Category: Game Ideas

My theme is BUGS. I did not see the idea formatting rule at first, so feel free to ignore the other stuff unless you want to see the idea elaborated on.

1. Sting! (not sold on the name) is a card game in which players compete to be the last one remaining by stinging and biting players with bugs.
   • In this card game, players use bugs to bite or sting other players. ___ # of stings and you die. Bites would have different effects than stings, so stings are more lethal. Think of this game as the Bang of bugs. Like Bang, I think that it would be fun to have a card that means certain death that gets passed around, like a black widow card. Some other cards could involve players developing allergic reactions that makes them less resistant to be able to take medicine to combat stings. Some roles or characters could include an entomologist, bug collector, exterminator, and a curious child. This would all have different advantages and effects, but unlike Bang, players don’t need to figure out each other’s roles and base their strategies upon that. 
2. The Lamp is a board game in which moths (the players) compete to earn the most points by landing on spaces and collecting cards, being careful not to advance too far and touch the lamp.
   • In this game, players play as moths trying to get as close to the lamp as possible, without ever actually reaching it or they will be eliminated from the game. This board game has a board that is similar to your standard follow-the-path-to-the-end board game like Candyland, but you don’t actually want to reach the end. Players accumulate points based on the different spaces that they land on on the board and a winner is determined by whoever has the highest number of points at the end of the game (think Game of Life). Players choose themselves when they want to stop playing. For instance, if they feel like they don’t want to risk rolling the dice and potentially reaching the lamp, they can choose to end the game for themselves right there, but they won’t earn any more points. What makes it a little more challenging is that there is two dice—one normal 1-6 die and one with different actions on them. These different actions will indicate a number of things, some of which will force the players to move more or less than what is indicated on the number die. The player who gets the closest to the lamp without touching it will be awarded special bonus points at the end of the game. 
3. Kitchen Antarchy is a card game in which chefs (the players) compete to earn the most points by cooking dishes and containmating other players’ dishes with bugs. 
   • Kitchen Antarchy is a card game where players must try to cook dishes while trying to stop other players from cooking dishes by contaminating their ingredients with bugs. One of the components of this game are ingredient cards. Both sides of the card show the food ingredients. However one side is contaminated and the other is uncontaminated. To cook a dish, players must slowly add ingredients to a pot, only allowed to place 1 each turn. This gives the other players plenty of time to contaminate their dish. Depending on the specific dish being cooked, the dish can be completed despite an ingredient or two being contaminated, however those dishes are worth less points at the end of the game. The game ends when one player has cooked 7 dishes, but the winner is points-based. 
4. Bug Collector is a card game in which players compete to complete their bug collection first by collecting bugs that fit certain requirements for their collection.
   • This is a card game where players race to complete their bug specimen collection first. There are certain requirements to their bug collection like they most have one arachnid, one moth, etc. These requirements are player specific and are determined by randomly dealing requirement cards to players. When players collect an insect, they can play it by placing it on their own board. I’m open for suggestions about how player  can possibly obtain these cards in a unique way to make it a little more interesting and challenging. I see this more as a “cozy” game, if that makes sense. 
5. The Game of Lice (pun on Game of Life) is a board game in which lice (the players) compete to reproduce the most by navigating through the life of a louse.
   • The Game of Lice involves playing as a louse, with your goal to be to reproduce as much as possible to terrorize the heads of unsuspecting humans. Playing off the Game of Life, the houses would be the heads of humans. You need a head before you can start reproducing. Also like the Game of Life, there would be so many “egg” squares where you get lice children. Whoever has the most lice at the end of the game wins. Some spaces and cards may set your lice population back such as a failed lice treatment. 
6. Mothopoly is an economic board game in which players compete to have a monopoly on their collection of bugs] by collecting sets of bugs.
   • Obviously a play on Monopoly, instead of collecting properties, you would collect different bugs or moths. I’m not entirely sure what the other spaces like “Free Parking” or “Jail” would be called at the moment.
7. Invading Insects (repost w/ some elaboration) is a legacy board game in which the players collaborate to stop the invasive bug species from taking over by killing bugs in strange but effective ways. Some of these weird methods could include blasting them with music, spraying them with hairspray, using a hydraulic press, a Saw trap for bugs, etc. 
8. Garden Sabotage! (repost) is a card game in which gardeners (aka the players) compete to have the best garden by planting plants and sabotaging others with bugs.

