Dykebreak

A game about creating dykes to protect against rising sea levels.

What’s the idea?

  • The map is a bunch of tiles.
  • We can fold tiles to create dykes that stand up, and can be placed on the edges between tiles! (Like I did with Rabbihop.)
  • We can do the same with smaller tiles to get people or buildings or water droplets.

It should probably be cooperative.

Below is a general rules sketch.

You need people + buildings on the tiles to make stuff happen. For example, you need that industry to build dykes or pump out water or raise lands.

Your turn is a very simple step of “trigger thing Y, usually to build thing X”.

  • “I trigger this tile to get 4 wood, which I use to build a dyke.”
  • “I trigger this tile to get 1 more person, which I place here.”
  • Yes, your turn is just “trigger 2 tiles”? And the people/buildings on it (or base type of tile) determines what happens?

Then it ends with a default step of “the water flows/rises”. Using very simple rules, the danger should grow and grow over time.

  • Perhaps there are a few “generator tiles” (which are ice sheets?) placed around your starting area during setup.
  • At the end of your turn/round, add +1 water tile on top of those.
  • Water always flows to lower areas => so if there’s a neighbor that’s a smaller stack of tiles, it goes there.
  • If the water stack is taller than the number of dykes it bumps against (say, 2 water tiles on top of each other, against 1 dyke) => the dykes are completely removed.