The Curse of Coop

A “One Paper Game” about entering ancient temples and stealing stuff Indiana Jones style.

Blurb

All players will be playing “archeologists”, entering a dangerous temple in hopes of finding ancient treasures and signs of forgotten civilizations.

But not everyone might agree with this mission.

Among the researchers, there might be people who are only in it for the gold.

And as you walk through these dark caverns, you get the strange sense … that maybe even the temple is working against you.

Setup

Create Teams: Determine which of the players will be a “researcher” and who will play a “temple god”. (Your game board shows how many of each are needed.)

Ready the Board: The paper has two (nearly) identical layouts, but mirrored. Fold the paper at the center (see designated line) and place it upright on the table.

All researchers must sit on side A and all temple gods on side B. The researchers may never look at the contents of the other side during the game!

Now, all researchers must leave the room.

Secret Identities: The temple gods decide all secret identities: pick an unclaimed role in the “Role List” and write the name of the player behind it.

Each researcher comes to the gods (individually) to hear their role.

Treasure Placement: the gods secretly place their items in the temple.

Their side of the paper shows their library: which pieces they’re allowed to place. (See B. Temple Items for explanation.)

To place an item, draw the correct symbol at the desired location on your map. If there are multiple gods, they take clockwise turns placing one item each time, then crossing it out in the library.

How do you win?

Researchers

The archeologists win if they find all non-curse treasures and items. (This team is cooperative: all archeologists win together.)

A treasure hunter wins if he takes (at least) one treasure and exits the temple. However, if there are multiple treasure hunters, only the one who stole the most treasures wins!

Temple gods

A good temple god wins if the archeologists win.

A mad temple god wins if nobody else wins ( = everyone has died and no treasure hunter has successfully left the temple).

Gameplay

Players take clockwise turns doing one action per turn.

The start player is whoever can tell the most interesting fact about Egyptians. (Or whoever executes the best rendition of the Indiana Jones theme song.)

The game ends immediately when one of the gods has reached its objective.

God Actions

Gods only have a single action: add an answer type.

They pick a location with a free answer slot, and write down a specific answer type. (See C. Answer Types for specifics.)

However, it comes at a cost! For each answer added, you must crumble one connection on the map.

TO DO: Make this more interesting? So gods have more to do during the game and more influence?

TO DO: To kick off the game, they should at least write an answer type at each “exit/entrance” right?

Researcher Actions

On your turn, you may do exactly one action.

Move
Investigate
Use Item
Ask the gods

If you ever cannot move anymore ( = all connections around you are destroyed), you die. You’re out of the game.

Move

Find your current location ( = the one where your symbol is showing) and pick an adjacent location.

Draw your player character in the new location and cross-out your character at the old location.

Keep in mind the following rules:

You cannot use connections that have crumbled ( = are destroyed)
If you want to enter a room which is sealed, you must guess the correct passcode. You only get a single guess each time.
If you passed a trap during movement, the gods will tell you immediately and handle any consequences.

Investigate

Clearly announce to everyone that you’re investigating your current location.

If your investigation leads to something (a treasure, item, information), the gods must tell you honestly. Draw whatever you found in your current location. If it’s a treasure, also draw the symbol of the player that found it.

Why? It’s easy to count treasures. Items can be used by anyone at any time, thus must be open. And, we know who is in possession of each treasure.

If not, draw an extra X-mark on the location to signal it’s been investigated (again).

Why? To remember you’ve already been there, but also because some effects only activate after enough investigations.

Remark: so, for a treasure hunter to win, he must have at least one treasure with his symbol next to it (he owns the treasure), and then leave the temple.

Use Item

Use an item you own. (See B. Temple Items for specifics.)

If you want to use an item you don’t own, the proper owner must agree to it.

Ask the Gods

If you’re in need of some help or direction, you can always ask the gods! However, gods, as we all know, act in mysterious ways.

