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All Work and No Play

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theycallmered
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Joined: 05/21/2012

I am working on a corporate work/slack card game. It is still fairly basic, but I think the idea is humorous.

The idea is that this game would be fast and funny to play. There is a huge need for transition games like that with the gaming group I play with.

Each player would randomly select a job title card at the beginning of the game. This gives them certain benefits and drawbacks in their goal to finish work while slacking off.
Each job title has a certain number of weekly projects that must be completed. Each player draws the requisite number of project cards. Each project card has a certain level of work that must be accomplished to complete that project.

There are five work days, each divided into two four hour blocks with a lunch break in the middle.

Each hour is one turn per player. During a turn, a player draws one card and then plays a card from his hand.
Lunch allows players to trade in cards.
At the end of the work week, the player with the most slack and all projects complete wins.

Thoughts, questions, suggestions, obscene remarks?

TheyCallMeRed

Horatio252
Horatio252's picture
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Joined: 03/13/2011
Good Theme

I like the sound of this game. Let me ask a few simple questions and end with a big suggestion.

You don't mention what the mechanics are for "doing work" and "slacking off". You say you play a card and draw card during each hour of work. Are the cards levels of work? For example are the cards "2 work" and "5 work"? or are they special effects?

Is there player interaction? if so where?

Here is my big suggestion. When you described the theme my mind went to the "free rider" problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem). I think the game would much more interesting if that was the core mechanic. Players would secretly choose effort cards to submit towards projects, revealing them simultaneously. If at the end of the week (after so many rounds) the effort cards do not sum to greater than the effort required by the project then everyone loses. If the project succeeds then the player with the most effort left in his hand wins. In fact, now that I've written it out I love the idea. If you don't want to go down the free rider route then I think I might take my own idea and run with it.

kos
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Joined: 01/17/2011
Player interaction

It seems that a candidate for player interaction would be through trading jobs with other players, based on the special abilities of each player.

For example, the HR Lackey gets +2 to do People Projects, and the Techno Boffin gets +2 to do Technical Projects. So naturally they have desire to trade projects if they pick up the opposite person's speciality. But if not all projects are created equal (i.e. some require more time than others) then you create the opportunity for some fun bartering. "I'll take care of your Incomprehensible Spaghetti Code and a Donut Run if you'll take my Workmate With Way Too Many Personal Issues off my hands."

Regards,
kos

theycallmered
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Joined: 05/21/2012
Sorry for the lag

I was rushed getting this posted the other day. The basic concept is that you have a series of cards, some cards give you slack points, while others waste your coworkers time. Still other cards give you bonuses to work. The getting work done is the area I am having the most trouble with. I am working on some basic numbers to use for a play test. An example of a slack card is the Yammer! card. Essentially, you waste an hour on twitter, rather than working. This gives you one slack and consumes one hour of time. Timekiller cards interrupt another players action. These are things like a 2 hour long Pointless meeting. That card takes up two turns worth of potential slack or working time. The days are in two blocks of four hours. In between the two blocks of time, there is a "lunch break" that allows you discard x number of cards from your hand and draw that many cards from the draw deck. There are also cards that get you extra cards or uninterrupted working time.

I like the idea of trading jobs or bartering. I had not thought of it. This game was intended to be more a race to get things done while screwing other players. Your card ideas sound remarkably like mine. My favorite of the timekiller cards is Explosive Diarrhea - Lose one hour. "Oh God! It burns."

I plan on having a funny quote on each card to help add to the humor as well.

Haven't had a chance to read that article yet. But I will when I get more time. The end of the school year is always stressful.

TheyCallMeRed

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