New: Mighty Oaks (free, open-ended, www, computer, fantasy, abstract)

From: donotreply@pbm.com (PBM List Autoposter)

Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 19:13:05 +0000

Name:		Mighty Oaks
Costs:		free
URL:		http://www.ukg.co.uk/mightyoaks/oaks_rules.htm
Frequency:		daily
Email:		info zat ukg.co.uk
Type:		simple strategy game about being a tree
Last-Update:		2004May16
Keywords: free, open-ended, www, computer, fantasy, abstract

Description:

You are a tree in a forest. You grow in size and put forth leaves and
fruit, and store energy in your roots: your aim is to score victory points
by growing more fruit than the other trees of a similar size to you.

2 Turn structure
The game alternates spring turns and autumn turns.

2.1 Spring turn
You start the spring turn with a current value of size and of energy
stored in your roots. You must decide how much of this energy to spend on
increasing your size, and how much on growing leaves (the amount of leaves
you can grow is constrained by your size). You can also keep some of your
energy in storage if you wish. Energy converts into size at 1:1. After
this is added, all trees are reduced in size by 20%.

2.2 Autumn turn
You start the autumn turn with a value of new energy based on the quantity
of leaves you grew in spring. Leaves convert to energy at 1:5. You must
decide how much of this new energy to convert to fruit (or seeds if you
prefer to think of it that way), and how much to store in your roots for
next year.

You score victory points according to how much fruit you have compared
with other trees of a similar size, ie. the largest 5 trees split 10 VPs
among them, the next 5 split a further 10, etc. So the way to score a lot
of VPs is to have more fruit than other trees of a similar size: but if
you grow too many fruit you won't have much energy left over for next
year, when the cycle starts again.

You are then ranked according to your average number of VPs scored per year.

3 Missing a turn
If you miss a spring turn, then you will convert 40% of energy into size,
50% into fruit, and keep 10% in storage.

If you miss an autumn turn, you will convert 40% of your new leaf energy
to fruit, and store 60% in your roots.

[ This is a new entry for the PBM List. You can find the list
itself, and instructions for adding games or comments, at
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/ -- greg ]