These are the rules:

A good god must always answer truthfully.
A mad god can lie about anything, though it’s not recommended to be so blatant.
If there are multiple gods, they take clockwise turns answering questions.

If your current location has an answer type, the god is forced to respond according to that type.

If not, the god informs you politely that they have nothing to say. (By staying silent, saying “the walls echo your question right back”, whatever.)

Remark: gods are not allowed to give away game-related information in any other way. (Of course, talking about other things or telling stories during the game is allowed!)

Expansions

If you’ve mastered the base game, you can try taking it to the next level with these expansions!

Freedom to Fail

Rule Change #1: gods may decide their own identity and randomly assign to other players. (The board now has blank space to designate roles yourself.)

There must always be one good god and one researcher. Besides that, it’s recommended to be as diverse as possible.

Rule Change #2: you may swap items in the library for any other item you want. However, for each swap you must crumble a connection (before the game has even started!), or … ?

Rule Change #3: ??

The Lost Locations

This expansion adds more items and treasures that can be used.

It also includes more locations and more varied ones. (Such as: underground pools, special chambers, gardens, etc. instead of default locations)

Cursed Conditions

This expansion adds player conditions. Players can secretly be cursed, or poisoned, or be in any other state.

It also adds more curses and traps that can be used.

Amazing Answers

This expansion adds more answer types for the gods. (Which also adds some more traps, items and other things related to them.)

A. Temple Items

Below is a list of all possible items one can place in a temple (treasures, regular items, traps, and curses).

Treasures: is there only one type of treasures? Or are treasures items as well?

Items

Item 1: Force god to be honest
Item 2: Ask three questions or choose which god answers your question.
Item 3: Move three spaces
Item 4: Destroy a door
(Item X: Switch identity? Get to know one of the god’s identities for certain?)
Item 5: Switch ownership of a treasure to yourself.

Traps

These are encountered during movement (or when entering/exiting a location?) They are announced and activated immediately by the gods.

Curses:

These items unleash a magical (and often deadly) curse. It takes some time (many investigations or questions) before they reveal themselves.

When these are triggered, you do not tell the players by default. These often work in the background, slowly, secretly.

Curse Item 1: It crumbles all connections to this location, except for one of your choosing.
Curse Item 2: The next three god questions must be answered with a lie.
Curse Item 3: The player that unleashed the curse is secretly poisoned. Whenever they ask a question, you must lie. After five turns (or some other condition), they immediately drop dead.

B. Answer Types

These are the possible answer types:

Question: the player may ask any yes-no question.
- Example: “If I take this corridor, will it move me closer to an item?” “Yes.”
Direction: the player may ask for the direction to an object of type X.
- Example: “direction toward treasure?” “North-west” or “Right”
Passcode: the player receives a single letter that belongs to some pass code.
- Example: The passcode of a certain door is STEP. You remember already giving people the S and T, so you simply say “E”.
Formula: the player receives a number. Every game has one difficult passage that requires you to solve a formula.
- Example: to get through the door, you need to say the number 47. This number is achieved by doing: 4*10 + 2 + 5. So you tell people the number “4”.
Number Hint: there are a few magic numbers (number of treasures, number of traps, number of items) and direction numbers (directions 1-8 correspond to directions). You simply tell players one of them.
- Example: you’ve heard the players wonder how many treasures are left. So you tell them this number.
Investigative: this only triggers when a player investigates. If there is something in this location, but people can’t access it (yet), you may tell the players. (“You find nothing, but you have a feeling that there must be something here …”)

Ideas & Problems

TO DO: Symbols (like Egyptian hieroglyphs) seem very fitting?

FUN IDEA: Maybe the gods are allowed to write on the researcher-board as well (during setup)! This way, you don’t know who left a message and why.

FUN IDEA: “The Trap Reset Crew” => A family that’s been resetting the traps for ancient tombs since … forever. Could this also be a “role” within the game?

