Early Ideas

In the tradition of those that have already begun, I'll comment on the ingredients and medals of this year's contest.

Theme: INTRIGUE

The only thing this brings to mind right now is the Vampire rpg and LARPS. I dislike both of them so as much as I want to stay true to theme, this may be the first thing I toss out.

Ingredients: FLEUR-DE-LIS, DIVIDERS, SEABIRD, and STAR

Skimming the wiki page on fleur-de-lis brought nothing to mind, but it could possibly be the symbol for a faction within the game.

Dividers were used in cartography and navigation. My game could involve exploration as a theme or maybe there's an exploratory faction opposite the fleur-de-lis group.

The wiki on seabirds was fascinating with the description of diet and feeding especially catching my eye. Seems seabirds fall into 4 broad categories of feeding. Surface Feeders dip their heads to catch krill and other food at the ocean's surface. Pursuit Divers (like penguins) swim after food that's up to 70m down! Plunge Divers catch faster prey by dropping from up to 20m above the water's surface. Kleptoparasites are avian pirates, stealing the hard won food of other birds.

My first thought was sci-fi or steampunk style airships 'mining' the skies by diving to different depths. Then the Kleptoparasites immediately made me think pirates. Haven't we done the pirate thing to death already though?

The star ingredient didn't strike me near as hard as seabirds. Weird, right? The symbol for a 3rd faction maybe? Star's have a natural place with the navigation dividers from above. Why does it feel like I'm the only one getting a strong nautical vibe from these ingredients? I never considered making a sailing game, but maybe this is a sign.

Other Medals

There's a host of other medals I could qualify for, but only a few really stood out. Brevity means the rules will need to fit on 4 pages, Zombies means the protagonists would have to be zombies, Cerberus dictates the game must be for 3 players, etc. I'm definitely aiming for Brevity and that's the only one I'm shooting for at this point.

Maybe the seabirds are classes of ships where some are built for skimming, some for diving, etc. Maybe intrigue comes from plotting against the ship's captain. Maybe there aren't ships at all, but the diving is into a more symbolic or supernatural medium like the mind (Lacuna), hyperspace (Hellas), the underworld, or the like.