From Atari to Cardstock: Lunar Lander

Image taken from http://ataricade.videoarcade.it/lunarlanderscr.jpg

This week's non-digital game task was to create a game based off an Atari classic. Being a child of the 90's, I had very little hands on time with the Atari, and neither had my team mates. After the group of us tested a handful of Atari games, we came to the conclusion that Lunar Lander would translate well to a turn based environment. Here's a quick description of what the game is all about in case you weren't already aware.

In Lunar Lander, the player's goal is the land their ship right-side up on the moon. Preferably on a spot containing a large score multiplier. In order to control the landing, the player must operate their 3 thrusters (left, right, centre) and guide the lander to the surface with the proper orientation and approach angle. If the player runs out of fuel, they lose control of the ship and must accept whatever fate awaits.

Since the game is traditionally single player, we decided to keep player interaction to a minimum. In our version of the game, players compete to construct ships to collect ore from the moon (note: The ore is irrelevant to the game itself and serves solely as backstory). Once each player constructs their ship, the goal is to land it with the highest degree of difficulty allowed by their fuel cost (increased by upgrading your ship). Players can sacrifice their turn to trade ship parts with others. If this sounded confusing, good. It's supposed to. Have a look at the rules, that should clear things right up.

Rules:

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Players: 2-4 people

Set-up: Place the cards in two separate piles: one for Ship Parts and one for Landing Difficulty. Shuffle the decks and deal out 5 Ship Parts to each player. Each player may play one part at the count of three (e.g. Player 1 counts to three and on three, each player shows their card). Players then decide who will play first in whichever fashion they wish.

Instructions: Players try to build ships to collect ore off of the Moon while using the least amount of fuel. This is done by completing a whole ship (Hull, Thruster, Left Wing, and Right Wing). Each part generates a different amount of fuel, with higher ranked cards generating more. Each player picks up a ship part card at the beginning of their turn OR starts a trade with another player. When trading, the trader (person initiating the trade) shows the card they wish to trade. Any player may then call for the trade, with who says they want it first getting it. Players may trade as many parts as they want for the offered part. The trade may also be cancelled at any point, provided the trader hasn’t already accepted the deal. If the trade is made, that player’s turn is done. If no one takes the trade, then play resumes as normal. They may then play one card from their hand towards their ship. There is no max to the number of cards a player may hold.

Once a ship is built, the ship goes into pre-launch mode, meaning that the ship can only launch on any turn after it is built. Players may continue to modify their ship at this point, but doing so delays launching the ship for another turn. When a player wishes to launch, they must pick up a Landing Difficulty card. The Landing Difficulty card multiplies your fuel into points, which are only tallied if the player lands successfully. Players land successfully if their total fuel amount for the ship is more than the amount on the Landing Difficulty card. Harder landings require more fuel, e.g. landing for a 4x costs 200 or more while landing for a 2x costs 100 or more. Players calculate their fuel cost by adding all the points on each of their ship parts. The different fuel gained by each ship part is as follows:

Rank A: 70     

Rank B: 60

Rank C: 50

Rank D: 40 

If a player lands successfully, they then subtract the total for landing from their fuel cost. They then multiply that remainder by the respective multiplier on the Landing Difficulty card and tally their points, e.g. if Player 2 has a fuel cost of 300 and the landing costs 200 for a 4x multiplier, Player 2 gets 400 points (100 times 4). If a player does not have the necessary amount of fuel points, then the player only gets 10% of their fuel amount, e.g. if Player 3 has 200 points and his landing costs 300, Player 3 gets 20 points. After a landing (whether successful or a crash) the player returns all the cards used for the ship to the Ship Parts pile. The player then tallies their points. The first player to 2000 points wins.

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Things I liked:

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how the game was translated. The game still feels competitive, while maintaining the isolated single player-esque  experience you would expect from lunar lander. This is reminiscent of competing for high scores against other players back in the day.

Things I didn't:

I honestly wish we were not forced to choose from a finite list of Atari games. I had not played any of the options before making this game, and would have chosen Pitfall hands down if I were given the choice