IDEAS FOR TRAPS:

Poisonous creatures
False bottoms, false doors, false halls
Gravity-based (something falls on top of you if you nudge some stones)
Chemical release (like hematite powder, which kills you if you inhale enough)
Loaded crossbows to fire when anything trembles.
Gunpowder that explodes when fire/heat comes near it.
High pits to fall down/gaps

INTERESTING: Traps would most likely be build to last for hundreds of years. (Not something that needs to be reset/refilled/is quite feeble.)

INTERESTING: Most raids were probably “inside jobs” => robbers acting on information from those that originally designed and built the pyramid.

In most cases, however, it was simply the new Pharaoh looting the old one. Because they had pretty much absolute power.

SOURCES:

Problems

Isn’t it more logical if the “gods” are working against you? Because they don’t want you to steal their treasure and stuff?
Is it possible to make items have realistic effects around them? For example, if you place a trap somewhere, it means the surrounding areas must be weakened – you can detect this and do something with it.
It would be useful if some traps were delayed. This means that gods need to find the right moment, the right turn, to unleash something.
How can we use the fact that it’s a One Paper Game more? And how can we “hide” treasures better and more varied ways?
- Some are pre-printed on the board?
- Players can communicate with gods by writing hieroglyphs?
- There are more intricate secrets to be discovered? Things to write down and draw?
  - Maybe hidden passageways? Are these pre-printed, or created by the gods themselves?
How can players “combat” traps and curses? With other items? (You can investigate them, to know where they are, but not combat them at the moment.)
- This would also mean you need to be able to “protect” certain connections from being destroyed?
How do we ensure the game ends (within a maximum amount of time)?

GOOD IDEA: Because we never remove something (just cross it out), we always have a history of who has been where. This can be used, for example, to say: a trap that only goes off on the third person to enter. Or, a treasure that is only shown to the fourth person.

IDEA: Something that forces gods to be honest with their answers. Another thing which you can use to choose which person you want an answer from. (And if there’s only one person, ask two questions?)

IDEA: I could add “color information” to the god questions, but that would require people print this game in color. (For example, each location has elements of certain colors. By giving colors, you can give a passcode or hints to a certain location.)

IDEA: Allow creativity! If people want a lasso, they just pretend they have one and draw it on the map.

NOTES (from notebook):

Find better objectives and roles. More focus on “puzzle/explore” towards treasure and leave safely

Make it logical. No rules from above, but players should be incentivized to place items in an interesting way themselves.

IDEA: Just give players numerical teams?

IDEA: One god, always good. But there are some rules they must obey:

But is forced to place bad stuff and must improvise during the game
Or there are certain objects that should NOT be found
Or there is a fixed order in which items should be placed
Or they don’t know if good/bad until the end?
“Place this item at least 2 squares away from all players”
“Place at least one treasure in a corner of the map”

QUESTION: What makes the game interesting/special/unique?

IDEA: Multiple layers in the board. You can only be active/do something on your current layer.

CONCLUSION: I’m leaning more towards this type of game:

At the start, the “god” determines a few things, but not everything.
As players explore, they are literally finding walls, hallways, secret passages, and stuff.
- For this, the board should be just a bunch of squares. When you discover something is a wall, for example, you draw some diagonal lines.
- Players could be pawns, could be written down, depends on how much space we have.
- The god-side already has more information, but must “invent” the map as well during play. (For example: players ask about “square A4”. The god hadn’t filled something in, so they invent on the spot. It’s their job to slowly create a sensible layout and lead people in the right direction.)
During play, traps will be activated.
- Some happen immediately, others take time.
- Some “travel” across the board. For example, a “rolling ball” might be activated at one place, but roll on and on, until it shows up some other place.

This way, it’s literally a game of exploration, discovering the map of the pyramid, and finding treasure. The god can always be good, but must use several traps and must obey rules that hinder them. (And only on high player counts, can you have multiple gods with different priorities.)

Board Generation / Implementation

Step 1: determine the area where gods write down notes (role distribution + library). We can’t place any locations here.

