Border Patrol

27th September 2024 - I've had an idea of a board game for a few months now, inspired by other games such as Sheriff of Nottingham and Papers Please, where players have to interact with a Border Agent to achieve a goal of making the most money in the game as they are smuggling things through the airport.

I've made a Figma Board showing my progress with the game's design & development:

BP Figma Board

Tabletop Simulator screenshot of Border Patrol

4th October-

Over the past week I have been ironing out the rules and the flow of the general game play loop. I also created a digital prototype of the game that can be played in PowerPoint, just need to roll the dice and copy the cards over to the players slides.

On the back of each character card is a maximum of 4 item boxes for legal/illegal goods. They are generally mixed up so it should be random you never know what you're going to get. It could be 2 legal cards and 2 illegal for example.

Playable link to PowerPoint prototype

14th October -

I made a version of the game within Table Top simulator to get a more accurate picture of what the game would be like if and when the time comes to make a physical version of the game. In the quick play test it took about 30 minutes to complete a where only one person was the border agent.

The character cards took a long time to get through security. Also, the cards weren't fully randomized, so in this version, if you knew what character you got, you know the exact items they would have every time. So, I'll change the core mechanics of the game so that the characters are just a persona the players can act through so it keeps some of the original idea alive about being different characters but the items themselves should be handled by another card.

Had the bright idea to put the items in luggage cards that are split between suitcases and carry-on's. The suitcases tend to have more things in them and are worth a bit more, whereas the carry-on's would be lighter items. I had another idea to increase the feeling of being in the airport too by including a rule where if the players want to add an extra carry-on to their character they would have to pay 2k to the airline (aka. the bank) for a carry-on or 4k for a suitcase, this way it feels much more like the tight restrictions that airlines have in real life.

Also the passport tokens seem too strong, definitely going to have to cut it down to a maximum of 1 per player, per game.

18th October -

Today I pitched my game to some fellow designers. The feedback I received was that it was too much like Sheriff of Nottingham, which is then suggested to add weight to the game. I agree that weight could help it stand out. I thought about adding a weight limit number to the bottom of the cards and only allowing a certain weight to be reached. But then I thought a bit more about it and had the idea to revamp the current card model and change it so it leans into the new weight mechanic. The players would get a maximum of 2 openable chests are designed to look like bags/suitcases. The Border Agent would then close their eyes during the packing phase, as this is when players are packing their suitcases while at home, so the Border Agent doesn't know what is being brought through. The items would be physical items or maybe tokens? For example, a cloth cut out to look like a dress for a wedding dress that would be worth 5k of a legal good, and a metallic fake gun that would be a bit hefty. This way the game could be further evolved upon where the bags have to be packed in a particular way to get the most bang for your buck but if it weighs too much that might be a bit suspicious as illegal goods would generally weigh more than legal except in a few circumstances i.e. liquids and/or drugs.

Example of what a prototype container could look like

12th June 2025 -

I have just finished my 2nd year of university and thinking back on projects I had earlier in the year which made me think of different ways I could go about designing this game.

The first major change to Border Patrol I would make would be to again change the way the packing system works, this way the border agent shouldn't have to close their eyes.

During the packing phase, players will roll a custom dice that has 3 different faces on it: Suitcase, Carry-On and Hand.

Example of custom die

Players will go around rolling a dice and depending on the result go to the pile of tokens that is associated with it, e.g. if they roll suitcase go to the pile of suitcase tokens and select one at random - all tokens should be face down and only revealed to the person who is taking it on their trip.

The tokens will have the symbols corresponding to what they are on the front and have different amounts of money based as a total and images of what they contain on the back of the token. If there are illegal goods there will be a warning symbol alongside the other information.

Players can also choose to roll the dice again but would have to pay a cost depending on the result. (Hands is free, Carry-on is 2k and Suitcase is 3k).