A few weeks ago I posted about a new casual game idea I was testing. Yesterday at the Unpub within Gameholecon I got a chance to try it out further, and thanks to great feedback from Andrew Hanson and Steven Dast the game has progressed and somewhat morphed.

The game was playable as it was, but a few of things struck us as being suboptimal. The betting phase seemed disjointed from the rest of the game, and the goal of a 5-card poker hand seemed restricting. It also seemed difficult to get new cards into play. After much deliberation and some additional play testing we think we addressed the issues while maintaining the heart of the game. I've dubbed the new iteration Trick Rummy.

Rather than being constrained to just two poker hands to receive a payout, in the new game you are dealt 10 cards and have to get at least nine of them into sets. The sets are of the typical Rummy variety; three or more of a kind or suited runs of three or more. This gives the players much more flexibility in choosing what cards to keep.

For the betting phase problem a different mechanism entirely was adopted. In some trick taking games it is common to bid on how many tricks you can take and/or to get the lead. We incorporated this idea in the following way. First, there is an ante. In order to have the game ramp up over time, this amount is based on the number of face up cards any player has on the table. Then the players bid in auction style. Only the winning bidder puts additional money into the pot. They get to lead. Essentially, they are betting how much more likely they will be to win the hand if they have the lead.

This notion was counterintuitive to me. It seems like you'd need the other players to put in money in order for coins to change hands. In practice, however, this system seems to work. Increasing the ante over time will address the free rider problem where people never bid and ignore the whole trick taking aspect of the game.

As far as the set collection aspect, the primary issue was a lack of new cards entering play. It was easy to get stuck in a situation where you need a particular card but just had to wait for it to appear by luck given very few opportunities. To address this, additional cards are added to the draft. The number is equal to the number of players. In addition, drafting continues for a number of rounds equal to the number of players minus one. This is for scalability because with more players there are likely to be more tricks taken during the trick taking phase.

As usual, the resulting game is different from what I would have come up with on my own. However, I think these differences are positive. Having other designers work on an idea with you is a great experience. If you haven't attended a Protospiel or Unpub, you don't know what you're missing!

In my neck of the woods sheepshead is a very common card game. Two things in particular are nice about it: you can play without a whole lot of attention (a "beer and pretzels" game), and it keeps a running tally, so "games" can last hours or even years.

But those same advantages also come with down sides. For mediocre players most plays are fairly pre-determined. Long running tallies mean there is little chance for the loser to catch up, and there is never any logical place to stop other than who dealt first.

To address these concerns I thought about merging aspects of sheepshead with aspects of poker. The average poker player has many decisions to weigh during betting and card selection. The fact that people can go bust means there are natural stopping points to games.

It was with these factors in mind that I started thinking of my latest game (as yet untitled.) My merger game takes the betting and set collection aspects of poker and combines them with the trick taking aspect of sheepshead. To make things more interesting and strategic, a card drafting mechanic is also thrown in.

Here's how it works. The cards are two standard poker decks, jokers included. Players start with X amount of money or chips and maintain an 8-card hand. The game goes until someone has collected a hand with 5 of a kind or a 5-card straight-flush, at which point a payout occurs, and play can continue or end.

Each hand begins by flipping over a card from the top of the deck. Its suit determines the trump for this hand. Then there is a betting phase. The standard ante is one, only one time around, and a maximum bet or raise of three. Players who drop out of betting can still play the hand, but they do not get the payout if they win.

Next, a sheepshead style hand is played. Rather than diamonds and queens/jacks being trump, the flipped up suit is trump. Rather than counting points, the winner is the first person to win two tricks. The winning player is first for the card draft and assuming they stayed in the betting, gets the pot.

The card draft redistributes cards played during the preceding hand. All the taken tricks plus the initial trump card are put face up on the table, and players take turns choosing one. Chosen cards stay face up on the table in front of the player and count toward their hand. This goes for two rounds regardless of how many tricks were played.

Finally, players draw back up to eight total cards including those face up. At some point a player will have collected 5 of a kind or a 5-card straight-flush. All other players must pay them; 5 for the former or 10 for the latter. At that point a new game can begin (not resetting the money/chips), or play can end.

The game has gone through one 3-player play-test, which worked out a few kinks and clarified some details. It also proved to be quite fun and much more strategic than sheepshead. You have to balance playing your powerful cards versus saving them for the big payout. There is also the tradeoff between offense and defense during drafting. But the game still has a "beer and pretzels" feel. Players can skip a hand and still stay in the game, and a losing player still has chances to catch up. There can be a running tally, but there are logical ending points.

Hopefully the game can get a full test next month at my buddies' "Bacon Weekend". There will definitely be beer and probably pretzels. And maybe the jackpot will include some bacon.

