Nine Lives Casino: the Feline Gamble

ANNOUNCEMENT

Hello, one of the creators here. This Instructable is linked to my school account which will be deleted soon. Download the PDF if you'd like to save the designs. Thanks!

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Hi! We're a group of four from Piedmont Hills High School. Our teacher challenged us to use the engineering design process to create an educational entry to this contest. In response, we designed a board game called "Nine Lives Casino: the Feline Gamble" that teaches players risk management and financial skills. When we faced difficulties brainstorming original ideas, we researched existing games to decide what type of game we wanted to create. Mario Party 8 stood out to us because it was fun to play over and over again, so we decided to bring it into physical form but with a twist: gambling and cats (we love cats).

Software

Autodesk Fusion 360: design parts

MakerBot Print or another slicing software

MakerBot 3D printers or another 3D printer

Adobe Illustrator: design board components to CNC

Laser cutter: Cut board pieces

Materials

Wood board with a thickness of ⅛ inch

Paint (and brushes): pink, red, yellow, blue, and white

PVA glue: attach wood parts together

PLA: different colors to print four cat figurines, 33 hearts, a bunch of sardines and puffer fish.

Fish

Each fish was designed to be 1 inch in length with an extrusion of 0.1 inches. Their widths varied depending on the type of fish. The fins on the fish were designed using the slot tools.

Hearts

Each heart was 0.75 inches tall, with the arcs being 0.25 inches in diameter. The angle between the two lines creating the vertex was 90°. It was extruded 0.15 inches.

Dice

Each side of the dice was 25.4 mm x 25.4 mm and extruded 1 in. Starting at 1 heart, the dice goes up to 6 hearts on one side. The edges and corners were rounded using fillet. The hearts were 5 mm in height, with the arcs being 1.5 mm in radius. They were cut 1.6 mm inward.

Cat Figurines

Choose a variety of different cat poses so that players can choose their favorite. Each cat fits the maximum dimensions of 1in x 1in. Arms and legs were made with loft or sweep tools. Use a fillet tool to smooth out any rough edges that don’t touch the ground.

Board

The board is cut into fourths. This way, it is easier for printing, as well as storing away when not in use. The tiles and circle are extruded downwards. One fourth of the board in Fusion is 15 inches. When put in a printing software, it is scaled down to 7 inches.

Each object was printed with PLA except for the board. The board was laser cut from a piece of wood. 

Items printed:

50 small fish

50 large fish

31 hearts

4 board pieces (make sure to print four pieces of the same board, in CAD it is only ¼)

Layer the top and bottom sections of the board until all pieces fit together. Mark the squares with pencil. Label one corner space white, two middle squares pink, and label the rest blue or red. After mapping out the squares, paint them accordingly. Apply a layer of mod podge to seal the paint and add a sheen to the board. Once dried, glue the sections together. Label the quadrants with the city names below or choose your own and their difficulties.

Lore

You died. But now you’ve got a second chance. Earn nine lives to prove you’re worthy.

Objective

Be the first to purchase nine lives from the shop to be reborn!

Items

Cat figurines act as markers.

Hearts cost 24 points.

Sardines are worth three points.

Puffer fish are worth six points.

Spaces

Blue: gain one small fish.

Red: lose one small fish.

Yellow: bet points according to city value

Pink: pay 21 fish for the help of a spirit. Choose another player to steal from. Roll the dice. Odd rolls steal hearts. Even rolls steal 12 fish.

White: start point and shop to buy starts

Cities

Each city represents different difficulties; each difficulty will have different gambling rates and tile values.

EASY - Bay 101: point tiles (red and blue) are gain/lose three points. Gamble up to six points. One, three, four, and six win.

MEDIUM - Oceanview, Wiliwili Habors: point tiles are gain/lose six points. Gamble up to 24 points. Choose odd or even as successful roll.

HARD - M8trix City: point tiles are gain/lose 12 points. Gamble up to 30 points. Roll a one or a six to win.

Rules

Each player rolls the dice to decide player order; highest number goes first.

On your turn, roll the dice and move spaces accordingly.

Your action depends on what tile you land on.

Once you reach or pass the white tile, you can buy as many hearts you can afford.

Keep making your way around the board until one player gets nine lives and wins!