As every boardgame which we like a lot, the Game of Innovations has its rules too, very similar to all the other rules of the classic board games. Lets take for example rules of very classic board game, game of the year 2007 – Power grid.
1. Contents
- 1 two-sided board: Germany / U.S.A. with scoring track, player order and resource market
- 132 wooden houses in 6 colors: 22 per player
- 84 wooden resource tokens: 24 coal (brown), 24 oil (black), 24 garbage (yellow),
12 uranium (red) - money (in Elektro)
- rules sheet
In our cases the contents are the current market situation:
- Board is the market the company is operating
- Wooden houses are all the available competitors on the market and their current and future position
- Wooden resources are pretty much the resources of people, systems, advertising places, etc.
- Money are the same in the boardgame as in real with the same importance
- Rules sheet is the official rules that the companies needs to obey – regulation, legislation, etc…
2. Goal
Each player represents a power company, which works to supply electricity to cities. During the game, each player buys power plants at auction, buys resources to produce
electricity in those power plants, and builds a network of cities to supply with electricity from his power plants. In the end, the player who supplies the most cities with
power wins the game.
So simple. But do the current companies have always the goal? Ofc, being the leader in central and eastern europe…. etc. But leader in what? Most players? Most active players? Cheapest acquisiton price? Best product? Best customer loyalty? Smoothest user journeys? Most innovative approach? Hmmm…
3. Preparation
- Place the board in the middle of the table, choosing the side you wish to play on. The map is separated into 6 areas, each with 7 cities. In each game, the players
choose which areas they will play in. We recommend one area per player. Of course, the areas chosen must be adjacent. During the game, every player can play in
all the chosen areas. - Each player takes an overview card, the wooden houses of one color and 50 Elektro.
- Each player places one of his houses left of the 1 on the scoring track and one on the player order. At the beginning of the game, players draw lots for player order.
- The large spaces at the bottom of the board represent the resource market. At the beginning of the game, place 3 coal on spaces 1 to 8; 3 oil on spaces 3 to 8; and 3
garbage on spaces 7 and 8. None of these resources is ever placed on spaces 10 to 16. Place 1 uranium on each of the spaces 14 and 16. Thus, at the beginning of the
game, the cheapest coal costs 1 Elektro, the cheapest oil costs 3 Elektro, the cheapest garbage costs 7 Elektro and the cheapest uranium costs 14. During the game,
players will place new supplies of coal, oil, and garbage on spaces 1 to 8 (up to a maximum of three tokens of each per space), and a maximum of 1 uranium token
per space on spaces 1 to 16. - Place the remaining resources as a supply near the board.
- Take the power plant cards numbered 03 to 10 and place them near the board in two horizontal rows. These power plants are an array of 2 x 4 cards (the power plant
market). In the upper row, place power plants numbered 03 to 06 in ascending order, left to right, beginning with the least expensive; this is the actual market. In the
lower row, place power plants numbered 07 to 10 in ascending order, left to right; this is the future market. When players add new power plants to the power plant
market, players rearrange all power plants in the power plant market in ascending order with the 4 cheapest plants in the actual market. - Remove the »Step 3« card and the ecological power plant number 13 from the card deck, shuffle the remaining power plant cards, and place them face down as a
supply stack near the board. Place the »Step 3« card face down under the stack and the ecological power plant number 13 face down on top of the stack.
Bit too long I know, but sooo important. And we have seen during our past experiences companies that had all the contents ready, had set the goal, but didnt focus the right time for preparation and started to run, unfortunatelly wrong direction. Havent done the important market research and analysis. Havent decided on the best strategy taken in consideration all the aspects of the market – strenght of the competitors, where do they stand on the board, the availiable resources, and havent thought about the backup plans if the main strategy fails.