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So ENWorld doesn't have a place for a development thread like RPG.net does, but there are some excellent game designers here too, and I'd value any input. Wherefore--Cross-posted from several forums for maximum help.
I’m working on making my own dungeon crawling game to both introduce my four-year-old daughter to gaming and to help teach some math and reading skills to her. I’ll be posting my initial rules builds and graphic design ideas here. The rules are pretty close to the old Dungeon! game, which I didn’t realize until I had finished writing out my basic ideas.
The basic idea is to incorporate very basic math equations for things like attack, defense, damage, and treasure. I’ll also be peppering cards with words to help teach reading and writing. In order to attack, I’m going to make her find the red word and try to sound it out, and then practice writing by copying the word into a journal of sorts.
It’s going to be all d6 based, and randomized modular dungeons that are also built through d6 randomization. I’m attempting to tailor it a little more widely than just for my daughter, as I intend to have it be compatible with four or five players, and to actually have it be a dungeon crawl to earn the most treasure.
COMPLETE FIRST DRAFT
DungeonLand! A game for young adventurers
2-6 players (at least one adult to be Dungeon Planner)
(INSERT TEXT ABOUT LENGTH OF GAMEPLAY—after playtesting)
OBJECT OF THE GAME
To fight monsters and collect treasure, all while learning basic math, reading, and writing, but in a fun new way. The first adventurer to collect 10 treasure tokens wins.
CHOOSING AN ADVENTURER
In this game you may choose to be a Princess, Amazon, Valkyrie, Elf, Knight, or Wizard. There are enough counters included that everyone could all play the same character type if they wanted to. Read the descriptions below before deciding which type of adventurer you want to be. After choosing one, place the counter on the Start Tile.
PRINCESSES: A Princess is smart and has the strongest magic in the game, but is slow to move and has no melee combat ability. She gets hurt easily because she doesn’t go exploring much, and always fights from far away. Each Princess is equipped with a special magic wand given to her by her Fairy Godmother. If a Princess finds herself in a close fight, she always tries to back up so that she can use her wand.
AMAZONS: An Amazon is extremely quick, but only average in melee and ranged combat. She doesn’t get hurt as easily as the Princess because she is fast, but still prefers to fight monsters from far away. Each Amazon is equipped with a bow and arrow as well as a short sword, and she spent many years training in an Amazon school to learn how to use them. If an Amazon finds herself in a close fight, she can use her short sword.
VALKYRIE: A Valkyrie is the strongest adventurer in the game, is average in speed, but has no ranged combat ability. She doesn’t get hurt easily because she goes exploring a lot, and always fights close in. Each Valkyrie is equipped with a great axe that she made herself and spent many years practicing with. If a Valkyrie finds herself in a ranged fight, she will run as fast as she can to get close to the monster so that she can whack it with her axe.
ELVES: An Elf is the fastest adventurer in the game, average in ranged combat and average in melee combat. He gets hurt easily because he doesn’t wear any armor, and usually fights from far away. Each Elf is equipped with a bow and arrow as well as a club, all of which he made himself from trees he planted as a young boy. If an Elf finds himself in a close fight, he can use his club, but he tries to back up so he can use his bow and arrow.
KNIGHTS: A Knight is the toughest adventurer in the game, is slow in speed, but has not ranged combat ability. He doesn’t get hurt easily because he wears a lot of armor, and trains to fight all the time. Each Knight is equipped with a longsword and a shield, and spent many years as a squire before he earned his title of Knight in a tournament. If a Knight finds himself in a ranged fight, he will run as fast as he can to get close to a monster.
WIZARDS: A Wizard is smart and very strong with magic, is average in speed, and has no melee combat ability. He gets hurt because he does go adventuring much, and always fights from far away. Each Wizard is equipped with a spellbook that he made after studying for many years in a magic school. If a Wizard finds himself in a melee fight, he always tries to back up so that he can cast a spell on the monster.
GAMEPLAY
1.The Dungeon Planner controls the Dungeon Tiles. He can decide how he wants to do this, but it is recommended that he not leave it up to chance.
2.As an adventurer moves off of one tile to another, the Dungeon Planner will place the next tile down in place. If the Dungeon Planner runs out of tiles to use, he may recycle unused tiles from the current Dungeon.
MOVEMENT
1.Each player rolls one die. The player with the highest roll goes first and play moves around to the left in a clockwise fashion.
2.On an adventurer’s turn, she may move up to the movement number on her Character Card. The dice are not used to determine movement.
3.Each square on a tile counts as one space when moving.
4.An adventurer can pass over other adventurers, but cannot land on the same space as another adventurer except at the Start or End of the dungeon.
5.When a room is entered for the first time, that adventurer will have to fight the monster who lives there (see COMBAT).
COMBAT
1.When an adventurer opens a room for the first time, he must draw a Monster Card from the Monster Card Pile. That card must be flipped over so all the other adventurers can read it.
2.An adventurer can fight the monster in the room or run away. If the adventurer runs away, place that Monster Card at the bottom of the Monster Card Pile.
3.On each monster card is a word in red. The adventurer who is fighting that monster will try to sound out the word, practicing his reading skills. Other adventurers or the Dungeon Planner can help him if he is struggling.
4.After sounding out the word in red, an adventurer will write that word in his notebook, practicing his writing skills.
5.Once an adventurer has completed steps 3 and 4, he may now attack the monster. If the adventurer is a Princess, Amazon, Elf, or Wizard he can attack from far away. If the adventurer is a Valkyrie or Knight, he must move close to the monster first.
