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Cardgame idea (needs feedback!)

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emanoelmelo
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Joined: 09/28/2009
Quick and dirty design just to explain the card types.

Hello again, guys!

I took a time to improve the game based on everybody tips but had to shelve it for a few months. Now I'm back to try again, this time with a little more reference about Press-Your-Luck games that uses cards and not dice. I've mixed up all my previous ideas, new ones and a bit here and there, this is the result:

THEME:
In this game players are creatives working on the Creative Department of an Advertising Agency, struggling to get on the top for fame, power and, of course, money. But I'm going for a satirical approach, with gags and sacarsm...

GOAL:
2~4 players
Each player's Character will need a certain amount of points from one of these categories: Portfolio, Awards and Ego. You collect those points drawing from the play deck or stealing from other players. Whenever you have the character points and NO Stress Points, you win.

SETUP:
1) Character Cards are dealt secretly, one for each player.
2) Shuffle Ideas, Resources, Events, Creatives and Briefs. This will be the playing deck.

CARD TYPES:
Ideas: Worth Portfolio Points. They also can be helpful resolving Briefs.
Events: Worth Ego Points. They also can hold special text to help you or smash your opponents plans.
Briefs: Challenges that you must deal with immediately using other cards. When you complete them, they worth Award Points. When you fail, they worth Stress points.
Creatives and Resources: Use them to complete Briefs. Creatives represents teammates and each one shows one of the SYMBOLs: Art, Copy, Code and Production. Resources are everything you can use on the creative process, like computers, programs, books or even coffee :)

Each card (except Creatives and Briefs) also provides a Time value, which is used to get rid of the Stress points in the future.

GAMEPLAY:
1) The player shuffles the play deck.
2) The player spends the necessary amount of time to get rid of any Stress he has on his side.
3) If this is not one of the first rounds, the player probably has some cards on his hand. The player can choose any number of these cards and bring them to the next phase. The remaining cards are put aside until the end of the turn.
4) The player reveals the first card and resolves it. He can end his turn at any moment or can keep going revealing cards until he reveals a card saying things like "Reveal at least 2 more cards and end your turn" or "Your turn is over, skip the Next turn as well". If a Brief card is revealed, the player must resolve it and his turn is over (failing or succeeding).

RESOLVING THE BRIEF:
Each Brief card shows a VALUE and a SYMBOL. Player needs to equal one of those to resolve the Brief. Do that using the cards you bought with you: Creatives, Ideas and Resources. Creatives can equal the Brief SYMBOL, Ideas can equal the Brief VALUE, but if they don't you can use RESOURCES and add to it's value. Example: Bob revealed a Brief card that shows a Code symbol and a value of 7. Bob don't have any Creative card to solve that Brief, but he has an Idea with the value of 5 and a Resource with the value of 2, which together sums up to 7 and the Brief is successfully solved.

If the player succeeds, he can take to his hand all the revealed cards, including the Brief. If the player fails, discards all revealed cards, the selected cards he brought and the Brief is set aside on this play area, now counting as a Stress card (the Stress value is shown at the card's bottom).

Anytime a player uses Ideas or Resources to resolve a Brief they must discard that cards, even if it's successful. Creative cards are kept unless their text says otherwise.

DISCARDING STRESS:
Players must get rid of all Stress before declare victory. If they get 5 Stress cards, they lose the game. To discard a Stress card, the player just need to search through the cards on his hand and look for the Time value on their base. He chooses enough cards to equal Time vs Stress value from the Brief card and discards all of them. This process is made in a way that the other players don't see what cards you are discarding. Discarded cards are always put on the bottom of the deck.

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OTHER IDEAS:

1) "DEAL" CARDS: These represents an extra goal common to all players. "Deal" cards are shuffled separately, one is picked up and put where every player can see. This card names an extra card you must have to win, like "Exclusive Office, Yate trip with the boss, All the money can buy" and so on (they can be a Resource, Event or Idea). Then you take all the remaining "Deal" cards and shuffle with the play deck. When a new "Deal" is drawn, this card replaces the initial Deal and stays there for anyone to see.

2) CHARACTER POWERS: All the characters could have a special power that could be used only once but the player must reveal the character to others. These powers could do things like "remove all Stress from all players", "ignore if you couldn't complete a Brief."

3) Maybe I should invest in "chain" effects, like when you reveal a card that interacts with other cards on the row in a good or bad way.

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Attached to this post is a very quick rough of each card type to help clarify the rules.

That's it! Any comments, suggestions and tips are really appreciated!

NomadArtisan
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Joined: 12/12/2011
Have you thought of just

Have you thought of just making it 'players are competing at the office to get a promotion'
something more generic. This could play off of the popularity of "The Office" TV show. Also, many people have a negative view of advertising media, so using it as a theme could be a subliminal turn off.

emanoelmelo
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Joined: 09/28/2009
hey Nomad thanks for the

hey Nomad thanks for the reply. I'm going for a satirical approach, with gags and sarcasm...The target player of this game is the casual player, usually who works or used to work with advertising. It's supposed to be fast-paced so people could play during the lunch break or something...

ckleach
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Joined: 02/26/2013
Satirical take on ...

I like the idea. Pin pointing a niche theme is a double edge, as you know, but it's what gives the game a specified depth. The gags and jokes and media commentary will probably not fly over everyone's head, but there are enough people in that sort of business or who understand the business enough to get it.

I've always like the idea of an Office-style game, but a general blue collar office game is played out. Advertising, telecom, product studio themes make it fun. This gives me an idea to create a card game about working in IT. Now developers and IT specialists can share in the topsy turvy world that is InfoTech.

When you start playtesting, let me know. My wife was in advertising in university and work shortly after. She may enjoy playing this.

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