Seven Days, Seven Games: Day 7: Frogs of War

I suppose, technically, today is Day 8, since yesterday would have been Day 7; I cycled 30 miles yesterday (https://peakd.com/hive-176853/@wwwiebe/xhst-activity-1599428832), though, and just didn't get to this yesterday. Alas.

The game I saved for last is my favourite game that I am working on: Frogs of War. Yes, it's a play on Shakespeare's famous "Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the dogs of war." line from Mark Antony's soliloquy. There is actually a very long story as to how this game came about, but the tl;dr version is that I was harassing my son with puns (he hates them) in the car (he couldn't escape) and this ended up being the result.

Frog of War.png

I've had this game in the works for several years, and it has already gone through several iterations, though the concept has always remained roughly the same: armies of one animals species (such as frogs) go to battle against armies of a different animal species (such as dogs) to determine the superior species.

Frogs of War is a cross between chess and a trading card game, in that each player has a deck of cards, from which they pull several cards into their hand, and then place cards onto the field of play.

When I first started building out the game I was using a standard 8x8 chess board. I realised very quickly, however, that a square board was too limiting for what I wanted to do; what I ended up doing was modifying the board type to enjoy a hexagonal grid to allow for more degrees of movement. I've coloured out a mat manually to use as a prototype.

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Each hex in the grid is colour coded. Ultimately each grid will portray a specific part of the global "ecosystem," such as rivers, ponds, tundra, hills, mountains, swamps, etc. The idea is that certain animals will have advantages or disadvantages depending on where in the ecosystem they are: a river frog might have an advantage in a river, but a disadvantage on a mountain, for instance.

I have also printed and cut out moveable hexes, so the players can create their own ecosystem as they deem fit. I'll admit, I did get the idea from Settlers of Catan, but it really works well (and I own Catan and several expansions - a great game)

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Another interesting feature of the game is that the cards are all hex shaped and printed on transparencies. I've done this to allow power ups to be played on animals to give them added bonuses while not losing sight of the original abilities. For example, here is a dog character. The card shows that the dog has an "attack" value of 1 (upper left), a "health" value of 1 (upper right), and a movement rate of 1 (bottom right).

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And here we have a "power up" in the form of a knife. It has a feature of immediately doing 1 damage before any other attack or defence values are calculated.

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And now here is the knife power up added to the dog, giving the dog just that much more of a bite, so to speak:

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Here's what an ecosystem in play may look like:

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Current Status

The more I playtest this game, perhaps obviously, the more improvements I'm able to identify. One improvement I need to make is to be able to have a small 3d 'stand' to be able to place the cards in vertically to be able to move them easier. Also, probably obviously, I need better art and to smooth out the card design; I'm currently using public domain clip art for animals, which is great for a prototype, but certainly not professional enough for a printed game.

And yes, I am currently printing and cutting all these pieces out manually, by hand.

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I have consumed a very large number of transparencies putting all this together, I assure you.

Various ecosystem designed I have toyed with:

Board Design  25 Squares.png

Board Design  27 Squares.png

One of the nice features about using the hex grid and individual hexes is that the ecosystem can be rebuilt for custom scenarios. One of my testplay scenarios was a "land bridge," for instance (which didn't turn out really well), which can be easily done with hexes that can be rearranged.

Something that I try to do with all the games I design is to keep them as simple as possible, or at least keep the rules as simple as possible. With that in mind I've been able to condense the rules onto three hex cards for each player to look at:

Game_Instructions copy.png

I am certainly interested in any feedback or comments anyone may have!


Previous "Seven Days" Game Posts

Day 6: https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@wwwiebe/seven-days-seven-games-day-6-bunny-save-da-world
Day 5: https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@wwwiebe/seven-days-seven-games-day-5-battle-pong
Day 4: https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@wwwiebe/seven-days-seven-games-day-4-thanksgiving-turkeys
Day 3: https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@wwwiebe/seven-days-seven-games-day-3-stuff-the-stocking
Day 2: https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@wwwiebe/seven-days-seven-games-day-2-game-of-bones
Day 1: https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@wwwiebe/seven-days-seven-games-day-1-chess


(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe


About Me

Amateur photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. I dabble a little in a lot. General all around problem-solver and creative type.

Founder of Photo 52 weekly photography competition.

Expert generalist. Jack of all Trades.

Dad.

Tags I Use

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Frogs of war how different! That's pretty sweet actually. No one would think of frogs and it's time people do! I would totally play this game and the layout is interesting too.

I wonder how frogs would fair out in the arctic tundra though. Gotta beat some huskies for them furs :P

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Thank you! And yes, frogs are definitely under-rated.

I need to not think too far in advance with expansion-species, and get the base game out the door. I need to drag people into beta testing it for me.

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