Famously popular and simple. Famously lacking in strategy - apart from memorising the deck.
Has anyone ever applied house rules to turn a Top Trump battle into a more interesting strategic one? Or does anyone have ideas how that could be done?
It seems like there must be inventive ways to use those cards. I have a couple, but I'm having trouble thinking outside my own box, so any ideas - no matter how simple or radical - would be much appreciated!
Cheers!
But where that lacks in content... The cards seem really detailed... And might be able to be used for other games... I'd personally like to see the stats on the Star Wars cards... I don't know if all the decks are the same, the ones in the video were dinosaurs... And I saw Assassin's Creed... With other stats.
It seems like the game you design will need to be specific to a Deck... Like the Dinosaurs are different from the Assassins... (not the same stats). So you would probably need to choose ONE deck and customize the game for it.
But it may be possible... TBD.
Note: Unless you tell us which deck you plan to use... It's pointless to discuss matters because as I have already stated, the stats on the decks are all different...
See you clearly have an idea about what SET of cards (Top Trumps) you want to use. I don't think no one will be able to help you UNLESS you upload an image of ONE (1) of the cards you plan to use. Otherwise it's pointless because we don't know what stats are on the cards and what is the nature of the cards themselves.
No clue. Why a rondel?! IDK. You clearly seem to have some kind of idea in your mind. But you're not sharing your thoughts. You started with this thread saying HOW you might want to improve the Top Trumps game and now you are linking this with another game design ideas (Muay Thai game).
Personally I don't see it or get it. You need to share more about the cards, stats and how you "might" want to structure the game.
Otherwise it's going to be real hard for us to "read-your-mind"...
I'm NOT frustrated or annoyed. I simply get the "feeling" you are HOLDING back information. Whether voluntary or not, it seems like you are not forth-coming with your ideas.
From the OP, it sounded like you wanted IDEAS for the use of Top Trump cards.
Then in the next post, you tell us you want to use it for your Muay Tai game.
I'm not seeing the CONNECTIVITY. Like I explained Top Trump cards VARY a lot... Their stats are different from one card set to another. If you want ANYONE to be able to HELP in any relevant way, we need to understand what YOU ARE thinking...
And right now, the only DETAILS we have is it's some Top Trump set and it may be related to another Game Idea for a fighting game.
Nobody will be able to HELP because like I said "we're not mind readers". Show us what you've got?! What Top Trumps set are you looking at. And I find it hard that multiple sets are compatible... Why? Because the stats on the cards are so freaken RANDOM... You might find one or two that MAY be a little SIMILAR ... but still not identical.
That's all... To me, you seemed a bit "unsure" about why you didn't want to express more of your own thought process and ideas...
I thought the idea was cool... I figured it might have to do with FIGHTING in some kind of "battle cards" way! That much I figured. But when actually looking at the Top Trump cards (Dinosaurs and Assassin's Creed), I got a very different perspective from BOTH of those sets. They're not compatible, from what I see... Because the STATS are so different, I can't picture anyone designing something that would be compatible with BOTH...
UNLESS (now) from the BGG link, you are proposing something that more or less ignores most of the stats and has it's own style of play (like Hearts).
TBH I'm not even sure they sell these cards in the USA and more importantly how EASY is it to get "older" sets of the cards. Like if the Star Wars set was release 4 years ago... Are they still selling them??? Or do you have to search around eBay to find some pre-owned copies of those cards??
Don't take my tone as being aggressive or combative... I just wanted more information about what you were thinking about... Since I can't connect the dots, because the Top Trumps cards that I have seen, don't seem very compatible with each other...
Thanks for the clarification... You just wanted to know IF anyone else had ever used Top Trumps! A "generic" question.
I took it as "you wanted help about where to go with Top Trump cards"...
Sorry. Maybe someone else has their own ideas concerning these cards.