6.Once an adventurer is able to attack the Monster, he rolls one die and looks at his Character Card for the Attack entry. This will be a simple mathematical equation. He solves the equation and then adds his Attack to the number on the die, practicing his math and determining his total Attack score. He will write this number in his notebook, practicing his writing skills.
7.An adventurer will next look at the Monster’s Defense score and solve the equation he finds there. He will write this number in his notebook next to his Attack score. If his Attack score is more than the Monster’s Defense score, the adventurer hits the Monster who gains a Damage Token.
8.An adventurer will solves the equation in the Monster’s Damage score and write that number in his notebook. When the Monster gains that many Damage Tokens, he will run away, leaving his treasure behind.
9.Now it is the Monster’s turn.* The Dungeon Planner will follow the same rules as the adventurer to determine the Monster’s total Attack score, the adventurer’s Defense score, the adventurer’s Damage score, and whether or not the Monster hits the adventurer. If an adventurer gains Damage Tokens equal to his damage score, he will run away.
10.Once a Monster has been defeated by an adventurer, the room the Monster lived in will be considered empty for that adventurer.
11.If an adventurer enters a room where a fight is taking place, he may choose to help fight that monster, or move to a different room.
* A variant rule would allow the adventurer himself to roll for the Monster and would not involve the Dungeon Planner at all.
TREASURE
1.If an adventurer runs away, she leaves one Treasure Token behind. This Treasure Token is considered lost and placed back in the Treasure Token bag.
2.After a Monster runs away, the adventurer who first started fighting looks at the Monster Card and solves the equation for Treasure. That’s how many Treasure Tokens she earns. Place the Monster Card at the bottom of the Monster Pile.
3.If more than one adventurer fight the same Monster, they will split the Treasure Tokens evenly. If there is an odd number of Treasure Tokens, the adventurer who started the fight earns the extra token.
4.The first adventurer to earn 10 Treasure Tokens wins!
5.Game play can be lengthened or shortened by a simple matter of changing the number of Treasure Tokens needed to win.
As a final note—this game can be easily modified to account for growing learners by increasing the complexity of the math equations.
After a first read through, everything looks really interesting. I like that Princesses get their magic from a wand their fairy godmother gave them Has that story-kernel-of-truth ring to it, with a little innovation. Stuff like that and how the elf made his bow and club from a tree he planted when he was young are nice details that make your game "work".
I'm not sure how thrilled kids would be with the mechanic of adding/writing, at first it's cool but once they know the answer it becomes more of a memory game than a learning one. I wonder if either rolling a simple d6 and adding it to the number will help? Perhaps a bonus if they get it right and no penalty if they get it wrong if you want to have some positive reinforcement. For this reason, perhaps there shouldn't be attack rolls so much as damage ones...just food for thought. (Another idea is that, if you use an attack/damage system, if they miss, they get a token of some sort that represents 'concentration' or something, and they can trade in 2 of those tokens to automatically hit, in case their rolling isn't that great )
If you do go with a mathematical equation for attack and such, how about if you make their "character sheets" into a sort of cardboard block, and at the bottom there's slots where you can slip tabs in with a picture of whatever equipment they're using, along with a number to go with it. That way, they always have a static number (Princess has Close Attack Power 1) and one that changes every time they get new equipment (Princess has Fairy's Wand with Close Attack Power 2)-on the sheets, it'd look like 1 + 2, with them being able to add it up on their own.
I hope my ideas make sense, it's hard to explain without some sort of representation
Good luck with your board game, hope your daughter loves it!
__________________ From 'The Third IR':
Creamsteak - What do you think of Sollir?
Darkness - My guess is that he's an opportunistic munchkin If that's good or bad is an entirely different question, of course...
From 'A Game of Opposites':
Janos - The above challenge is open to everyone except Sollir, because I know he could kill a 20th level Wizard with a 1st level commoner ... somehow.
Neat idea! As a small suggestion, you might remove the number from the monster card, and move it to a separate "treasure" card, so that the player can fight monsters with math, but gains treasures with reading skills. This probably gives you slightly more replay value, if that's a worry, but it's also a slight reward mechanism.
As it stands, you do a reading exercise to earn the right to fight the monster, and then kill it with math.
This way, you get to do battle as soon as it appears, thus encouraging more excitement -- and can claim its treasure (vocabulary) for yourself.
Plus, there are a lot of vocabulary flash cards already on the market, which you can use as a physical treasure token. Just keep them face down to make your adventurer stay honest when transcribing
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'd write a longer response, but with ENWorld being so sketchy still, I'd be afraid to lose my post to the etherweb.
Just a short response to kids "wanting" to do the reading/writing/math...at least with my daughter (almost 5) that hasn't been an issue in the various playtests we done. She seems eager to get through it and honestly seems to enjoy learning the math and counting on her fingers. Sounding out words and the phonics involved is less fun for her, but she's actively resisting learning to read right now. I think that is starting to change a bit, and I'd like to think the credit goes to the game.
I'm still working on art (not being an artist it takes me awhile) and the card design, but the tiles are done (for the most part), the rules are almost set, and it's just working out the numbers (for instance, adding 6 + 6 is hard since there aren't 12 fingers...) to make it a little more manageable for younger kids. Once I get that done, I'll be looking at ways to expand it for older kids. I'd like to grow this as she gets older until about age 10/11 when I think we can move into proper RPGs.
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Has that story-kernel-of-truth ring to it, with a little innovation. Stuff like that and how the elf made his bow and club from a tree he planted when he was young are nice details that make your game "work".
If that's good or bad is an entirely different question, of course... 
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