Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Get A Job

This is a game about… well… getting a job. Good luck with that.

Required items:
• Two six sided dice
• Job Deck
• Hope Deck
• Game Board

How to Play:

1.
Each player will roll 1d6 to see who goes first. Highest roll wins. The person who goes first also gets to start with the Service Clerk job card.

2.
Upon their turn, each player will roll 2d6 to decide exactly how far they move this turn. A player must move the full number rolled. A player may only move forward. If you reach the end of the board, move your piece back to the first square of the board and start your trek over again.

3.
Once the move is complete, you draw a card from the Hope Deck, unless your moved landed you on an X square.

4.
If you draw a special card, you must play it immediately. If you cannot do what the card says, show it to the other players and then discard it.

5.
If you draw an Application, Phone Call, or Interview card, add this to your hand.

6.
If you have an Application, Phone Call, and Interview card in your hand for the same job you must play them. Show the other players your cards and then roll 2d6. If you roll doubles, you have had a successful interview and get to take that job card. You may only have one job card at a time, if you currently have a job, place the lowest paying job back into the job deck. Whether you roll doubles or not, you must discard the three cards used to attempt to get the job.

7.
Check your hand. You may only have 5 cards in your hand at any time. Should your turn end and you have six cards in your hand, discard one. If at any time you find that you have seven cards in your hand, you lose the game. Play continues without you.

8.
The next player now takes their turn starting with number 2.

The Decks:

Job Deck: This deck contains the highly sought after jobs. Place this deck on the board on the Job Deck spot face down. If you hold a job card, it does not matter if the other player can see it or not.

Hope Deck: This deck contains both cards needed to get a job, and special cards. Shuffle this deck and lay it face down on the hope deck spot. Discard Hope Deck cards face up on the Discard spot. If the hope deck is empty, shuffle the discard pile and place it face down on the Hope Deck spot.

Game Ends:

Players move around the board according to their rolls. Once all the players make it to the end of the board and have to move back to the beginning, this may be considered a day. Once all the players have made it around the board at least seven times, one week, the game ends.

Winning:

Once the game is over each player compares jobs. Whoever has the best paying job of the jobs currently held is the winner. Should multiple people have the same job and that job is the best job currently, the game ends in a tie. Should no one have a job by the end of the game, everyone loses.

Job: Service Clerk
Pay: $7.50 an hour
Description: Stock shelves and ring up customers. Answer phones and get in trouble when crap happens.

Job: Photo Specialist
Pay: $8.00 an hour
Description: Make photos for people. Hope you don’t see something you shouldn’t.

Job: Management
Pay: $10.00 an hour
Description: Run the store and get blamed for everything. Better watch your employees close.

Job: Store Manager
Pay: $50,000.00 a year
Description: They can’t say you didn’t earn your money as you’re always, ALWAYS at work.

Application
Type: Service Clerk

Application
Type: Photo Specialist

Application
Type: Management

Application
Type: Store Manager

Phone Call
Type: Service Clerk

Phone Call
Type: Photo Specialist

Phone Call
Type: Management

Phone Call
Type: Store Manager

Interview
Type: Service Clerk

Interview
Type: Photo Specialist

Interview
Type: Management

Interview
Type: Store Manager

Special
Type: You’re Fired
Description: You have just been fired. You put any job card you have back into the job deck. Good luck job hunting.

Special
Type: Demotion
Description: You’ve been demoted to a lower paying job. Switch job cards. Service Clerks are immune.

Special
Type: Promotion
Description: My god, you’ve moved up in the world. Take the next highest paying job card available.

Special
Type: Missed Call
Description: You missed the call to set up an interview. Discard one Phone Call card from your hand.

Special
Type: Traffic Jam
Description: Oh no, traffic forced you to miss your interview. Discard one Interview card from your hand.

Special
Type: Job Thief
Description: Trade jobs with another player, even if the other player’s job is lower paying than yours.



Well the playtest was a success, it's nearly impossible to get a job, feels realistic to me anyway. But the players agreed that the doubles to get the job was a bit over kill. If I had to redo it, I would follow what Karl said about doing, two evens or odds.

4 comments:

  1. Very painful game to play, to get a job I hated trying to get a double after getting the three cards for it! Was a pretty good game none the less, especially with the whole star wars pieces that we were using!

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  2. While I absolutely understand that your game was made to demonstrate the frustration of not getting a job, I think that it in a way hurt the game because it couldn't just be fun and not frustrating. A few tweaks with the cards and mabye changing the X squares to be unique events and not simply "nothing" squares could be fun.

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  3. Steve,

    I think you did a good job simulating how hard it is to get a job in this economy (or in general...). To increase player engagement from frustration to enjoyment/humor, could you add something for the players to do aside from hunt for jobs? You already have an element of humor there with the characters, and by focusing on humor, you can create a farcical commentary of the whole social issue. This other element should increase player interaction as well as add to humor. Adding more cards might help this. Perhaps even a third deck of 'wild cards' that affect player movement and facilitate card exchange - all with a dash of humor, of course.

    Also - how quickly could players move around the board? Game length might be an issue as well, especially if there is nothing going on.

    I also like the idea of Han Solo as a service clerk. You could create your own characters based on archetypes/stereotypes for the final version (say the archaeological explorer now has to flip burgers and the commando is stuck working at a florist's).

    -Devin Monnens

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  4. I think it was a bit too hard to get a job in this game- it would have been mostly OK if we didn't have to roll doubles to get it once we collected the rare cards!

    Maybe implement a trading thing for just the applications- people can ask people to pick up an application from somewheres for them! It'd make collecting them a bit easier...

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