1. Harmony Quest is a cooperative puzzle game in which players work together to solve complex puzzles by combining their unique abilities and using the game’s interactive environment.

2. Galactic Rescue is a space exploration game in which players collaborate to repair and upgrade their spaceship by gathering resources, solving engineering challenges, and coordinating their actions to ensure a successful mission.

3. Mystic Guardians is a fantasy adventure game in which players team up to protect their realm from dark forces by using magic spells, strategic planning, and character skills provided by the game.

4. Survival Syndicate is a cooperative survival game in which players collaborate to build and maintain a shelter, gather resources, and fend off environmental threats by utilizing tools and crafting systems within the game.

5. City Builders United is a city-building simulation game in which players work together to design, construct, and manage a thriving metropolis by sharing resources, planning infrastructure, and tackling challenges collaboratively.

Art School is a card game where players must collaborate to create a piece of art that fulfills a specific category. However, the difficult part is that only one player knows the category, for example, “Mythical Beast” and the player who knows the category can only give one-word hints. The drawing must be done in a quick passing style, with the player who knows the category only getting 10 seconds to draw, as the round progresses, each player gets 10 more seconds added until 3 minutes is up. After the time is up, players must write on a separate paper what they think the category was, and the closet gets a point.

The Journey is a tile-placing game in which the players will randomly select a role in which they must work together to escape an area (the tiles) think escape room, but it is super small, and each player has a different skill and ability, like players who pull a ‘water’ role card can move things on the tile that are blue. The tiles are around 1’x1’ and have a multitude of random obstacles that limit players from passing through and only certain players can move certain things. This game is meant to go off the saying “It’s not about the journey, it’s about the friends we made along the way”

Convince Me! Is a card game where players must collaborate to convince the “Founder” player to fund their creation. The players who are the “Makers” are given a spread of 10 cards face down that all have bizarre pictures of creations on them, the creations are machines or products that aren’t real, and the cards contain 3 things that the creation can do, players who are “makers” must pick ONE card and ONE of the purposes of their creation and convince the “Founder” The players who are the “Makers” must agree on one of the cards to pick, and can ‘reselect’ their creation based on voting in the group. The collaborative part begins when players must agree to the different prospects of their creation, and they must agree on when the price for their creation is fair.

Stow Away is a fast-paced card game where players are split into two teams, the stowaway and the security. The game is set up with one side sitting across from each other. The setup begins with one side taking a ‘place card’ for each player and that will be where they are hiding. The place cards have a picture of the hiding location, a visibility score of 1-5 (1 being out of sight and 5 being practically out in the open) and they have a perk written on them that explains the abilities positive and negative of the spot. The security players’ setup begins with receiving their specific security roles as well as their ‘location cards’ that will give them a general location that they are securing. The idea of the game is for the stowaways to remain hidden without causing suspicion and for the security to find the stowaways before the cargo is delivered. Through the gameplay, stowaways will attempt to help each other hide by giving up their hiding spots, creating diversions and distractions, and staying completely silent! For security, they will team up to search larger areas, use perks like flashlights and search dogs to find clues and find the stowaways, all while openly communicating the whole game!

Trial by Combat is a board game with four corners where players must compete in a rock-paper-scissors style fight to cover the most spaces on the board with their color, the winner will not only need to have the most color on the board but also be able to beat at least 2 other players in combat to win the game. The rock-paper-scissors comes into play as each player will have a draw pile and discard pile where they will pick up three cards with random items, food, tools, and animals that they can use to win a battle, an example being, drawing a lion card, and being able to beat sheep, pig, and deer cards, versus picking a pig card, and beating a stew card, versus picking a stew card and being a freezing cold card. The list goes on!

