Board Game Design
Swords For Hire
A betting and bluffing game with shared game pieces and an intense combat system.
Hire mercenaries to capture the objective and bring the envelope to your base. Mercenaries work for the highest bidder and payments are made in secret so you never know where their allegiances lie.
- Number of Players: 3-6
- Total Time: 20-60 mins
- Age: 10+
- Weight: 2.0 Medium Light
Highlights
Unique Game Mechanic – This Betting and Bluffing system has players making secret payments to pay off mercenaries. Any player can give orders to any mercenary, but whoever has paid that mercenary the most can stop any action. With a limited supply of gold you must decide carefully who to pay off and how much.
Interactive Combat System– When combat arises all players can participate if they have paid off mercenaries nearby.
High direct player interaction – Players scheme publicly and in secret to gain control and defeat their opponents. Work together to take down your enemies then break away at the right moment to win the game.
Components
20×20 Quad Fold Game Board
14 Unique Character Standees
6 Penalty Tokens
8 d6 Dice
6 “Black Book” Notepads
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How to Play
You win the game by getting any character holding the envelope to your House Space.
During the game you will be moving characters to try to pick up the envelope and bring it to your House Space.
There are 3 Actions that you can order a character to do. You can give an order to any character, that includes mercenaries and knights. The catch is that if someone has paid that character more gold than you have, they can challenge your action and stop you from using that character.
You will make secret payments in your Black Book to determine how much you have paid each character. You have a limited amount of gold so deciding who to pay and how much to pay them is the most challenging part of the game.
During Your Turn:
You may perform 2 actions in any combination
Make a Secret Payment- On your turn you may make a payment of up to 5G to any one character. Subtract the amount paid from your balance.
Move – You can move any character to any one space adjacent to their current space.
Attack- If you have already paid a character at least 1G you can spend 1G to order that character to attack another character that is on the same space.
Support (Does not require an additional action)- When ordering an attack, at the same time you can order any character within 1 adjacent space of that combat to support the attacking side. This does not require spending gold, but you must have already paid them some amount of gold.
When it is another player’s turn:
Challenge- Challenge the action of the active player. After the active player has declared an action you may challenge that action. If you have paid more to the character they are using you can stop their action. If the active player has paid more to the character you lose one action on your next turn.
Support- If a character you have previously paid is within 1 space of combat you can support the combat for either side.
Try the Game Yourself
Print out your own physical copy to try at home
Try the game online with a free Tabletopia account
Process
Follow along with the process as I playtest and refine this game. Getting it ready to share with the world.
01
Design
The main game mechanics and design are complete at this point. Now I am in the refining stage.
02
Playtest
The only way to get this game right is to play it… a lot.
03
Final Art and Components
Depending on the publisher this game will get final art, components, and maybe even a new theme.
04
Publish
I haven’t decided yet if the game will be self-published or if I will go through a publisher. Follow along to find out.
