wonderful versions of games meant for young children, like My First Ticket to Ride, or Carcassonne Junior. But, I love Spirit Island, and want to be able to share it with my kids as soon as possible. The goal of this concept is to capture some of the magic and themes of Spirit Island, while cutting down on the fiddly-bits that will make a kid's eyes glaze over. Here is what I've come up with.
The Board:
A custom board with 14 lands. I had a 2 spirit board in mind. Three might work on it. The board is two lands from the thematic board combined and divided up. Bonus points if you can figure out which two lands and from which board!
Rather than having multiple terrain types scattered around, things are simplified by having 1 land type, and having lands populated based on being adjacent to the Wetlands, Mountain, Jungle, Sands, Ocean, or being a "Wilds" inland land.
Invaders:
Invaders are simplified to just being Towns and Explorers. The three phases and moving Invader terrain cards remain, but Explorers do no damage to the land, and Towns do 1 Damage. 1 Damage is all it takes to cause a blight! Normal blight cascading rules apply.
Invader cards are a bit different due to the lands changes. When the invader deck runs out, you shuffle in the Phase 2 Cards and go through the pile again. If it runs out again, shuffle in the Phase 3 Cards and do it one more time. The goal is that there is never a loss by running out the deck. That's not very fun. Cards are as follows:
Phase 1: Invaders explore all lands adjacent to a borderland type.
· Sand Origin
· Jungle Origin
· Mountain Origin
· Wetland Origin
· Ocean Origin
Phase 2:
· + Lowest-Numbered Land - when this card is drawn, draw another invader card and continue as normal. Now the new drawn card also performs its actions in the lowest-numbered land adjacent to a land matching the type (the parent can keep track of this).
· + Highest-Numbered Land adj. to an explored land - Same as above, but for the highest-numbered land.
· Inner Land Exploration Boom - 2 Explores in each "Wilds" land.
· Terrain Corners - All lands that are next to 2 different borderlands types.
Phase 3: Just two cards that make you draw 2 invader cards at once.
· x2 + Additional Card
Spirits:
Thematically, the 4 Spirits I've come up with are minor spirits who's reach is no farther than these two lands. They are not capable of the widespread destruction of the main-game spirits. Fortunately, they don't have to be. This looks like only having a minor deck, and in general spirits gain less energy and play less cards. For these spirits, playing a couple of minor powers takes their whole capacity. Spirits also don't interact with Sacred Sites, for simplicity.
Babbling Brook Speaks on the Wind
Playful Nature of the Jungle Beasts
Sleepless Soil Stirs with Life
Powers:
The major difference is that instead of defending an amount, Defend effects just defend from a number of invaders. Terrain-specific effects target lands next to certain borderlands. Sacred-Site powers instead can cost extra energy for extra effects.
Blight:
Blight works more or less as normal, however as the goal of the experience is to feel like you are making underdog comeback, moreso than to provide a maximally challenging experience, the Blight Cards are replaced by "Aid from a Major Spirit," where a Major Power is replicated on the board.
Fear:
Fear needs to be adjusted. Probably something like 3 fear per spirit would make sense, but I haven't touched this aspect yet. Any ideas how to adjust fear to be a little more accessible?
Hope this peaks your interest, and I would be very interested in any feedback or further discussion we can have. Is anything unclear or remains clear only in my mind? Did I miss anything? Thanks for reading!