1. GoCook is a card game in which chefs (the players) face off to make the biggest feast by collecting ingredients to build recipes.
2. Dare the Deep is a Push-Your-Luck game where the deep sea divers (the players) must compete to collect the most ocean treasure by risking their treasure and oxygen tanks to dive again.
3. Dynasty is a simulation/education/strategy game where players can explore the consequences of political actions by joining or creating a nation, work your way up in rank, and set political goals (conquest, environmental, etc)
4. A Pirate’s Pact is a strategy game where each player is a pirate fleet that must conquer the seven seas and collect pirate booty by exploration, deception, alliances, and more!
5. Renaissance is a roleplaying game where each player is assigned an archetype (artist, inventor, merchant) and must work their way up in the kings court by using their resources, according to their skillset, trading, and alliances.

Amber Holt

1. House Hustle (originally Fixer Upper; name donated by Chat GPT) is a card game in which real estate investors (aka the players) compete to earn the most money by renovating and reselling houses.
   • OR ALTERNATIVELY: House Hustle (originally Fixer Upper; name donated by Chat GPT) is a card game in which real estate investors (aka the players) collaborate to renovate houses before they are condemned by using incredibly specific building materials and tools.
2. Afterlife Errands is an adventure(?) board game in which players collaborate to stop ghosts from overtaking the mortal world by completing the ghost’s strange and wacky errands. 
3. SOS: Shipwrecked is a survival (?) board game in which a ragtag shipwrecked group of people collaborate to be rescued from an island by completing specialized tasks unique to each player’s character and role. (Game idea inspired by Giligan’s Island)
4. Invading Insects is a legacy(?) board game in which the players collaborate to stop the invasive bug species from taking over by killing bugs in strange but effective ways.
5. Hectic Holidays is a party(?) game in which holiday-anticipating players collaborate to pull off successful holiday celebrations by completing various holiday-specific tasks like decorating and cooking food or else the holiday is RUINED.
6. Garden Sabotage! is a card game in which gardeners (aka the players) compete to have the best garden by planting plants and sabotaging others with bugs.

GAME IDEAS
1. Shooting Stars: The Card Game

Overview: Over several rounds, players construct teams and employ strategies to outperform their rivals in this strategic soccer card game.•

Goal: Utilizing player, tactic, and action cards, score more goals than your rival

Play: Each player puts together a team of eleven cards, consisting of defenders, forwards, midfielders, and a goalie, each with a different set of talents and abilities (e.g., speed, strength, playmaking). Attack, midfield control, and defense are the phases of the match that each turn symbolizes. To make decisions, players select cards from a deck of tactic cards that represent attacking maneuvers, defensive arrangements, etc. Dice rolls and player stats are combined to determine the outcome of goal attempts; players can use cards to alter the result (such as “Power Shot” or “Perfect Save”).

Winning: Following a set of goals, the player with the most goals wins

2. ORION OPS: FPS Card Battle

Overview: A fast-paced card game inspired by FPS battles, where players must balance offense, defense, and resource management to outgun their opponent.

Objective: Reduce the opponent’s health to zero using weapon, equipment, and tactic cards.

Gameplay: Players build a deck that includes weapon cards (e.g., rifles, pistols, grenades), equipment cards (e.g., armor, shields), and tactic cards (e.g., “Flank,” “Headshot,” “Heal”). Each player starts with a set amount of health, and the goal is to use their cards to deal damage while avoiding or mitigating the opponent’s attacks. Weapon cards have varying damage and range, requiring players to think strategically about positioning and timing (e.g., a “Sniper Rifle” card might do high damage but take longer to play). Players can “reload” or use special “Power-Up” cards to enhance their strategy.

Winning: The player who reduces the opponent’s health to zero first wins the game.

3. Kingdom Tales

Overview: This game is based on the famous Ghanaian folklore, where players take on the roles of different characters attempting to outwit each other to gather the most wisdom.

Objective: Players compete to gather “wisdom points” by playing tricks, telling stories, and completing challenges inspired by Anansi’s cleverness.

Gameplay: Players begin by selecting a character from Ghanaian folklore, each with a unique ability that represents their skills in trickery (e.g., Anansi, the Spider, can steal points, Kwaku can charm others). The game is played in rounds, with each player drawing from a deck of “Story” and “Trick” cards. Players can use these cards to challenge each other, perform tricks, or avoid being tricked. Special “Wisdom” cards offer insight or solutions to avoid getting tricked, while “Obstacle” cards introduce challenges like the “Bola Bird” or “Tortoise’s Slowdown.” Storytelling is a key aspect, where players must narrate short tales based on the cards they play, adding a creative and cultural twist to the game.

