This idea is a kind of reverse execution of Too Many Cooks (by Reiner Knizia).
In that game, you start with an empty pot, every player adds a card on their turn, until the pot overflows (>10) and that person gets it.
In my game,
- You start with a bunch of shared cash on the table: the national treasury to use for running the country.
- On your turn, you can take a chunk of that cash to achieve something. (You can take as much as you need for something, but not more.)
- Until the whole treasury is empty and the game ends.
- Check which players achieved the most individually.
- The player who actually made the treasury run out is eliminated from contention.
Should work!
Ideas To Fold Into This
IDEA: Work towards some market of open goals?
- For example, it might say “Help build a hospital for 3 coins”, which gives “3 points” at the end.
- Or “pay 6 diamonds to get a x2 multiplier to your score”
IDEA: Work in chunks of “10”? Whenever you cross into the next ten (e.g. 40 -> 39), something triggers.
IDEA: The treasury is one long row on the table. You can take from either end.
IDEA: The player who took the most (or who triggered that phase above) has to explain themselves? Or carry some other burden? => There must be a balancing factor against just “taking as much as you can” or “taking ALL the money”
@NOTE: Steal some of the discarded ideas from Nine Lives: Tricksy Kittens? (See rules V1, V2, V4)
- The idea of “exploding” if a specific suit has a total above some number
- The idea of “keep playing until there isn’t a tie anymore” ( = there’s a clear winner to this round)
- (This whole idea would probably work equally well with a shared oxygen tank or shared luggage or whatever.)