Note: I just Googled "Top Trumps cards" and found some for Harry Potter, Football, US Presidents, World Countries, etc. None of those seem compatible with each other. That's why I felt like you were withholding information as to WHICH sets you are looking to use for your game... That's all.
From what I have seen is that there is a "Generic" way to play "Top Trumps" (TT) but that you cannot mix cards together (from one type to another). Had they designed something less "informative" and more "game-oriented" well maybe they could have done a sort of "hybrid card".
Here's what I mean: If each card was given a Value and a Suit, you could play the game like a card game. And then you could mix & match ALL the cards made for TT TOGETHER.
But alas that was not how the designers conceived the TT game (or cards for that matter).
Had they done something similar to what I suggested, you could have Values from 1 to 13 and four (4) suits. You could randomly choose one suit as a Trump suite (like in Hearts - the Hearts trump all cards) and values (higher or lower) could control the game. But then this amounts to your average Deck of Cards (Poker deck).
IDK, I don't have any more creative ideas. However TRYING to make the TT sets "compatible" with each other could be a real GOAL. From what I understand this would need to be a completely different type of game and the sets would need to be re-designed for something more flexible and common with each other.
Note #1: I gave the 13 card + suits example because it is easy to understand. But I'm sure there can more creative ways to design an infinite set of cards (Not Dvorak) that have some common logic to how they work. Could be 1 to 21 and you make combinations like Blackjack hands (again something not to polished...)
However I had an IDEA about the 2nd Stat. It could be a VALUE which can be used for SUBSTITUTION. So say you have a "2" (First Stat) and have a "8" (2nd Stat). This could mean that the card is mostly a "2" unless paired off with a Trump suit card (for example).
That's what I THOUGHT you were looking for... But I had no concrete example of what you were hoping to design. My apologies.
Note #2: A bit more about the "substitution" of the 2nd stat. If per the example, you have a "2" and it is normally beaten by all other cards... It may be useless. But IF someone lays down a Trump suit card like "6", the first card (with the "8" in substitution) would win the round. IDK just some thoughts...
I'm sure you can come up with ALTERNATE options for the 3rd and 4th stats and make something more "universally" compatible than TT. I think the idea or having an unlimited deck is interesting. But I fear TT is not the "artifact" to be used to do this. You would probably need to design your own cards with some "compatibility" with EACH OTHER.
Note #3: If you are interested in something more "universal", you should be thinking about categories of values which can allow the cards to behave in various way.
On a side-note, I've seen a guy use a Deck of Cards to be able to play 1,000s of board games. I didn't quite understand HOW(?) but he claimed that the cards could "emulate" various games (Board not only Card).
I wouldn't use an actual Top Trumps deck, but you could certainly make a game using similar cards (ie where each card has a rating in the same set of attributes).
In Top Trumps the ratings are transitive. That is, if card A beats card B in a particular attribute, and card B beats card C in that same attribute, then card A must beat card C in that attribute. This need not necessarily be the case. You could have a 'rock paper scissors' relationship instead.
In Top Trumps you use a set deck. You could have drafting, deck-building (as in Dominion, or as in Magic: the Gathering) and/or bidding for cards instead.
In Top Trumps the stakes are the same in each round, regardless of which attribute you choose. This need not necessarily be the case. You could, for example, have an attribute which destroys the losing card (perhaps thematically representing combat), another making the losing card change sides, another giving victory points, another giving resources which allow the player to buy better cards, and so on.
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Yes, this is it, the game is pretty uninteresting in terms of gameplay, but component wise, it seems like there could be something to work with - a deck of cards with half a dozen shared stats on each...
I'm not worrying about specific decks in this little design experiment. I'm thinking in abstract terms, about what could or might be done with cards of this kind.
Who knows, perhaps it's a pointless investigation? But it seems if you can make hundreds of good games from 4 suits of cards numbered 1-13, there might be something that can de done with a deck of cards, each displaying 5 - say- values.
To Be Determined.