By: Yumin Ni, Eimi Yonezawa, Jeffrey Wu, Yuanshan Liu
Course: IAT 312 Foundations of Game Design

Description: "Interastral Merchant" is a strategic sample-collecting journey where intergalactic salesmen travel in spaceships from the Interstellar Resource Trading Market space station to different planets to purchase corresponding ore samples. The goal is to bring back either three samples of the same colour or one sample each of three different colours, winning the company's Best Sales Department Award.

This four-player game allows each player's ship a certain amount of storage for loading ore samples or raw stone from different stations. Players can sell the raw stone for money to carry out various actions and activities, such as mining or exchanging. The game includes star routes consisting of a certain number of planets. Players move between planets by piloting their ships with the distance traveled determined by the number of dice thrown. During their movement, players will encounter various events, some with positive outcomes and others negative. Players must decide on their actions, choose routes, and strategize based on the resources they have.

We designed this board game for ages 8 and up, catering to all genders. Our game appeals to BrainHex’s Achiever, who enjoys achieving in-game objectives and goals by optimizing strategies and resources. It also attracts BrainHex’s Mastermind, who delights in devising strategies to overcome the challenge of collecting samples before any other player with efficient decisions. Lastly, it engages BrainHex’s Socializer, who enjoys interacting with others in games to probe their opponents' strategies and plan accordingly.

"Interastral Merchant" promotes strategic gameplay through its engaging mechanics, built on the principles of accumulating, converting, crafting, and trading. These elements are intertwined with core and secondary game mechanics to create a dynamic and immersive experience.

We made this game on Tabletop Simulator.