Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
the bill of role selection. The idea that you can increase the effectiveness
of one role for everyone, not just yourself, is something that would pos-
sibly open up a game to all kinds of new dynamic, interesting decisions.
Card Games
Examples:
Poker, Rummy, Crazy Eights, Contract Bridge, Cribbage,
Tichu
Probably
every
genre I've listed in this section utilizes cards. Here, I'm
defining
card games
as those that use a 52-card deck (sometimes called a
poker deck
). Within this classification there are several other subgenres:
partnership games, betting games, solitaire games, children's games, and
many more.
There are literally thousands of different games that can be played
with the same deck of 52 cards—it's fascinating how much flexibility this
system has. For this reason, a deck of cards is a great tool for teaching
game design (I use card decks when I teach game design to children).
There are also some games, such as
Tichu
and
Haggis
, that use a minor
variant on a 52-card deck. The fighting card game
Yomi
also uses a 52-
card deck, but with a lot of extra information added.
Be Suspicious of Convenient Numbers
If you're developing a card game, and it just so happens that it works
with exactly 52 cards, in four suits, with three types of face cards, etc., be
wary. In short, what are the odds of this actually being the optimal setup
for your game? It's like a unit in
StarCraft
with exactly 1,000 horsepower;
you can't help but feel that the amount of power might just have been a
ballpark guess, as opposed to the exact balanced level of health for that
unit.
First, experiment with a half deck. Experiment with two or three
decks. Experiment with taking out face cards. Experiment with adding
in 17 completely new, unique cards that you made up. Playing cards are
convenient, but don't let them hold you back.
Abstract Games
Examples:
GIPF
game series,
Arimaa
, Go, Chess, Checkers,
Hive
In some ways abstract games are the best games you can play, hands-
down. Their almost total lack of theme allows the mechanisms to be ex-
tremely rich, deep, and elegant. The absence of theme also means that
there's a pretty firm cap on how inherently complex an abstract game can
be, because it's theme that helps us understand more complex systems.
