I haven't posted a board game update in a while, so here's where we are!
If you need a reminder or haven't seen me post about this yet: I am currently developing a car-themed board game called The Garage Building Simulator, which draws inspiration primarily from Gran Turismo, and a little bit from other favorite racing games and car culture in general. You can read about it with the #the garage building simulator tag or by visiting these links:
- TGBS Rules
- TGBS Game Board and Car Database
- TGBS Car List and Suggestion Board
- You can also add me on Discord (sutempest) if you wanna talk to me about it or if you want to play
Update post below!
The new cars
I did not yet have the time or the opportunity to gather people on Discord yet for a new test session, but I was able to - finally - add 100 more cars to the game. The full list is available on the corresponding document but for the sake of having an illustration, the above picture is a small excerpt of my favorite additions.
The research work to make 100 new cars happen has been monumental, to say the least, but I was so happy to work on it, I spent every single work break and a lot of free time on it. The theme for Series 2, which added 100 new cars, was voted on by my friends and playtesters. I asked them which decade they wanted me to do research on first, and 2000-2009 won out.
So we got Drive of the New Millennium, an injection of 100 road, concept, and race cars into the board game that should hopefully give plenty of extra variety to the cars in the dealership.
I learned a couple of things while working on this:
- Even when you have 100 cars to work with... narrowing the best, most iconic, the rare, the interesting, and the favorites into a list of just 100 is REALLY hard, especially when you have to consider how much they'll cost in the game and what their performance is, and balance the numbers accordingly. So many cars I simply couldn't add because I ran out of space!
- Toyota made the Aygo Crazy, which is probably the single funniest name for a concept car where the premise is also hilarious ; and there are a lot of concept cars with funny names.
- Determining the country of origin of a car is a lot harder than it seems. Ford of Europe is not Ford of America... so I ended up picking the EU flag for Euro Fords.
- Rewatching 2002 Top Gear has been a huge boon for ideas, and is the reason we now have a Pagani Zonda. Because come on. It's the car of Season 1 Episode 1. I had to.
- I will not add new cars in batches of 100 again. It's so much work. It takes so long. Even when it's fun, I'd rather make smaller batches and get people together to play more often.
I've also decided what Series 3, the next batch of cars, will be about... It'll be called The Ones That Haul, and it's gonna be a special entirely dedicated to wagons, SUVs, pickup trucks, minivans, and MPVs. I realized a little late that I'd added too few of those in Series 2, so I'm gonna address that mistake.
After that, who knows. What would you like Series 4 to be about?
The other new changes
Following a couple of suggestions from friends and playtesters, there have been a few changes to the board.
I pulled out four events from the random Shenanigans list, and made them into their own, fixed, permanent spots on the board: Rachel's Paint Shop, Junkman's Junkyard, Hojo's Swap Shop, and The Tuner from Hell. For the most part, they work as they did as random events.
- Rachel's Paint Shop lets you buy a Custom Livery attribute for a car with 3 Upgrades or more in exchange for 10,000 Credits.
- Junkman's Junkyard gets his own spot on the board so finding the junkyard is no longer an RNG thing. Any car that gets Junked goes there now, and you can buy a Junked car for (base price + (7,000 Cr x Rarity)) to get it restored to its original state, no Upgrades or Problems.
- Hojo's Swap Shop (guess the reference!) lets you add a turbo or a supercharger upgrade to an NA car for 80,000 Cr, giving it either +50% or +40% perf and making it compatible with turbo or SC events. If your car already has some kind of turbo or SC, Hojo can give you a corresponding Booster upgrade, which further increases Perf.
- The Tuner From Hell (guess the reference!) lets you purchase Hell Tune attributes for one car. Each time you buy a Hell Tune, your car's Hell Tune attribute gains a level, up to 10. Every level boosts your car's Perf by 20%. Essentially, his purpose is to let you continue souping up your car even if you already have 7 Upgrades. He exists for many reasons; maybe there's this one-star car you really love and you wanna make it dummu fast, maybe you're annoyed the Supra has 276 hp when it should have more, maybe you just want your favorite car to eat everyone else for breakfast...
I've also made some adjustments to the end-game Themed Garage bonuses so they're a little more attainable.
- Added a new bonus, Period Correct (+10% bonus): All 5 of your cars are different models but have model years no more than 8 years apart (e.g., 1991 through 1998 is valid)
- Removed Five of a Kind, because it's a little against the spirit of this game to have a bonus for having 5 copies of the same car.
- Added a new bonus to compensate for the above, Under One Banner (+5%): All 5 of your cars are from the same country. Intended to stack with Brand Loyalty (+5%) so you get a full +10% bonus from having 5 of the same make.
For the sake of completeness, "same make" should mean "it says the same thing under the Manufacturer column" as it will also make the country of origin match up, but this is probably subject to player interpretation. I'm not gonna bite you if you want to consider Ford and Ford of Europe the same make.
And that's it
The game is still in need of some play-testing, but what's there is really strong, and I feel like there's tons of potential for plenty of fun, especially with the right company. Hopefully I can gather a group again this Sunday or the next.