Question: won’t this take away too much space? => As always, space is the big issue here.
Alternatively, I could distribute this wasted space over both sides.
So the gods get a part with secret identities and player status. But the players can see the “library” of items.

Step 2: place one (or a few) entrances/exits at the edges. Then place other locations randomly, making sure they don’t overlap.

I can just approximate them with circles.

Step 3: use Prim’s algorithm to connect it all. Then randomly add more connections

Step 4: add special stuff to the map, like sealed doors (which require numbers/passcodes) at fixed locations.

Step 5: The researcher side is now done. To finish the god side, add “answer slots” around the locations.

Step 6: now visualize both of them. Just write a loop, on the second iteration we flip the whole thing upside down and place it on the other side.

(Let expansions determine which parts of the full item dictionary we use, how many locations there are, etc.)

Discarded Ideas

OLD IDEA (for determining player identity):

The temple gods decide their own individual identity: good god or mad god. It’s recommended (but not required) to be as diverse as possible.

Now the gods settle on a random number (A). Each researcher must come to the gods individually and call out his own random number (B).

If A+B is even, then that player is a researcher.
Otherwise, he is a treasure hunter.

Write down each player’s identity in the designated section.

(Remark: gods can change their number between players, to further randomize this process.)

OLD OLD IDEA (for determining player identity):

You can determine this any way you want (see example below), as long as both player and gods know what their identity is.

Once everyone has received its identity, the gods write them down on their part of the board.

Example: use a die. The gods write down a simple rule like “1-3 = researcher, 4-6 = treasure hunter”. Then they roll a die and show you (and only you) the result.

