Fight to the Finish: A board game made in 1 hour

This week in game design class, I was tasked with making a prototype for a "race to the end" board game with a unique theme. Due to my fixation with fighting games, I made a board game themed around combat. Here's what I ended up with.

Rules: Players must roll a (6 sided) die to advance on the game board. The number a player rolls corresponds to the amount of squares they may move. If a player lands on a red square, they are thrown into the ring where they must wait for an opponent. Once there are two players in the ring, a battle will commence.

Battle Rules: Before the battle can begin, the players must both roll a die to determine who is attacking and who is defending. The player who rolls the highest number is the attacker. Once the battle has started, both players count down (3, 2, 1, Fight!), then reveal their Actions at the same time. Each player has 3 hit points, and the battle ends when either player’s hit points reach 0. 

Attacking Actions:

-          Physical Attack:

o   Beats: Throw Reversal (Scoring a hit)

o   Loses to: Guard (negates attack, no damage taken), Evade (avoids attack, defender becomes attacker)

-          Throw:

o   Beats: Guard (Scoring a hit), Evade (Scoring a hit)

o   Loses to: Throw Reversal (Defender Scores a hit)

Defensive Actions:

-          Throw Reversal

o   Beats: Throw (Scoring a hit)

o   Loses to: Physical Attack (Attacker scores a hit)

-          Guard

o   Beats: Physical Attack (Attack/Defense roles do not change)

o   Loses to: Throw (Attacker scores a hit)

-          Evade

o   Beats: Physical Attack (Attack/Defense roles are switched)

o   Loses to: Throw (Attacker scores a hit)

Once the battle is over, the winner returns to their place on the game board, rolls the die and continues to advance. If the winner scores a perfect (winning without losing any hit points), they are awarded a buff card from the top of the pile. The loser must stay in the ring and fight until they can defeat another player.

Buff Cards:

-          Spiked Knuckle (Physical Attacks do 2 hits of damage), Physical Obstacles can be broken immediately

-          Kung Fu Grip (Throws do 2 hits of damage), Throw Obstacles can be moved immediately

Obstacles:

If the player lands on an obstacle, they must wait 3 turns before it is cleared (assuming they have no buff cards). If the player has a buff card, they can choose to use it to bypass the appropriate obstacle. If the player uses the card on an obstacle, the card is forfeit and can no longer be used in battle.

Things that suck and need fixing:

- Evade is always a better choice than Guard, making guard essentially useless. Originally I was going to limit the amount of times a player could use a certain attack or defensive action, however this was problematic as there are two options for attack and 3 for defense. If there were some other sort of limit to how often a move is used, guard could potentially become useful.

- The game can be very random. In one playtest, a friend of mine was able to traverse the whole game board without fighting. This was totally not cool.

- The prototype board is ugly, boring and way too small. That's probably because I made it in a half hour.