I'm currently working on a two-player card game, Worm Pullin', and it got me thinking about the differences between a commercial card game and one you can play with your regular deck of cards. You can create a deck for my game using two packs of playing cards (great for prototyping..) and it's starting to work pretty well, but the theme is totally lacking without pictures of earthworms on the cards.
Some games, like Canasta, Euchre or Go Fish, are sold as separate commercial decks, but they aren't really adding anything you can't get from a deck of cards. More similar would be like Lost Cities. It's a really popular and fun card game, however, you can play a decent variant with the standard deck, using each suit for a location, face cards for investment cards, etc.
So, which would you choose, a game you can play with the standard 52 deck of cards with some interesting mechanics, no theme, but free, or almost the exact same game with spiffy graphics and oozing theme, for about $10 - $20 dollars?
Thanks for all the input, it's really good advice. I think I might try some more basic card games, since they would be a good practice in mechanics.
That was the sentiment I was worried about, as that's how I felt when I played Crazy Eights for the first time, "Hey, this is Uno, and it's free." I'll play Uno with a regular deck in a pinch, but otherwise I prefer the commercial deck with it's easy to distinguish cards, wilds and draw fours and such.
For now, I think I'll keep working on Worm Pullin' using cards from the standard deck until I know things are working, but this conversation has made me want to use other specialty cards, like instant worm snaps, or negative pulls, to make it different enough to make it stand on it's own.
If you feel like playtesting it, let me know how it goes.
Thanks again,
Mark