chadmart

I can't remember if anyone said anything about mass production and sales? Perhaps the game could be played at Events? I know that it likely wouldn't make it into the market... but if it did then that would be cool! I do plan on getting the game figured out, and then once I playtest, tweak, playtest, tweak, playtest, tweak, until I have it just right, then I plan to mock up a few prototypes. I'll probably stick one in a cache as a F2F prize, but that is probably several months off.

I'm an engineer and as such we are out in the field a fair amount of the time, or go to meetings outside of our office. If I'm on my own then I'll try to squeeze in a cache or 2. I have also been caching on my lunch breaks.

For that matter... why not just geocache? Well, some people do have more than one hobby, and I'm looking to combine 2 of mine together. I am out of the house plenty, and geocaching is part of that, but I can't be out of the house all of the time, nor can I geocache ALL of the time. Add to that the fact that I can't play board games all of the time, nor can I spend every waking moment with my wife or family. Given these facts, I think there's plenty of room for some cross-hobby action, and if it were the other way around and I were going out for a day-long hike or weekend geocaching trip, you better believe that I would have a board game or 2 packed along with me. I notice that many of the responses tend to lean towards the ideas behind Hasbro or Milton Bradly type games (Monopoly, Battleship, etc...) and while those games are certainly fun - particularly with kids, my other hobby of board gaming has opened my eyes to a huge world beyond what you can find at Wal-Mart or any other big chain store that sells toys and games. There are quite literally tens of thousands of board games out there with a plethora of various mechanics, gameplay, and strategy approaches. Some use dice to move a pawn, some use dice for combat, many don't use dice at all. Some involve moving around a track on a board, some involve creating the board with tiles as you play. If any of this sounds interesting to you, then please check out www.geekdo.com.

One other thing I wanted to ask about... since my working title is "World Geocaching Championship" would there be 4 countries that might be considered "the top" in terms of geocaching? I could not consider nationality at all or make it imaginary... but I'm still curious as to the answer.

An interesting idea, but the problem with that is the fact that in most cases, a cacher knows almost exactly where a particular cache is located geographically, apart from multi-caches and maybe virtual caches. Basically my idea involves one player placing a cache which is represented on the board with a token that all players can see. This basically would be the same as seeing a cache location on Google Maps. The finder gets to that location and then has to do 2 things. One of those things represents using a GPS to narrow down the precise position, and the other is card related, basically you have to have an equipment card which corresponds to the terrain that the cache is hidden in (i.e. a metal detector if the terrain is "beach" - still working on the equipment vs. terrain idea. Here's what I have so far: Water=snorkel, beach=metal detector, forest=tree climbing gear, mountain=pick-axe, and city=??? I have no idea what kind of equipment would help in a City hide... maybe that could be the one "free" cache that no equipment is needed to find.)

I've considered that a bit, and I realize that in Caching, it is not really competetive at all... except for the bit about being "FTF" on a new cache, and that most caching events (all? I really don't know) are cooperative group events. The problem I face is that board games are rarely cooperative. There are a couple of gems out there including Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings and Matt Leacock's Pandemic, but those are few and far between. Most people want a competetive game, and to make a game co-op and good enough to satisfy the competetive gamer is going to be very difficult. So, I had to stretch a bit and come up with something that would make it competetive. I had most of the rules and mechanics down well before I came up with the idea for a championship. That was my next-to-last hurdle actually. I had no way to determine who was the winner, and no "end-game" condition. My last hurdle was how to incorporate the muggle factor. Anyway, now that I'm thinking about it, the co-op idea might be able to pan out, and I'll definately consider it.

I saw an ad on the site the other day for a geocache card game called First to Find. I was pretty excited being an avid game enthusiest on top of being a geocacher (still a newbie, but working on it!) In the end it kind of inspired me to make a full-fledged board game with a geocaching theme! So, without getting into the nitty-gritty (yet), I wanted to run some things by the Geocaching community and see what you might think about my theme. My working title is "World Geocaching Championships!" Essentially, you represent one of 2-4 players entering the World Geocaching Championship, essentially, Geocaching as a competitive sport. (I didn't do any research on the title, so I have no idea if it there is really an event of this nature or name. I guess this is my research.) The players (again, 2 to 4) move around the board finding geocaches. The kicker is that the geocaches are all placed by the other players! I have no idea how this would work in the real world, but I think it makes an interesting game. There are ways to make the caches harder or easier to find, which in turn makes them worth more or less points. The board will represent various terrain types with movement hindered by crossing terrain. In addition there will be "equipment" cards that correspond to the various terrain types which you will need to find or hide a cache in that terrain. I've got an interesting mechanic to represent using a GPS unit, but I don't want to quite get into that until I've had a chance to play-test it a bit. As a cacher finds a hide they get victory points, but the placer of the cache also gets a victory point. First to Find a particular cache gets either a bonus equipment card, or an additional victory point (I haven't made up my mind on that one yet.) The last little bit is considering the effects of muggles. I've put in 2 NPC muggle tokens which the players move around the board. Proximity to a muggle prevents either finding or placing a cache, and if a muggle hits a cache spot, then they have a chance of finding the cache and stealing it (costing the placer a VP in the process.) So that's a quick overview of the game idea. I would love feedback, as well as any thoughts on the theme or setting (i.e. competetive geocaching). Also, if you happen to know of any other geocaching games, I would be very interested in checking them out. Thanks!