I always have some ideas for games (board, miniature) or modifications to games running around in my head. Here’s at least part of my current idea/tinker list:
Salient – Salient is the name I’ve assigned to each of my successive attempts at rules for my old 6mm Epic line minis from Games Workshop, or anything else living at roughly that scale. In many drafts over the past couple years, I’ve repeatedly carved off big, meaty chunks of complexity. I like the latest version — it’s simple, and it should let me model “people versus cold, heartless aliens” pretty well with minimal fiddliness.
Commands & Colors: Star Wars – Commands & Colors is the basic engine that powers Battle Cry, BattleLore, Commands & Colors: Ancients, and Memoir ’44. As fun and straightforward as it is, I think it would work well with some of the land battles in Star Wars. The assault on Hoth, the battle on Endor, a host of battles from the Clone Wars — it would all work well within this engine. I’d just need to put together some playing pieces and, you know, a full deck of command cards.
Tunable Axis & Allies – The current incarnation of Axis & Allies starts the game roughly in the winter of 1941, just after the American entry into the war. I’d like to have versions “tuned” to different starting times, such as 1939 or even 1936. To do this, you’d need a “war entry” mechanic in the manner of the progress track from War of the Ring that shows how close the various nations are to going on a wartime footing.
MOSPEADA – The ‘human insurgency in alien-occupied Earth’ story told in MOSPEADA would work well, I think, as a card-driven wargame. I imagine that some of the CDGs on the American revolutionary war could be adapted with the most success, although even that has more out-and-out military actions than the MOSPEADA series tended to. A full treatment would model each of the successive attempts by the humans to retake Earth. As the human player, you know the assaults are doomed, but the goal is to cause as much immediate harm as possible and to get motivated troops to the ground, where they can continue to cause problems. I imagine there being a “frustration” track for the Inbit (Invid), showing the Queen’s progressive annoyance with Earth and humans in general. The human goal would be to push this frustration track to some level before all the proactive humans are captured or killed.
Shadows over Couruscant – This adaptation of Shadows over Camelot was suggested in a comment on BGG, forwarded to me by SSO (go acronymns!). The basic idea of the original Shadows is that players play the knights of King Arthur’s round table, going on quests and such — but one of them may be a traitor, secretly trying to destroy the knights. Porting this over to Star Wars, the story would be set during the prequels. Players could play different political figures, or perhaps members of the Jedi council, with one secretly serving the side of the Sith.