Blog - Weekly Game 1: Creature Battles
Saturday, January 10, 2009Introduction: In this game, players build creatures with their cards and engage each other's creatures in battle.
Players: 2+
Materials:
A standard deck of playing cards. (Alternative: use two decks)
Setup:
Shuffle the deck and deal three cards to each player. Leave the remaining cards as the draw deck. Leave space for a discard pile next to the draw deck.
How to Play:
On a turn a player must make one of these three actions:
1.) Play a card from their hand on their own creature, and draw a new card.
2.) Play a card from their hand on an opponent's creature, and draw a new card.
3.) Engage in battle with an opponent's creature.
Creatures:
Creatures consist of three cards: a head, a body, and feet.
The players should agree on a system for how these parts should be arrainged.
For example, cards could be arrainged as a vertical column, with the top card being the head, the body card in the middle, and the feet as the last card, closest to the player. Alternatively, players could have a specific way each card is positioned (heads laid down vertically, body's horizontally, feet diagonally, etc.)
Most importantly, however, these cards should be laid face-down on the table, so other players cannot see them.
A player can look at his own creature cards at any time, however.
Creature Construction:
Spades are used to build heads.
Hearts are used to build bodies.
Clubs are used to build feet.
Diamonds can be used to build any of the three parts.
Cards from a player's hand may be played on any creature as a new part.
Parts played on a creature that already has a part of that type (i.e. playing a spades card on a creature that already has a head) will replace the existing part.
The old part gets discarded into the discard pile.
In other words, a creature can only ever have one of each type of part.
When playing a diamonds card on an opponent, the player should specify which part the card will assume (as a head, feet, or body.)
Example:
At the start of the game, player 1 does not have any parts, so she plays a 5 of clubs on her creature to add feet. Player 2 has a 3 of diamonds in their hand they do not want, so on their turn they play it on the player 1 creature's feet. Player 1's creature now has a 2 of diamonds for their feet, and the 5 of clubs is discarded to the discard pile.
Battles:
If on a player's turn they have a complete creature (a head, body, and feet), and an opponent also has a complete creature, the player may choose to battle that opponent's creature.
Players may not play a card AND battle in the same turn.
When a battle is initiated, both players flip over all three of their creature cards.
Each part is compared with that of their opponent, with higher numbers winning (Aces are high). Compare head vs head, body vs body, and feet vs feet. The best two out of three wins.
The winning creature is set aside by that player as an indication that they have earned one victory, and the losing creature is discarded into the discard pile.
In the event of a tie, both creatures lose and are discarded.
Both players can then begin to build a new creature in subsequent turns, but keep their hands.
Example:
Player 1 feels confident that she has a powerful creature, and so on her turn chooses to battle player 2. Both flip over their creature cards.
Player 1's creature has a king of spades for the head, an 8 of hearts for the body, and a jack of diamonds for the feet. Player 2's creature has a 9 of diamonds for the head, a 10 of hearts for the body, and a 7 of clubs for the feet.
Player 1's creature wins, because although it's body is weaker (8 vs 10), her creature's head and feet are more powerful than player 2's creature.
Player 1 keeps her three creature cards off to the side to indicate she has won one victory, and player 2's creature is discarded.
Winning the Game:
The first player to earn 3 victories wins the game.
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Designing the game:
When David did his designs, he stuck with materials players were likely to have around, which I agree is a good idea. I knew I had a deck of cards around and hadn't made many games using it, so i thought I'd give it another try.
I'm also very interested in the idea that gameplay often stems from forms of play we enjoy as children, so I'm trying to explore for now game ideas based around such forms of play. The one that spawned this particular game was the concept of an exquisite corpse, which I remember doing now and then as a child.
The resulting game doesn't feel much like one though, and grew into something else.
The most notable hurtle in the process of creating this first weekly game is playtesting. Creating at least the first iteration of a game is not that difficult. It can easily be done in one sitting. In fact, I had this game's basic design done when I created my first entry on my resolution to do weekly games and had intended to post it then.
But what took all week was getting people to playtest it and provide feedback, revise the rules and experiement with new iterations. I now forsee that process as the tricky part to this weekly challenge. I'll have to ask David how playtested his Sunday design games were.
In any case, I first playtested this game by myself a few times, solitaire, and loved some of the interesting patterns and dynamics that emerge. I particularly like how players can cooperate to defeat an opponent: one player can play an awful card on an opponent so the next player can battle that opponent at an advantage. That players are forced to act with limited information gives the game an interesting, somewhat poker-like feel when it comes time to decide whether to battle or not.
The game still feels like it was not playtested enough, however. People suggested alternate variations that would be interesting to experiment with if I had the time. In particular the flow of this game is a bit odd as it builds up to an intensity when players are ready to battle, but afterwards things die down until people are ready to battle again. This is an issue that would be nice to try and address. But alas, the week is up already and my deadline is here, so like all games, it must be released.
Labels: weekly game
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 1:29 PM
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