I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement: Further progress

I spent the last week on vacation in Hawaii, and that gave me some time to think about stuff, and I chose to spend much of that time thinking about this I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement game design.

I like thinking out loud - I started my game design career spouting off ideas in the BGDF irc chat room to whoever would listen (even if that was just me, reading a transcript later). Terra Prime was largely designed that way, thinking out loud in BGDF chat and forums. Over the last few days I've tried something similar... I posted a few Twitter threads:

https://twitter.com/sedjtroll/status/1392214318989545472?s=20 ("poison pill" in ICYC)

https://twitter.com/sedjtroll/status/1394099337664163840?s=20 (a Menahune theme? Nah...)

https://twitter.com/sedjtroll/status/1393838830197698561?s=20

https://twitter.com/sedjtroll/status/1394832730148405249?s=20

https://twitter.com/sedjtroll/status/1394920800415715336?s=20

Thinking through those, and seeing some of the responses, has helped me visualize the game much more clearly, and I think I'm close to being able to create a prototype (if I can motivate myself to do so... that's often a stumbling block for me!). There are still some details to work out, but some of that happens for me during the actual prototyping process. Here's the shape of the game as I see it at the moment:

Players are officers in an organization that has sent multiple colony ships full of cryogenically frozen specialists out into the black, seeking a new homeworld. Now that we've arrived, groups of specialists are "thawing out," and we're directing them to do their thing, and then splitting them into smaller groups and sending them to adjacent sectors.

Each ship generates ~8 random specialists (colored cubes in 4 types) each round, which you will split into 2 groups to begin the round. Each player will do this simultaneously to seed the board with 2N spaces with cubes (plus any others that remain from previous rounds). Then you'll take turns placing workers (maybe 4 per player to start) where there are cubes.

When you place a worker on a space, you will mark off each of the cubes there on tracks per color. There will be thresholds on each track, beyond which you will receive in-game or scoring penalties, so marking off things is generally bad - but it's necessary... ideally you won't mark off too many more cubes than you need to (or too many cubes that you don't get the benefit of using). You will then be able to activate up to 2 types of cubes for their effects. Each type of specialist does an action:

Explore: For each cube of this type, draw 1 tile from the bag. Choose 1 to place in this space and return the rest. These tiles represent information about the local area. They will indicate one of the cube colors, a building type, and a resource icon, and when you place a tile, you get to choose one of those (take a cube of that type into hand, place a level 1 building of that type from your board, or take a resource of the indicated icon) 

Expand: Place a building from your player board in that space, as long as there are "enough" cubes to cover its cost. Level 1/2/3 buildings require 1/2/3 cubes, and a L(n) building can only e built where a L(n-1)  building of that type already sits. If you have enough cubes, you could build 2 buildings in one action. Only 1 type of building can be in each space, L(n) stacks on top of L(n-1), and at the end of the game, some scoring is based on the buildings showing from above. Each building you remove from your player board reveals some in-game benefit, where each type of building helps with one aspect of the game. For example, building Habitats might get you extra workers to use. Building Laboratories might help you Experiment (see below). Building Watchtowers might help you explore.  

Exploit (Extract?): Once a space has a tile on it, you can extract resources from it based on the icon(s) on the tile. For each cube, take 1 resource of that type. These resources are a set collection scoring type of thing... you get points for sets of different icons, and maybe a majority bonus for each icon type. 

Experiment: Studying the new world will yield benefits. You'll have 2 markers on a research track - the first will give you benefits as it moves up, and it will make room for your second marker to advance, which will increase your score. You can advance on this track as much as you can afford, using 1/2/3 cubes to get one of your marker to the 1st/2nd/3rd level of the track

After placing in a space with just 1 cube, you get that cube's effect, then take the cube into hand to use later... you can use it to cover (negate) a penalty from reaching a threshold on that color's track, or you can spend it in a later turn to boost that color's effect, as if there were an additional cube there, which will help you reach those more expensive actions such as L3 buildings and Research.

Once everyone has placed all their workers, take them all back, draw another 8 cubes from the bag to seed the initial spaces, pass a start player marker, and start a new round.

What I really need is (a) a game end dynamic (something I'm historically bad at), (b) details of building effects, tiles, and research track effects populated, and (c) a working title!

Since I'm so bad at (a), I really don't have anything in mind yet, and I'm hopeful that something will seem obvious by the time I get an initial playtest in.

As for (b), I do have a few thoughts. Like with Crusaders, I think each building type could help with one of the actions in the game. For example, one type could give a discount on building, or the ability to stack the wrong type of building on an existing one or something. Another type could help advance on the research track. A third type could help with set collection (maybe just give you icons?), and another could let you draw more tiles when exploring, or keep more than 1 of the choices when you explore. Finally, there could be a type that adds workers.

And for the exploration tiles, each one could have 0/1/2 (maybe a few 1/1/1) of cubes/icons/building options in all the possible combinations, so when exploring, you can have an interesting choice depending on what you're after.

I'm not sure about the research effects, but I imagine they should be small, on the order of a cube for the first token, and for the 2nd (the one that's supposed to help score), could maybe give icons for set collection, or straight VPs based on position.

As for a title... I'm afraid I've got nothing! I'm happy to entertain suggestions in the comments below!