During the summer, the family and I had an afternoon on the beach, and found a bounty of very smooth basalt stones.  My wife mentioned that ‘these would make great game pieces’, so of course I scoured the beach for a couple of handfuls.  The result:

basalt stones

Twenty-five stones in all of various sizes: twenty-one dark gray, and four white ones.  The mechanic: reach into the bag and draw out the stones for a conflict.  Grab as many as you want, but if you draw a white one (or more than one), you fail.

I’m also thinking about the arrangement above: the stones are laid out in a 5×5 grid, with the final pattern being significant in some way.

Now the question is: what’s the theme?  What sort of game would call for this as a mechanic?

Of course, I’ve also been developing a cluster of game mechanics – a sort of “base system” – called Cairn, which is based on stacks of poker chips placed on cards and game surfaces.  The number and color of all the chips in the stack has significance in the game, as well as the last (visible) chip.  Getting back to the stones, perhaps there’s something there along the same lines – a fusion of a Jenga-like stacking game, maybe with the idea that if the stones topple, or fall out of the prescribed circle on the game board, there’s a consequence.

In any case, it’s an interesting twist to my ongoing (and increasing!) return to game design, and finding ways to marry it both to my web development and to the greater trajectory of elsewar.es.