A "One Paper Game" about entering ancient temples and stealing stuff Indiana Jones style. ## Blurb All players will be playing "archeologists", entering a dangerous temple in hopes of finding ancient treasures and signs of forgotten civilizations. But not everyone might agree with this mission. Among the researchers, there might be people who are only in it for the gold. And as you walk through these dark caverns, you get the strange sense ... that maybe even the temple is working against you. ## Setup **Create Teams:** Determine which of the players will be a "researcher" and who will play a "temple god". (Your game board shows how many of each are needed.) **Ready the Board:** The paper has two (nearly) identical layouts, but mirrored. Fold the paper at the center (see designated line) and place it upright on the table. All researchers must sit on side A and all temple gods on side B. The researchers may *never* look at the contents of the other side during the game! Now, all researchers must leave the room. **Secret Identities:** The temple gods decide all secret identities: pick an unclaimed role in the "Role List" and write the name of the player behind it. Each researcher comes to the gods (individually) to hear their role. **Treasure Placement:** the gods *secretly* place their items in the temple. Their side of the paper shows their library: which pieces they're allowed to place. (See **B. Temple Items** for explanation.) To place an item, draw the correct symbol at the desired location on your map. If there are multiple gods, they take clockwise turns placing *one* item each time, then crossing it out in the library. ## How do you win? ### Researchers The *archeologists* win if they find all non-curse treasures and items. (This team is cooperative: all archeologists win together.) A *treasure hunter* wins if he takes (at least) one treasure *and* exits the temple. However, if there are multiple treasure hunters, only the one who stole the *most* treasures wins! ### Temple gods A *good temple god* wins if the archeologists win. A *mad temple god* wins if nobody else wins ( = everyone has died and no treasure hunter has successfully left the temple). ## Gameplay Players take clockwise turns doing **one action** per turn. The **start** **player** is whoever can tell the most interesting fact about Egyptians. (Or whoever executes the best rendition of the *Indiana Jones* theme song.) The game ends *immediately* when one of the gods has reached its objective. ### God Actions Gods only have a single action: **add an answer type.** They pick a location with a free answer slot, and write down a specific answer type. (See **C. Answer Types** for specifics.) However, it comes at a cost! For each answer added, you must *crumble* one connection on the map. **TO DO: Make this more interesting? So gods have more to do *during* the game and more influence?** **TO DO: To kick off the game, they should at least write an answer type at each "exit/entrance" right?** ### Researcher Actions On your turn, you may do exactly one action. - Move - Investigate - Use Item - Ask the gods If you ever cannot move anymore ( = all connections around you are destroyed), you die. You're out of the game. #### Move Find your current location ( = the one where your symbol is showing) and pick an adjacent location. Draw your player character in the new location and cross-out your character at the old location. Keep in mind the following rules: - You cannot use connections that have **crumbled** ( = are destroyed) - If you want to enter a room which is **sealed**, you must guess the correct passcode. You only get a single guess each time. - If you passed a **trap** during movement, the gods will tell you immediately and handle any consequences. #### Investigate Clearly announce to everyone that you're investigating *your current location*. If your investigation leads to something (a treasure, item, information), the gods must tell you honestly. Draw whatever you found in your current location. If it's a treasure, also draw the symbol of the player that found it. > *Why?* It's easy to count treasures. Items can be used by anyone at any time, thus must be open. And, we know who is in possession of each treasure. If not, draw an extra X-mark on the location to signal it's been investigated (again). > *Why?* To remember you've already been there, but also because some effects only activate after enough investigations. **Remark:** so, for a treasure hunter to win, he must have at least one treasure with his symbol next to it (he owns the treasure), and then leave the temple. #### Use Item Use an item you own. (See **B. Temple Items** for specifics.) If you want to use an item you *don't* own, the proper owner must agree to it. #### Ask the Gods If you're in need of some help or direction, you can always ask the gods! However, gods, as we all know, act in mysterious ways. These are the rules: - A *good god* must always answer truthfully. - A *mad god* can lie about anything, though it's not recommended to be so blatant. - If there are multiple gods, they take clockwise turns answering questions. If your current location has an answer type, the god is forced to respond *according to that type*. If not, the god informs you politely that they have nothing to say. (By staying silent, saying "the walls echo your question right back", whatever.) **Remark:** gods are *not* allowed to give away game-related information in any other way. (Of course, talking about other things or telling stories during the game is allowed!) ## Expansions If you've mastered the base game, you can try taking it to the next level with these expansions! ### Freedom to Fail **Rule Change #1:** gods may decide their own identity *and* randomly assign to other players. (The board now has blank