Rock climbing themed board game - First Ascent

We are climbers and gamers launching First Ascent, our rock climbing themed board game on Kickstarter spring 2021. Sign up for our newsletter to get updates and get notified upon launch www.playfirstascent.com.

Also check out other climbing games currently available - 5.15 the rock climbing card game  kickstarter.com/projects/fi…;term=5.15 and Mountaineers by Massif Games  massifgames.com/product/mou…

Do you have suggestions of other climbing themed tabletop games?

Hey! I've been mulling over an idea of a board game along the lines of "Setters of Catan", with a Ticket to Ride sort of feel. Small, medium, and large holds are placed per turn on an empty wall/grid, each player has to make an easy route, a medium, and a hard route, based on the size of the holds of each line they create. Cards would allow players to swap out a placed piece (on their route or someone else's) for a larger or smaller hold (a "brush" card would make a hold bigger/easier, a "spinner" card would make a hold smaller/harder, a "dyno" card would allow you to skip a connection, for example). Game board(s) could have sections that show overhands or low angle for easier sections or harder sections as well

Other than motivation to prototype and all that, had some difficulty figuring out 1. How to make the game not overly complex or cumbersome or costly with tons of little, medium, and big pieces that slide around and are different colors.  2. How to calculate whether a route is easy, medium, or hard could be a lot of adding lengths and whatnot. 3. How to let players choose which pieces they can play on their turn (a dice? roll a high number, and you can place a certain size piece anywhere you want?)

Feel free to DM me if you think this is a cool idea and want to work on it! I bought a couple copies of 5.15d, will have to look at First Ascent!

Jacob Mintz wrote:

Hey! I've been mulling over an idea of a board game along the lines of "Setters of Catan", with a Ticket to Ride sort of feel. Small, medium, and large holds are placed per turn on an empty wall/grid, each player has to make an easy route, a medium, and a hard route, based on the size of the holds of each line they create. Cards would allow players to swap out a placed piece (on their route or someone else's) for a larger or smaller hold (a "brush" card would make a hold bigger/easier, a "spinner" card would make a hold smaller/harder, a "dyno" card would allow you to skip a connection, for example). Game board(s) could have sections that show overhands or low angle for easier sections or harder sections as well

Other than motivation to prototype and all that, had some difficulty figuring out 1. How to make the game not overly complex or cumbersome or costly with tons of little, medium, and big pieces that slide around and are different colors.  2. How to calculate whether a route is easy, medium, or hard could be a lot of adding lengths and whatnot. 3. How to let players choose which pieces they can play on their turn (a dice? roll a high number, and you can place a certain size piece anywhere you want?)

Feel free to DM me if you think this is a cool idea and want to work on it! I bought a couple copies of 5.15d, will have to look at First Ascent!

Nice! I'll message you directly. :)   

Hm that is actually nice! I did not even know or think that there are board games related to rock climbing. I was actually thinking about developing a video game that would consist only of rock climbing on different real locations, so that, if you do not have the possibility to visit that location in real life, you would visit it in a video game, which is also nice. I got inspired by the assassin's creed games, and the different historical locations represented in those games. Well, I haven't made that, and now I am only playing online solitaire on the best platform, as my pc cannot do more than that :DD.

The Kickstarter for First Ascent is launching on June 15th. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/firstascentgame/first-ascent