Escape From Gaia: More Development Needed

Escape From Gaia is my take on Snakes and Ladders, set in the Titanomachina universe, wherein some of the sordid history of the Titans becomes the basis of a game. See, the Titans were chased off of Gaia before when their extra-curricular activities became too much for the Myrmidon Mega-Ants to bear. But it wasn't just Gaia, but all the planets of the Hyperion system, and so the Titans left for deep space. In this 15-20 minute game players attempt to manoeuvre their Titans out of Gaian orbit and slingshot past the three other planets in the system to get into deep space first. In order to do that they have to dodge anti-shipping weapons making orbital slingshots impossible, gravitic anomalies, and good old-fashioned sabotage. 

The board is composed of four rings of 5, 7, 9, and 11 segments and a central 'sun' segment. Each ring contains a planet in one segment or square and may contain a gravitic anomaly in another. There is a deck of 24 cards, of which each player from 2-4 draws 6 cards. These cards have a rule and a number. The number is 1-24 and represents initiative, with numbers governing the order of play. The rules include cards that enable ships to move an extra square, enable players to drop a ship down an orbit, enable players to rotate an orbit clockwise or anti-clockwise on the board relative to the others, enable players to place or move a gravitic anomaly on the board, or prevent ships from entering squares containing planets. 

Ships move one square or segment at a time unless they move down an orbit, or into the orbit of a planet (or the sun), or the player has the Steady Burn card (move an extra square). Ships can only move up into a higher orbit via planets. Ships can't move into squares containing gravitic anomalies. 

The game ends when a player makes it off the board via the outermost planet, and the player that does that wins the game. 

Now, the important thing is that while this works, it stops somewhat randomly, and is finely tuned enough that winning it doesn't feel like a strategic act, when it can be won at all. It needs a separate end-game condition from the winning conditions so that it ends in the 15-20 minutes intended, and 

It also needs more defined starting conditions than placing the planets on non-contiguous squares. One suggestion I received was drawing cards to dial in the relative positions of the planets in the orbits. 

There's some work required decorating the proto-type board so that the layout is more obviously designed, with the line through the orbits defining how they are turned decorated to line up in case it falls out of true. Some of the squares, perhaps those decorated with planets, could have directions indicated on the board so that they function as valves or indicate bonuses for entering the square from a particularly direction. 

Planetary defenses are rough, functioning to prevent players from winning and ending the game, and while that was the intention, they are surprisingly effective at doing so, and in some case function to prevent a player from winning because it's the last card they have in hand. Some way of avoiding the planetary defenses seems apt, but also counter to the design. 

Speaking of hands, players could probably do better with hands of four cards each, rather than six, to make analysis quicker and easier, and to avoid that situation where players only have one card left, or at least to minimize it. This may minimize the number of planetary defense cards players may have in hand at crucial moments,  and give players more agency. 

It's possible the shape of the board is causing problems, given it's a series of increasing odd numbers, rather than, say, something like 4, 8, 16, and 32 or something like that. 

Given that the game is Snakes & Ladders, it might be something to re-jig the gravitic anomalies into something more like the planets, making them the snakes to the planets' ladders. There's an effect enabling players to knock each other down an orbit, but what if that was combined with the gravitic anomalies after a fashion? As in, moving into a gravitic anomaly square forced one down an orbit? There's also the option of gravitic anomalies acting as a kind of teleport to move ships from one to another. I think then replacing the sabotage cards with more cards enabling players to rotate the orbits of the board might be better in terms of game play. 

In order of priority:

1. Redecorate the board.

2. Change cards to 4 per hand, players draw cards to replace cards in hand, shuffle discards when they run out.

3. Change Gravitic Anomaly rules to either (a) push down like Sabotage, or (b) teleport to other anomalies

4. Remove Sabotage cards, add more orbital cards.