space to designate roles yourself.) There must always be *one* good god and *one* researcher. Besides that, it's recommended to be as diverse as possible. **Rule Change #2:** you may swap items in the library for any other item you want. However, for each swap you must crumble a connection (before the game has even started!), or ... ? **Rule Change #3:** ?? ### The Lost Locations This expansion adds more *items* and *treasures* that can be used. It also includes more locations and more *varied* ones. (Such as: underground pools, special chambers, gardens, etc. instead of default locations) #### Cursed Conditions This expansion adds *player conditions*. Players can secretly be cursed, or poisoned, or be in any other state. It also adds more *curses* and *traps* that can be used. ### Amazing Answers This expansion adds more answer types for the gods. (Which also adds some more traps, items and other things related to them.) ## A. Temple Items Below is a list of all possible items one can place in a temple (treasures, regular items, traps, and curses). **Treasures:** is there only one type of treasures? Or are treasures items as well? **Items** - **Item 1: Force god to be honest** - **Item 2: Ask three questions *or* choose which god answers your question.** - **Item 3: Move three spaces** - **Item 4: Destroy a door** - **(Item X: Switch identity? Get to know one of the god's identities for certain?)** - **Item 5: Switch ownership of a treasure to yourself.** **Traps** These are encountered during movement (or when entering/exiting a location?) They are announced and activated immediately by the gods. **Curses:** These items unleash a magical (and often deadly) curse. It takes some time (many investigations or questions) before they reveal themselves. When these are triggered, you do not *tell* the players by default. These often work in the background, slowly, secretly. - **Curse Item 1:** It crumbles all connections to this location, except for one of your choosing. - **Curse Item 2:** The next three god questions must be answered with a lie. - **Curse Item 3:** The player that unleashed the curse is *secretly* poisoned. Whenever they ask a question, you must lie. After five turns (or some other condition), they immediately drop dead. ## B. Answer Types These are the possible answer types: - **Question**: the player may ask any yes-no question. - **Example:** "If I take this corridor, will it move me closer to an item?" "Yes." - **Direction**: the player may ask for the direction to an object of type X. - **Example:** "direction toward treasure?" "North-west" or "Right" - **Passcode**: the player receives a single letter that belongs to some pass code. - **Example:** The passcode of a certain door is STEP. You remember already giving people the S and T, so you simply say "E". - **Formula**: the player receives a number. Every game has one difficult passage that requires you to solve a formula. - **Example:** to get through the door, you need to say the number 47. This number is achieved by doing: 4\*10 + 2 + 5. So you tell people the number "4". - **Number Hint**: there are a few magic numbers (number of treasures, number of traps, number of items) and direction numbers (directions 1-8 correspond to directions). You simply tell players one of them. - **Example:** you've heard the players wonder how many treasures are left. So you tell them this number. - **Investigative:** this only triggers when a player *investigates*. If there is *something* in this location, but people can't access it (yet), you may tell the players. ("You find nothing, but you have a feeling that there *must* be something here ...") ## Ideas & Problems **TO DO: Symbols (like Egyptian hieroglyphs) seem very fitting?** **FUN IDEA: Maybe the gods are allowed to write on the *researcher-board* as well (during setup)!** This way, you don't know *who* left a message and why. **FUN IDEA:** "The Trap Reset Crew" => A family that's been resetting the traps for ancient tombs since ... forever. Could this also be a "role" within the game? **IDEAS FOR TRAPS:** - Poisonous creatures - False bottoms, false doors, false halls - Gravity-based (something falls on top of you if you nudge some stones) - Chemical release (like hematite powder, which kills you if you inhale enough) - Loaded crossbows to fire when anything trembles. - Gunpowder that explodes when fire/heat comes near it. - High pits to fall down/gaps INTERESTING: Traps would most likely be build to last for *hundreds of years*. (Not something that needs to be reset/refilled/is quite feeble.) INTERESTING: Most raids were probably "inside jobs" => robbers acting on information from those that originally designed and built the pyramid. > In most cases, however, it was simply the new Pharaoh looting the old one. Because they had pretty much absolute power. SOURCES: - <https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ytaxs/were_egyptian_pyramids_really_rigged_with_traps/> - <https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/spezo/did_ancient_temples_and_tombs_and_such_ever_have/> - <https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cm11z/is_there_any_history_basis_for_the_traps_in_tombs/> ### Problems - **Isn't it more logical if the "gods" are working against you?** Because they don't want you to steal their treasure and stuff? - **Is it possible to make items have realistic effects around them?