The Double Dangerous Book for Boys

Money, then, is not an end in itself, but a means to an end in the game. Whatever they start with, it should be possible for a player to take some from the others – perhaps at the end of each circle of the board – and then to buy something useful with it. The Monopoly hotel piece is the model for that – a token earned or won that ruins another player’s day when he or she lands on it. In a Ninja game, you might have caltrops made from paperclips, for example.

DISASTERS AND REWARDS

The game shouldn’t feel too arbitrary. People like to develop tactics. Our Orchid Adventure idea has scope for any number of disasters – jungle spiders, chased back down the board by local tribes, etc: all variants of the snake in Snakes and Ladders. Yet if we are to go round and round the board (with possible trips through the jungle interior for extra risk/reward), you’ll need to incorporate small successes and failures into the game. As a side note, we learned recently of the unpleasantly large camel spider found in desert locations, which follows moving shadows, so appears to hunt people. A soldier we met described how he had to use a handgun to shoot a particularly aggressive one. The idea of a spider token that pursues a player – perhaps beginning a few squares back, with a 50/50 die roll to bring it closer or not each move – feels like a good one. Another alternative might be to have some aggressive tokens on a particular square – ghost ninjas, say, that might choose to follow any players that go past – if a 6 is rolled. Or an odd number.