Regime Card Game: Early Thoughts


Since releasing Suspense: the Card Game, I've been considering a loosely expanded idea for another deduction game that works for more players and has more opportunities for interaction and catch-up. I was thinking about the current mini-trend of vaguely geo-political Hunger Games themed games like Resistance and Coup.

So, this is Regime, in which you are trying to influence the secretive Leader, the true political power behind-the-scenes in a shadowy, unstable body politic. Lure constituents into your bloc so you're in the Leader's good graces by the end of the game.

The Deck
The deck is comprised of 30 cards, divided into five factions (suit). Within each faction, three are considered low-rank (no border around the suit), two are considered mid-rank (circle around the suit), and one is considered high-rank (circle and rays around the suit).

Setup
Deal 6 cards to each player. (5 cards if playing with six players.) The first player chooses one card from his hand to put face-down in the middle of the table, establishing a Leader that determines the victory condition at the end of the game.

Play
Turns begin with the first player taking first turn. On a turn, play a card from your hand face-up in front of you. When you play a card, you may also use the ability on that card, noted by the diagram on top of the card.
  • Trade 1 card between your hand and your bloc.
  • Trade 1 card between your hand and an opponent's bloc. 
  • Trade 1 card between your bloc and an opponent's bloc.
  • Trade 1 card between your bloc and an opponent's hand (random).
  • Trade 1 card between your bloc and the Leader.
  • Trade 1 card between your hand and the Leader.
The game ends when the 1st player has only one card in hand. (Everyone else has two remaining in hand.) Leader is revealed, then players score.

Scoring
You score points by having bloc members that match Rank and/or Faction of the Leader. For each bloc member that shares an attribute with the leader, score the stars on that bloc member. If your card is a double-match, it scores twice.

Strategy
Just like Suspense, it's critical to deduce the "secret card" in the middle of the table in order to score points. You could get lucky and collect a bunch of low-rank bloc members, which is certainly most likely to score, but also scores the least. This makes the game a bit less cut-throat than Suspense, which is very much an all-or-nothing game with a tiny escape valve. Here, deducing the secret card is still important, but you have a bit more leeway since you have two categories in which you may score. You also have plenty of opportunity to manipulate the victory conditions or other players' sets. I'm eager to test this out as a future release in early 2014. We'll see how it turns out!

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 that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more