Forest Fire - First Iteration

A two player game by Carl de Visser.

Components

- A board is a line of 11 squares (the path). In the first square is the town. The remaining squares represent forest.

- Many red tokens representing fire. One red token is placed in the eleventh square. The rest start off board.

- 11 black tokens, these represent burnt out areas. These start off board.

- Two fire-engine markers. These start in the town (the first square).

- A number of blue water markers, these start off board, or in a drawn lake next to the first square.

- A six sided dice (called a d6 here on in)

The game is asymmetric, one player is the fire. They controls a fire which is growing and is threatening to expand down the board to engulf the town. The other player is the fire chief, they has two fire engines used to rush water to the growing fire to put it out.

The fire player goes first. At the beginning of the game he has one red fire marker in the last square of the path. The players alternate turns.

Fire Player's Turn

The first thing the player does is check to see if the a firetruck is in the same square as a fire marker. If so, it is removed from play.

Then the player has a choice of three possible actions:

1. Have wind gusts blow the fire towards the town. Choose a square with one red fire marker on it. Roll a d6 and subtract 2 from the result. If a positive result place one red marker in a number of squares directly to the left of the chosen square. (So if square seven, was chosen, and a 5 rolled, red markers are placed on squares 4, 5 and 6); or

2. Grow the fire. Place a fire marker on any square that already contain a fire marker; or

3. Intensify the fire. Choose a square and roll a d6. If you roll more than the number of fire markers in this square, add markers so the total equals the dice roll. If you roll the same number as the number of markers in the square then nothing happens. If you roll less than the number of markers you place twice the difference  to squares to the left of the chosen square. You may place them up to the difference in squares away. (For example, you choose square seven and it has 5 markers, and roll a 2. You may place 6 markers divided as you choose into squares up to three spaces to the left, squares four, five and six.) If you get to place six or more markers, then the chosen square also burns out, remove all fire markers from the square and place a black burnt out marker in the square.

After your choice,there may be additional burn out at the end of the turn. If the player has 6 or more fire markers on the board, the rightmost non-burnt out square is burnt out. Remove all the fire markers on the square, and place a black marker on the square.

Effect of burn out: Fire may not be placed on a burnt out square, and wind gusts (choice 1 above) may not cross a burnt out square.

Town fire chief's turn

First, any of the fire engines in the town square (the first one), may load with water. Place water tokens on the fire engines. Each fire engine may hold a maximum of five water tokens. Each fire engine may then either move, or spray water. Complete the action of one fire engine before beginning on the next.

To move a fire engine roll a d6. The engine may be moved up to that number minus the number of water tokens on board the engine. If you roll equal to or less than the number of tokens then it may not move this turn. If it fails to move, you may not then decide to spray water from it.

To spray water, remove as many water tokens from an engine as you choose. For each token removed you may remove a fire token within two squares of the engine.

Fire engines suffer no consequences moving through or stopping in squares with fire tokens, however they will be destroyed if at the beginning of the fire player's turn they are in a square with fire tokens. Fire engines are safe in burnt out squares.

End of the game

The game end when all fire markers are removed, or both fire engines are destroyed.

If the last fire marker is removed and there are less than 8 burn out markers on the board out the fire chief wins. If both fire engines are destroyed then the fire player wins, or there are 8 or more burn out markers on the board then the fire player wins.