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Game about the interactions between drawings

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Dapper Orangutan
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Joined: 09/09/2008

I've recently come up with an idea for a card game. It's a combination of multiple ideas I've been kicking around for a while.

Forgive me for the general randomness of this post - I'm mainly just putting my ideas down here for others to look at and comment on. Just remember that this is still very much in its infancy and I've only begun to flesh the idea out. That said, here are my ideas for the game at the moment:

  • The main concept behind the game is how cards interact with each other in a variety of ways.
  • The theme I'm looking to use is everyone playing the game is drawing on the same piece of paper. The drawings are represented by cards and the paper represents the playing area.
  • Here are a couple of examples to better explain my idea:

    A player wants to "draw"/play a Zombie. Unfortunately, someone has already "drawn"/played the Sun to the playing area. The Sun prevents certain cards (including the Zombie) from being "drawn"/played while it's out. To get around this, the player first "draws"/plays the Moon, which removes the Sun from the playing area. This now allows him to play his Zombie.

    Player A has a Village in play. Player B has a Pirate in play and wants to attack Player A's Village. Unfortunately he can't since the Village is not near water. In order for Player B's Pirate to attack he must first play some type of card that represents Water (Ocean, Lake, River, etc...) next to the Village.

  • In addition to the interaction of the cards I want the playing area to be very free-form. It could take up very little space or a whole table, depending on what's been played in the game.
  • The main way I've thought of paying for cards to be put into play is by discarding cards from your hand equal to the card's cost. For example, if a card has a cost of 3, you would have to discard three cards from your hand.
  • All cards would also have a secondary function. When a card is held right-side up it represents a potential drawing (a Pirate, a House, A Baseball). When it's flipped upside down it would have a word written on it (an adjective more than likely) and an effect. Instead of playing the card as a drawing, you could play the card onto another card and use the adjective's effect.

    For example, you have a Pirate but he's not cutting it for you. You have a card in your hand with the adjective "Fearsome" that provides a bonus to attacking. You could play that card onto the Pirate, effectively making him a "Fearsome Pirate".

  • That's what I have so far. Below are the problems I'm encountering at the moment:

    • What is the object of this game? What are the player's trying to accomplish?
    • How do I show possible interactions between cards? Do I use keywords? Symbols? Lots of text?
    • Thanks in advance for any comments/advice!

truekid games
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my first question would be...

my first question would be... how do you integrate the drawing element so that there is gameplay or usability value to actually drawing things, rather than just playing out pre-existing representations of them?

Dapper Orangutan
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Slightly further explanation

Quote:
how do you integrate the drawing element so that there is gameplay or usability value to actually drawing things, rather than just playing out pre-existing representations of them?

I'm going to be honest with and say that I'm not sure.

There are a couple of ways I could go from here. The first way would be the 1000 Blank White Cards route. The end result of that would just be a game of 1000 Blank White Cards with some structure. Interesting but not exactly what I was going for.

The other route is the Scribblenauts route. I'm not sure if you're into video games, but Scribblenauts is this innovative puzzle game in which you are given a task and what you type into the game is created for you to use to complete that task. For instance, you have the cat on the roof and you decide to type in ladder. You could now use the ladder to climb onto the roof and rescue the cat. Or you could type in bulldozer and bulldoze the house down to get the cat off the roof. This is kind of what I'm looking for.

I would more than likely go about this by having pre-created cards that players would use.

Again, this is an idea in it's infancy. And I also have no desire to pursue this idea in the hopes of making money from it. I just want something fun to play with family and friends. I'm not even sure if there's a game in this idea.

isdonisbest
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Joined: 01/06/2010
You could almost have a deck

You could almost have a deck with 2 of every word you can think of, with some suggested "requirements" and "interactions" on them, like "Pirate - needs Water, can Raid" with more options for most cards. Then players can just divide the deck between themselves + 1, so there is one additional "deck" anyone can swap for. That way each player has a large number of options to draw from, and players could swap hands if they want to as well, maybe everyone put cards in and take an equal number back randomly.

Pastor_Mora
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You don't have a game yet, but

You don't have a game yet, but you could, perfectly.

I would use color-coded icons in cards, divided into three columns. For example: Pirate is a black card, it requires a blue card to capture a green card. It is countered by a white card.

Say cards are placed in the table by players one at a time. Once a card is played, you can play another north/south/east/west of it. All cards have a value if captured by a player. When captured, they are removed from the table and kept by players for scoring purposes. The new blank space can be filled by new cards then.

To "capture" a village green card in the table, you must have a blue card (sea) and the Pirate black card next to it, but no white card around it.

To prevent a player from capturing a village, you must place a white card near it, or place a card to remove the blue card (sea) near it. Or, you can lure the player to place his Pirate card and then capture it yourself with your own combo, supposing the Pirate card is actually more valuable than the village card.

I'm hoping this makes sense to you. It's pretty much an abstract, but with themed cards. I like the idea so far myself for the Blue Panther contest, but I just don't have the time to rip you off of it. LOL ;)

Keep thinking!

DARE the Vegetable
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This is just a humble thought, but...

...I think; maybe you should go with another theme? I was a little confused with the word "drawing" in a card game in which there is no drawing, if you get my point.

On another note I think a good objective could be to simply have no cards left in your hand. I know it takes away a lot of depth compared to other options, but it'll be more accessible. In fact, I think it is a very fitting goal as it encurages participation and comboing.

I love your idea! Good luck with it! :D

Clever Mojo Games
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Joined: 04/19/2009
Storytelling

It could almost be like a story telling game. Players place cards in rows and columns that make a story, earning points for the length of the story chain. There could be several rows and columns all going at once and a player would earn bonus points if they make a story row and a story column intersect in a logical way.

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