Love Me Not [In the Lab]

Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces Yesterday I tweeted a little idea for a mechanic:
"Always one step behind" idea: 1st Turn: Choose card, place face-down. 2nd Turn, and on: Choose, place again. Then reveal prev turn's card.
Whenever I toss out a little idea like that on Twitter, it's a fast way to find out if that mechanic has been used elsewhere. Turns out this one is the central mechanic of the Killer Bunnies franchise. It's also present in the 1960s game Nuclear War and more recent game Wings of War.

Gosh, that's a rather blood-soaked legacy for this mechanic. I wonder if there is a way we can take it somewhere less violent. I've got variable values on my mind this week, so let's start there with a little parlor game. I'm popping this into the Boardroomers February Game Design Contest as well. I call it...


LOVE ME NOT
Okay, I'm a day late for a Valentine's themed game, but the them is pretty loose anyway. This game is  inspired by wistful romantics plucking flower petals while muttering "he loves me, he loves me not."

In this game, players will take two cards, accepting one into a tableau and discarding the other into their own discard pile. Scores are based on suits in tableau multiplied by suits in the discard pile, so choose wisely!

Components

SETUP
The deck is comprised of 2-5 and J of each suit in a standard playing card deck, for a total deck of 20 cards. You also need three cubes, which are used to note the winner of each match.


PLAY
Each player takes turns simultaneously.

Example of a complete first turn.

  • FIRST TURN:
    1) Draw two cards.
    2) Choose one and say "he loves me." Place this neatly in front of you face-down. This is the start of your TABLEAU.
    3) Place the other card haphazardly face-down to your side and say "he loves me not." This is the start of your PILE.
Example of game in progress, through turn 4.
  • NEXT TURN, AND THEREAFTER: Repeat as above. Additionally, reveal your chosen tableau card from the previous turn.
Example of end of game.
  • FINAL TURN: Repeat as above. Additionally, both players reveal their final chosen tableau card simultaneously and reveal their discard piles.

END OF MATCH
The match ends after five turns.


SCORE
You score all cards in the following manner.

(number of [SUIT] in your tableau) X (number of [SUIT] in your pile)

So, if you had two hearts in your tableau and two hearts in your discard pile, you'd score four points from hearts. Repeat this for diamonds, clubs and spades.

Then you score bonus points for jacks in your tableau, in the following manner.

(Jack of [SUIT] in your tableau) X (number of [SUIT] in opponent’s pile)

So, if you had a Jack of spades in your tableau and your opponent had three spades in his discard pile, you would score 3 points from this jack. Repeat for each face card in your tableau, even if they're part of the same suit.


VICTORY
The player with the most points wins the match. The first player to win two matches wins the game.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has...
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results tha...
Read more

One Thing to Avoid in Game Design

Image
When game designer Paul Peterson was interviewed for the upcoming Titans Series of games from Calliope Games, there was one segment at 1:55 that really caught my attention (emphasis mine): "A couple years ago I was teaching people how to play Guillotine and I hadn't played in a while. The first thing I did was say, 'The first thing you gonna do when you open your game is you look through this deck and you take this card.' I pulled out the Callous Guards card and threw it over my shoulder. Everybody laughed. I said, ' That's the biggest mistake I ever made as a game designer in my life.'" Oof. Those are strong words. What's the big deal? For context, the game Guillotine is all about collecting the heads of French nobles during the revolution. There is only one guillotine, with a line of nobles waiting for their grim fate. On your turn, you play action cards to change the order of the line, then take the Noble card from the front of the ...
Read more