Kalapaniikki (Fish panic)

A remote wintery village faces a tragedy as their long-time fisher suddenly dies. As the village is self-sustained with limited connections to the outside world, they need to find a new fisher soon. A player takes the role of a villager who is eager to take the newly open position. But to do this s/he must beat the competition on convincing the village population about who should get the position.

-------------------------GAME ELEMENTS-------------------------

The backpack

The backpack is where most of the gameplay will happen. At start, the backpack is a 4x5 grid which can be upgraded one by one up to a 5x5 grid during the game by buying the backpack upgrades (see the store). The backpack has limited space to fit the fishing gear (the ice drill and the ice fishing rod) and the fish you manage to catch so the players must carefully think which fish they should fit into their backpack. (HOX! The player must always carry their fishing gear with them so they cannot leave the gear to the lake to fit more fish)

Upgrading the backpack happens by bending a desired slot down allowing the use of one extra slot. (In the image, the left board is upgraded once.)

The equipment tiles

There are two types of equipment available, the fishing rods and the ice drills. At the start of the game, the players choose from the starter gear (the gear which consists of five squares) and as the game progresses, the players will be able to upgrade their gear and buy the other gear consisting of 4 squares.

The shop

The shop consists of 4 four items. Three of them are random fishing gear and the last one is an extra slot to the backpack. An item can be bought from the shop by exchanging 4 fish that the player has caught for the item they desire. Once a fishing gear has been bought, a new gear is picked at random from the remaining gear. An exception to this is the extra slot to the back, which can be bought multiple times.

The decks of fish

There are three decks of fish depicting the three different lakes near the village with unique fish distribution in them. The fish that can be caught from that lake can be seen on the backs of the decks. In some of the fish, there are some constraints (the upward arrows) that show which way up the fish should be packed into the backpack.

The fish tiles

There are tiles corresponding to each fish shape. Once a player has drawn a set of 3 fish cards, they take the corresponding shapes in front of them and try to fit them on to their board (respecting the constraints if the cards have some, see "The deck of fish")

The fish state board

Each time a player manages to fit a set of fish into their board, they get those fish which are then put on the first slot of their fish state deck. At the end of a round, players move all their fish one slot to the right. The state deck tells the condition of the fish (1 means fresh and 5 almost rotten) and once the fish is moved off of the fifth slot, the fish gets spoiled and must be thrown away.

A deck of villager quests

The villagers test you to bring them a variety of fish that are listed in the cards and the player who first manages to fulfill a quest, gets the card to keep track of their victory points (see winning the game). At the start of the game four cards are drawn and each time a quest is completed, a new one is drawn. Thus there are always 4 quests available.

-------------------------PLAYING THE GAME--------------------------

Setting up the game:

1) The gear

Each player will get to choose a set of starting gear for themselves. The villagers have decided to give the fishing gear of the old fisher to the players so they must decide who gets which.

There are 3 ice drills and 3 ice fishing rods to choose from (the ones consisting of 5 squares) so players must decide an order in which they will choose the gear. The player who picks an ice drill first will be the last to pick the ice fishing rod and the second player will pick both pieces of gear second and so on.

2) The backpack

At the start of the game, all of the extra spaces in the backpack are bent up giving the players 4x5 grid.

3) The quests

There are always four (4) quests available and every time one is completed, a new one is drawn from the deck. Thus there will always be four quests available.

4) The shop

From all the shop items, 3 items are randomly selected to the shop and also a token depicting the chance to upgrade the backpack is placed there.

The gameplay loop

One turn in the game represents one day in the game world. 

1. At the start of the round, players plan the day's activities, i.e. what equipment they will take with them and where they will go fishing (i.e. from which pile they will draw cards). At this point the players put their fishing gear (the fishing rod and the ice drill) into their backpack. 
2. Players then draw 3 cards for themselves and take the corresponding fish tiles in front of them. 
3. The player then tries to fit as many fish as possible into their backpack and they get to keep all the fish that fit. The player must respect the constraints stated in the fish cards. After the player is done placing the fish, they must say “DONE” stating that they are done placing the fish.
4. The player takes all the fish s/he has fit into the backpack and places them into the first square on the state board. 
5. After a day's fishing, the player can still visit the shop and exchange the fish they caught for new gear or fulfill the villagers’ quests. The players get to do these things in the same order they finish packing the fish.
6. Lastly, players move each fish in the state board into the next slot.

Winning the game

The player who first manages to get seven (7) victory points by fulfilling the quests given by the villagers wins the game and is elected as the official fisher of the village.

------------WHAT DO YOU NEED TO PLAY THE GAME-------------

At its current state, the game is played partially with real pieces (the backpack, the state board, the fish and equipment tiles) and partially with electronic devices (the decks of fish and the deck of villager quests). 

You will need to craft from cardboard or bit stronger paper (or just print and cut) the items according to the printingX.pdf files. (For three players, print every file once except the printing4.pdf twice). 

The backpack pieces (5x5 grid) should also have 4 one square deep cuts on one side to account for the ability to upgrade the backpack. (see section “GAME ELEMENTS, The backpack” for reference).

You are also free to customize the cards with the art of your liking (see section “GAME ELEMENTS, The Equipment tiles” for inspiration).

You should also download the card sheets and card backs for using the cards. We used Tabletop simulator for simulating the deck of cards.

---------------FUTURE-----------------

1. The gameplay video coming soon^TM
2. Balancing
3. Make the theme of the game more visible through some more (not yet fully implemented) gameplay elements and proper art
4. Make full physical copies of the game for the team