Undermine: A lesson in Middle Management

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.03
Fun★★★★★★★★★★1.66
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.78
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.09
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★1.44
Audio★★★★★★★★★★1.22
Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.47
Mood★★★★★★★★★★1.45
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★60%
Clearer instructions:

Players take turns picking a level. You score points based on the levels you pick. If you pick a level 2 under the other player, they don't score and you take their points. If you pick level 1 you will always beat someone who picks level 6.

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2 Players dig beneath the surface to subvert control of the super structure!

The deeper you go, the more you score.

Undermine a rival 2 levels above you to steal their point!

Control the structure from the top to prevent level 6 from scoring.

GL HF

((You could also play this with 2 dice.

For added subversion, cooperate with the second player and help them win - they'll never see it coming!))

screenshot

Comments12

torcado194
torcado19428 Apr 2014, 23:47
hm.. seems like an interesting concept, though i don't really understand how it works. good job though!
quantumpotatoauthor28 Apr 2014, 23:50
Sorry, maybe I should have made the text more clear. Players take turns picking a level. You score points based on the levels you pick. If you pick a level 2 under the other player, they don't score and you take their points. If you pick level 1 you will always beat someone who picks level 6.
otato
otato28 Apr 2014, 23:51
Interesting idea, but I feel like the player that if a player always chooses 6, as long as the other player chooses not 1 a few times, the 6 player will win...

Also had a bunch of the text cut off for me in the web player.
quantumpotatoauthor28 Apr 2014, 23:58
@otato maybe there are too many levels. I was thinking about letting 1 score 6 points instead of 1. Thanks for the feedback!
microapple
microapple29 Apr 2014, 00:01
Not a bad idea, could have been explained better. The implementation was good though.
Eirikir
Eirikir29 Apr 2014, 00:26
overall a good idea, too bad its not well explained. i agree with otato about the players choosing the same numbers.
Cosrnos29 Apr 2014, 00:33
It's an interesting idea!
ThingoStudios1 May 2014, 00:32
The core gameplay is interesting enough, but there's really no reason to pick number 1. You're preventing your opponent from scoring, but you're only scoring 1 point.

The game is pretty interesting. I thought this was going to be a Tower of Hanoi type game but it wasn't! It's cool.
burgerdare1 May 2014, 13:43
neat idea. I assume that players aren't supposed to see each other's moves until after both choices have been made?
This isn't extremely clearly communicated, but it made sense to me and made for a fairly intriguing bluffing game.
quantumpotatoauthor15 May 2014, 01:30
@burgerdare right! that's why you move your mouse below the tower between turns - so the other player can't see what you chose.

@ThingoStudios totally. Scoring 1 is way too weak. I'm thinking it should score you 6 instead -- or maybe drop the layers down to 4 and 1 beats 4 for 4 points.
bucketh3ad
bucketh3ad15 May 2014, 03:42
I really like the idea, but the mechanic doesn't quite seem there yet, mostly because 5, and 6 appear to be the only sensible choices. Since choosing 5 guarantees a gain of either 3 or 5 with no way to undermine, and 6 can only be undermined with 1, sticking with either or switching between those two randomly beats dice rolls the majority of games.

Assuming your opponent plays randomly, choosing 1 or 2 averages a loss of -3/2(-1.5), 3 averages -5/6(-0.88), 4 averages +1, 5 averages +5/3(+1.66), and 6 averages +11/6(+1.83)

If you want there to be more depth of strategy, you need to rethink the mechanic some in order to make lower point plays potentially more valuable.

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