Some games, like After the Fall, develop over a long time. Other games, like Bid, Bet, Buy, come in a flash of inspiration. This time, a game has come to me through the serendipitous meeting of someone.

As I've probably mentioned, I spend a lot of time on the chat room at The Game Crafter. I've gotten tons of great resources and started to meet good contacts there. One such contact came into the room the other night looking for partners.

I was intrigued, so we talked about his game, and I really like the idea. First of all, it's simple and has potential mass market appeal. Secondly, it's already been developed and playtested. And perhaps best of all from my perspective, it has an educational component and more possible.

The game play is easy enough for elementary age children to learn. Each player gets two secret goal cards, a continent and an animal family (mammal, bird, fish) and a hand of animal cards. For each of ten turns the players put down an animal and pass the rest of their cards. Points are scored for each card played with bonus points for matching the continent and/or family.

From these basic rules there are some additions, and we've already thought of some alternate ways to play. The key though, is that kids have enjoyed the game in playtesting.

Now my job is to find public domain or Creative Commons art for all the animals and create the Photoshop template and database for generating cards. Now to balance working on this with all the other games I've already started.

A shiny new project. Squirrel!!

Two milestones for Archon Arena were passed today. First, the other day an artist stumbled into the chatroom on TGC looking for work. He was willing to work very cheaply, so I decided it was worthwhile to give him a shot. After being stiffed by two other artists (they offered services and then ignored me when I tried to commission them), I was a little leery, but it has been a good experience so far. The big milestone today is he sent me a preliminary version of the cover art. It's a bit different than my original vision, but I knew it would be. He still has some more to finish, and he's willing to take suggestions, so I'm very optimistic.

The second accomplishment with Archon Arena is that I uploaded the first tutorial video. This one is exactly 3 minutes long and goes through the initial game setup. I shot it quickly using my iPad's camera. I didn't expect much, but the quality turned out to be acceptable, so I went ahead and edited it and put it out. I put it on Vimeo because YouTube really annoyed me. I won't go into that now. Maybe another blog post to rant. :)

The other day I was in the chat room of The Game Crafter, and a couple people started talking about an idea for a mech battle type game ala Battletech but with cards. It wasn't so much the specifics they mentioned but just the theme that got me thinking about some interesting mechanics for such a game. This post contains my preliminary ideas. It may be a bit rambling, so bear with me.

Over the course of the last couple months prototyping Archon Arena and now I Thought There'd Be Zombies!, I've used three different sources for custom cards. Most recently, I set up two decks on The Game Crafter's web site. Here is a mini-review of the process with some comparisons to my past experience with Art's Cow and PrinterStudio.com.

Jay came over last night to test ITTBZ again, and lo and behold, the new cards had arrived!

Rather than individual decks, it was much cheaper to order 216-card decks and manually divide them. This way I got four games' worth for about $11 each.

I haven't compared side-by-side yet, but my first impression is that this run is slightly lower quality than the first, which I got from Art's Cow (and cost $20/game). The colors seem a little muddier or maybe just a bit off. A couple of the cards at the top of the deck were chipped a bit along the edges, and the centering varies a bit from card to card.

We played a match and didn't find any glaring errors, and we also discovered a needed rule clarification. What happens if both people play 'Change Posture'? The ruling was that they cancel each other out, so each player retains their original Posture.

Overall, a productive night. I'm satisfied with the cards, and the price was right. Best of all, they're here in time for gaming this weekend!

Since its inception I've been calling the new card game "Magic War" as a placeholder name. It came from the two main inspirations, Magic the Gathering and War. Obviously, it wouldn't work as a real name, so we'd been brainstorming for quite a while.

I was leaning toward something simple and alliterative like Deck Dual or Card Commander, but Paul suggested having a backstory that inspires the name. I argued that 1) I'm no good at making up such things, 2) I usually find them cheesy, and 3) that could be a subtitle to the regular, generic name.

Then last night I was letting my mind drift on the topic. I envisioned an arena with thin, angular projections pointing up to form a partial sphere over the combat area. I still had no name and kept thinking No Name, No Name, and Nemo ("no name"), which morphed into Nemyne as the place name.

At first then Nemyne Arena was the name I chose. Later I started writing up the little spiel and for some reason I can't recall, the word 'archon' was stuck in my head. I googled its meaning (it being associated with the 80s computer game in my memory) and found it is a Greek word for leader. Thus I settled on the name Archon Arena, where the lords of Nemyne fight fierce battles for supremacy.

It's short, alliterative, has a back story, and leaves room for expansions. After a few days, I think it fits. What do you think?