Air Sloop Board Game Design Journal 13 – Board Game Point Salad

The board game Point Salad inspires Designer Dave Eng to expand end of game scoring in Air Sloop.

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While playing games like Splendor, Century Spice Road, and Reef had influenced the types of games that I wanted to design I was also attracted to other asp sects of games that are emulated in a lot of other designers. One of those aspects is the “point salad” or a term that gamers use to describe games where there are many different ways for players to score points in the game through various different actions.

I really enjoyed this aspect of the game. So much so that when AEG published the game Point Salad of the same name I felt like I needed to include some aspect of the game into Air Sloop.

One of those aspects that I felt particularly intriguing was the end game scoring for my contract cards. As of the current design you could return those cards for points. However, you also had the opportunity to “buy” those cards for end game scoring.

I used this same scoring mechanic for the contract cards in Air Sloop. I emulated the same way that sets of goods; the absence of certain goods ;and the different variants of goods in someone’s cargo hold could help them score points in the end.

By integrating this into the cards already in hand I was able to utilize current components even further. This made me happy from a design and sustainability standpoint.