** For example, if you place a trap somewhere, it means the surrounding areas must be weakened -- you can detect this and do something with it. - It would be useful if some traps were *delayed*. This means that gods need to find the right moment, the right turn, to unleash something. - How can we use the fact that it's a *One Paper Game* more? And how can we "hide" treasures better and more varied ways? - Some are pre-printed on the board? - Players can communicate with gods by writing hieroglyphs? - There are more intricate secrets to be discovered? Things to write down and draw? - Maybe hidden passageways? Are these pre-printed, or created by the gods themselves? - How can players "combat" traps and curses? With other items? (You can *investigate* them, to know where they are, but not *combat* them at the moment.) - This would also mean you need to be able to "protect" certain connections from being destroyed? - How do we ensure the game ends (within a maximum amount of time)? **GOOD IDEA:** Because we never remove something (just cross it out), we always have a history of who has been where. This can be used, for example, to say: a trap that only goes off on the third person to enter. Or, a treasure that is only shown to the fourth person. **IDEA:** Something that forces gods to be honest with their answers. Another thing which you can use to *choose* which person you want an answer from. (And if there's only one person, ask two questions?) **IDEA:** I could add "color information" to the god questions, but that would require people print this game in color. (For example, each location has elements of certain colors. By giving colors, you can give a passcode or hints to a certain location.) **IDEA:** Allow creativity! If people want a lasso, they just pretend they have one and draw it on the map. **NOTES (from notebook):** Find better *objectives* and *roles*. More focus on "puzzle/explore" towards treasure and leave safely Make it **logical**. No rules from above, but players should be incentivized to place items in an interesting way *themselves*. **IDEA:** Just give players *numerical* teams? **IDEA:** One god, always good. But there are some *rules* they must obey: - But is forced to place bad stuff *and* must improvise during the game - Or there are certain objects that should NOT be found - Or there is a *fixed* order in which items should be placed - Or they don't know if good/bad until the end? - "Place this item at least 2 squares away from all players" - "Place at least one treasure in a *corner* of the map" **QUESTION:** What makes the game interesting/special/unique? **IDEA:** Multiple layers in the board. You can only be active/do something on your current layer. **CONCLUSION:** I'm leaning more towards this type of game: - At the start, the "god" determines a few things, but not everything. - As players explore, they are *literally* finding walls, hallways, secret passages, and stuff. - For this, the board should be just a bunch of squares. When you discover something is a wall, for example, you draw some diagonal lines. - Players could be pawns, could be written down, depends on how much space we have. - The god-side already has more information, but must "invent" the map as well during play. (For example: players ask about "square A4". The god hadn't filled something in, so they invent on the spot. It's their job to slowly create a sensible layout and lead people in the right direction.) - During play, traps will be activated. - Some happen immediately, others take time. - Some "travel" across the board. For example, a "rolling ball" might be activated at one place, but roll on and on, until it shows up some other place. This way, it's literally a game of exploration, discovering the map of the pyramid, and finding treasure. The god can always be good, but must use several traps and must obey rules that hinder them. (And only on high player counts, can you have multiple gods with different priorities.) ## Board Generation / Implementation **Step 1:** determine the area where gods write down notes (role distribution + library). We can't place any locations here. > **Question:** won't this take away *too much* space? => As always, *space* is the big issue here. > > Alternatively, I could distribute this wasted space over *both sides*. > > So the gods get a part with secret identities and player status. But the players can see the "library" of items. **Step 2:** place one (or a few) entrances/exits at the edges. Then place other locations randomly, making sure they don't overlap. > I can just approximate them with circles. **Step 3:** use Prim's algorithm to connect it all. Then randomly add more connections **Step 4:** add special stuff to the map, like sealed doors (which require numbers/passcodes) at fixed locations. **Step 5:** The *researcher side* is now done. To finish the *god side*, add "answer slots" around the locations. **Step 6:** now *visualize* both of them. Just write a loop, on the second iteration we *flip* the whole thing upside down and place it on the other side. (Let expansions determine which parts of the full item dictionary we use, how many locations there are, etc.) ## Discarded Ideas **OLD IDEA (for determining player identity):** The temple gods decide their own individual identity: *good god* or *mad god*. It's recommended (but not required) to be as diverse as possible. Now the gods settle on a random number (A). Each researcher must come to the gods individually and call out his own random number (B). - If A+B is *even*, then that player is a *researcher*. - Otherwise, he is a *treasure hunter*. Write down each player's identity in the designated section. (*Remark:* gods can change their number between players, to further randomize this process.) **OLD OLD IDEA (for determining player identity):** You can determine this any way you want (see example below), as long as both player and gods know what their identity is. Once everyone has received its identity, the gods write them down on their part of the board. > **Example:** use a die. The gods write down a simple rule like "1-3 = researcher, 4-6 = treasure hunter". Then they roll a die and show you (and only you) the result.