Isle of Trains follow-up: Isle of Adventure?

Dranda Games, the new publisher for Isle of Trains, told me that they had a great Essen, and that people loved their new edition of Isle of Trains: All Aboard - which is great news!

I asked the Dranda guys if they'd be interested in Dana and I revisiting our ideas for an Isle of Trains boardgame, one version of which was a fairly simple rondel game, but they said they'd be more interested in another small-box card game, with multi-use cards, the had similar positive player interaction (like the IoT load thing)

They even floated some ideas they'd had:

* Isle of New York - building skyscrapers with lots of cards then selling them for a profit

* Isle of London - building the subway (I think Isle of New York would be a better start and London would be a good sequel)

* Isle of Taxis - picking up passengers. Like a Crazy Taxi card game 😂

* Isle of Dragons - don't know what to do with that but fantasy games sell well!

I know Dan had made a pirate hunting game based on the IoT mechanism called Queen Anne's Revenge, which got honorable mention in the Hippodice game design contest, and even had publisher interest I believe, but I don't know what ever became of it. I suggested to Dan that perhaps we could distill that down to a small-box card Isle of Pirates card game, which could be doable.

Then I had a new idea that sounded interesting to me. After a days brainstorming, this is what I have so far, and the Dranda guys like the sound of it:

Isle of Adventure

Play as a party leader, recruiting and equipping adventurers to delve the local dungeon looking for treasure!

Each card in your hand could be an adventurer (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, Thief), or equipment (Bolt, Scroll, Potion, Pick?), or can be used as coin to hire new adventurers or train them up.

A dungeon is laid out on the table, built of face down tiles. Players will move their parties through the dungeon, racing to loot it of valuable treasure! On your turn you will do 2 of the following actions:

* Draw a card (search the room? Go to town?)

* Recruit an adventurer to join your party

* Train an adventurer (they level up)

* Equip an adventurer (yours or an opponent's)

* Delve into the dungeon (facing its challenges)

When equipping an adventurer, you tuck the proper equipment card under them. If you equip your own adventurer, you get nothing but the equipment. If you equip an opponent's adventurer, you get paid in cards, gold (virtual cards to spend), and actions:

* Party Leader: Delve/Explore the Dungeon

* Warrior: Recruit/Train

* Mage: Gain and cast spells, giving you ongoing abilities

* Cleric: Heal damage from party members

* Thief: Equip

Your party leader would have a green "Fleet of foot" value - this is the capacity of your party, and also helps you move in the dungeon. Each adventurer would have a number of red foot icons (never to exceed your leader's green foot value) - the bigger the party, the slower they move through the dungeon. When you Delve (explore), you will be able to move through face up tiles, and flip up a face down tile using your remaining green foot icons - and discarding cards to gain feet for the turn. When you flip up a tile, you get a chance to pay the required equipment (and maybe take the required wounds) in order to gain the benefit printed on the tile.

(Wounds reduce the effectiveness of your adventurers - they won't be able to take new equipment until they are healed by a cleric)

Some tiles have Boss Encounters on them -- chances to gain lots of treasure if you have the right assortment of equipment

That's all I have so far, but it sounds promising to me, and slightly more than a straight re-skin if the spells and the dungeon tiles work out well.