Keep your thinking cap on for a while. Maybe it could work as a board game for multiple players or a software game where you play against the computer.
Sounds FUN!! Maybe some penalty cards too if not following Backwoods Savage 3 year plan. I too would get more use out of a board game.
I like the idea of an app based game. I’m rarely, if ever going to have the time to sit down and play a board game. But if I can pull out my phone here and there while I have a few minutes available I can make my next “move” in the game, and then go back to it later when I have the time. And I honestly don’t know anybody in my circle of friends that would sit down and play this game with me. And if I could get them to do so, they would be at a major disadvantage knowing nothing about heating with wood. A board game is also more a game of chance. I would be more interested in an app based game that is based more on strategy. I do love the idea. Took me back down memory lane, playing Oregon Trail in the school computer lab. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Like most games it would have a combination of skill and chance whether it is board game or app. Either way there would be random events, and similar to hunting in Oregon trail, there would be randomization on how much you find/cut based on what tools you have in your inventory. If it was an app, it would just happen automatically, if it was a board game a dice roll would determine how much you hoard on a given day, or something like that. I've still got a lot to work out, but you fellas are helping give me ideas. Keep'em coming! Maybe not Japanman's ideas. I want to keep the game a bit more simple and family oriented.
So, would this have one scrounging? Getting wood from his own place? Tree trimmers or arborists? etc.
I think in the spring thru early fall part of the game (depending on where you choose to live) the goal would be to obtain and season firewood. And there would be probably 3-4 ways to do that, including scrounging, cutting from your own property, purchasing already cut firewood, and maybe 1 or 2 other methods. Each method would have advantages/disadvantages related to "resources" required for each method, and players will have limited resources (money, time, chainsaws, etc...) So a player might could choose to spend a day cutting down trees on his property, and a dice roll would determine how much wood you process that day. Or the player could use some of his money resource, and upgrade to a bigger chainsaw, and this would alter the amount of wood processed for the same dice roll. The idea is that there would be a limitless combinations of ways to build your firewood stash for the cold months and you would have to choose how to spend your resources to get as much wood as possible. Then at some point after a certain amount of turns has passed, the game time changes to the cold months and you have to start using your wood. Each turn there would be a card drawn, and that card might good or bad. You might get hit with a polar vortex on a turn and cause you to use 3x the amount of wood to keep your house heated. Or maybe you would get lucky and hit a warm spell and use less wood. If you run out of wood, you freeze and die. Something like that. I would try to make the game simple to play, but challenging to figure out the best combinations of ways to go about hoarding wood. Would probably keep things simple with 2 or maybe 3 species of wood that produce low, medium, high heat (if I call it BTU's, I would loose a significant portion of potential players would think the game is mathy). I have a few friends who art comic book artists, so I would lean on them for a partnership and see if one of them would design the graphics for the box, board, pieces, cards, etc...
Forget about the board game nobody will fund it. It has to be an app. It generally takes a half million dollars to get a board game to the stage where it could mass produced. Board game inventors typically receive 50 cents per game sold. So he would need to sell a million to break even. Not going to happen.
Incorporate some alcohol stills as well for a bit of Americana. As a side hussle but you need charcoal and have to make it for filtration.
Sounds like a movie where a killer tree that kills woodsmen in revenge for his family and friends turned to firewood.
