Plantation 2011

A card game developed for the Quick Print and Play Design Challenge. Players take on the role of colonizers seeking to establish plantation empires in the new world. Adroit placement of sugar, tobacco, gain, indigo, and coffee plantations will yield rich harvests of gold and victory points. But watch out: native empires and geographic barriers such as mountain ranges may confound your efforts.

The game is played with a deck of game cards and several kinds of tokens (all of which can be substituted with generic game components such as poker chips). Each card represents a colony, complete with several plantations. Players take turns "discovering" colonies (collecting cards), "settling" them (playing cards into their play area), "harvesting" from them (collecting VPs), and taking other actions intended to construct the most effective plantation society. The key to the game is to place cards in such a fashion that plantations of the same time are adjacent to each other. Harvesting from these chains of like plantations yields enormous bonuses in victory points.

But watch out, for there are obstacles to overcome. Harvesting is not cheap, and players must generate the income necessary to produce. Additionally, geographic barriers cost gold to overcome, while native empires diminish harvest chains. And pirates lurk nearby, waiting to disrupt the plans of even the cleverest colonial planner.

In the end, the player who most effectively builds and harvests will win the day.