Actions

• rolling dice (to start the game)

• Drawing pieces

• moving and placing pieces onto the playboard

• Take one of each piece (except black) and place them in non-zone spaces (shown in diagram below).

• Select which zone you want to control. The color of your controlled zone determines the color you claim.

• Grab the white drawstring bag and place all colored pieces in the bag and shake it to shuffle the pieces.

• Draw 5 pieces from the white drawstring bag as your starting hand. Don’t show your hand to other players.

• Use a D20 to determine order of play (highest goes first and so on).

On your turn follow these steps in order (you can’t skip/pass your turn):

• Choose a non-zone space to place pieces in.

• Choose the amount of pieces you want to put on that space (from 1 to 3 pieces)

• Put those pieces in that chosen non-zone space

• Based on the circumstances of that space, the pieces will overflow into the immediate surrounding spaces. This may trigger subsequent overflows in other spaces (See overflow diagram for overflow order).

• You can replenish your hand with 5 new pieces from the white drawstring bag ONLY if your hand is completely empty at the end of your turn.

The concept started from a fun challenge that my friends and I were working with one weekend where we had to come up with a board game based on a theme of three random words "rainbow broken selfish". I attempted to keep the theme while still coming up with a fun mechanic but in the end I was only able to use two of the words in the theme (broken and selfish). I thought about the cool ripple effect that water has when you drop something as small as a pebble into it and I knew I wanted to create a board game surrounding that whole idea of placing something in one spot and causing an effect in other spaces on the board. I immediately thought about using a hexagonal grid rather than any other type of grid simply because it was the only grid shape that I knew at the time that has surrounding hexagonal spaces that connect to one middle hexagonal space.

The first physical prototype was cutting out large hexagonal pieces on paper and connecting them together to form the board using packaging tape. for the zone colors, rather than filling them in with red green and blue respectively my friends suggested coloring the edges because it would still convey the idea that those are the zone areas without wasting a lot of marker ink. The pieces that were used were originally cut up index cards but through playtesting it was quickly realized that actual pieces would be better and easier to see. Through initial playtesting, I found that causing overflows and controlling them were a lot of fun though overflows were happening almost every round which were a little hectic at times. The dice used in order to determine the order of play was helpful though i don't have a reason for using a D20 other than "I have one and D20s look cool". A regular dice would probably work just as well in determining order of play.

For the second iteration I wanted to make sure that the board would last through multiple playtesting sessions as well as regular wear tear without getting damaged. I decided to purchase one of those mats that you would put kitchen utensils on and draw the board out on there. The board still maintained its flexibility and was much less likely to get damaged. However, the smudging potential rose a lot so I had to make sure not to continuously rub the board too much which was a slight issue considering all the handling of pieces during a game. I also made sure the pieces were more uniform and sturdier as well by using and painting pennies into the appropriate colors. The painted pennies were helpful although they were heavier than i expected which made the portability of the game a little more inconvenient. Additionally the paint used on the pennies were acrylic paint which unfortunately meant that in a relatively warm room the the paint would stick to other pennies which made separating them for a playtest much harder. The rules were changed to make the game more balanced and so that overflows don't happen as often as they did in the first iteration.

I decided to order a proper playmat and proper durable pieces for more playtesting. The pieces are lighter now and the board is thinner and more easily transportable. I also don't have to worry about smudging with markers anymore. I added an additional game mode to the board game as a test to see if it would be a fun addition. More playtesting is required for me to come to any conclusion about this additional game mode.

Here is some user feedback from playtests so far:

Rules questions during game, confusing rules, missing rules :

"The rules were simple. We had no questions. We didn’t know where exactly to put the pieces in the hive but we thought we put them wherever it fits us for the overflow. The examples are great in the rules and very helpful. Put more examples for more situations and probably a few more images. "

What did you like most about the game?

"The concept is simple and it’s easy to learn. We had fun and it’s a game you can play on the beach, at school and everywhere. Players can be older and younger and they still have fun. I think you should improve the illustration of the game. The image is very important for someone to buy it."

What would you change or improve about the game?

"The game was fun and we had a great time playing. I will recommend some things and you keep whatever it fits you. You can throw a d4 in the beginning of every round to determine how many pieces you must place. In this way you put the luck in the game and strategic thinking. The overflow is great but we get confused with the three pieces from the start. We didn’t know where to put our next pieces (to predict the overflow) but we figured it out. The double and triple overflows were very fun. Think about make the board like Catan. (you can take the hives in the beginning and place them randomly on the board if you want, so the game will be more difficult for the last player who picks color). I think the game should not end in 10 rounds, but when a player collects 7-10 pieces of his color. The negative effect of the other pieces in the additional game mode, is great and you should keep it in the original game. In other modes you can play with one colorful hive for each player or in a specific number of rounds (like you have it now). Think about making some white hives, when overflow to have some effects. For example: The central hive overflows and the effects is that the player who did this, he can look at the other player’s hand for the next round. Think about it"