Winning: The first player to collect a set number of wisdom points (e.g., 10) wins the game, symbolizing the accumulation of Anansi’s wisdom.

4. Anansi’s Web of Tricks

Overview: Anansi’s Web of Tricks is a fast-paced, trickster-themed card game where players take on the roles of characters from Ghanaian folklore, each with unique abilities.

Gameplay: Initial Hand: Players are dealt 5 cards each (from the Trick, Action, and Number card decks). The remaining deck is placed face-down as a draw pile, and the top card is flipped over to form a discard pile. Character Abilities: During their turn, a player can choose to use their character’s unique ability once per round to help discard cards or sabotage opponents.

Winning: The player who successfully discards all of their cards wins the round. If multiple rounds are played, keep track of scores, and the first player to win three rounds is the overall winner.

5. Temple Path

Overview: Be the first player to reach the center of the temple by strategically placing path pieces that guide your character toward the go

Gameplay: The board starts completely empty, with a temple center marked as the destination. Players must build their own paths to reach the center. Players must connect their starting point to the center by placing path pieces, one at a time, according to the cards they play. Paths can overlap or intersect, and players can attempt to block or reroute opponents 

Winning: The first player to create a continuous path that leads to the center of the temple wins the game.

Apples to apples college addition– basically the green cards would still be the same but the red cards would be things or events that would relate to a college kid.

Who does it best, so you think– each player draws a card from the deck, reads it out, whever the cars applies to the best they give the card to that person. However, another player can challege it by trying to do whatever it is better.

Luck of the draw– Each player draws a card from the deck, each card has a task for the player. You never know what the task may be or what problems it my cause, Goal of the game is to have to most prize cards at the end of the game.

Who am I?– There are 2 seperate decks or card, one being: People and the other: style/personality. Each player when it is there turn will draw a card from the people deck. The card will have 5. Different people’s names/ personalities. The other players have to use thier style/personality cards to describe the person they choose without knowing who it is. The person who’s turn it is then has to decide whose card best matches.

Is this the truth or a lie? – Each player when it’s their turn has to draw a card from the “prompts” pile. The prompt will say something to share with the group, the player can either choose to say a truth or a lie. The other players will then have to decide whether they are telling the truth or a lie. Wrong answers have consequence. Each wrong answer results in picking up a card from the “lie” pile and following the instructions on that card.

1. GoViral. Inspired by the card game “New Phone. Who Dis?” There are picture cards and caption cards. There could be potential for music cards (scan to get music) but that might overcomplicate the game. The logistics of the game could be flushed out but basically funniest post (as voted on) wins that round.

2. A game based off Uno. The goal of the game is to not win or lose. The winner and loser must do a challenge or dare decided upon by the rest of the group. The cards could be changed to reflect this twist.

3. FLUXX: harry potter edition. Completion of the spell to win

4. Based off of GoFish but all of the cards are a type of ingredient. There are recipe cards as well. Players must collect ingredients to make recipes. The recipes are worth different point amounts.

5. Investigator – A detective game. All players are dealt profile cards with different abilities. There is one Traitor. Everybody must else must figure out who the traitor is depending on the actions played in game.

5 Ideas for games that can be played using cards:

• “Greater Purpose”

Each player has a card that has an item on it that has a common purpose. When each player (3-5) receives their card, they will not see it themselves, but all the other players will. One at a time, each player will try to explain to other players what their card is in front of them, without simplifying its purpose. An example: a butterfly, can be simply described as a flying creature, or you can say, it’s summer’s pollinator (See we can mistake it for a bee, but that’s the butterfly’s greater purpose)

• “Absolutely Not!”

(I don’t know how gambling games work, so leave me alone!) In this game, each player wants to attempt to get the amount of 21 in their hands, but the catch is that other players can go and either steal or give the other player a card. If the player they want to steal from doesn’t want to risk going too high or too low, they say, “Absolutely not” and then the player sitting next to them is now the one getting stolen from or they will receive a card.

• “Cards Against Humanity, but we let people who aren’t in the game play!”

Nothing is more fun, and possibly embarrassing than being caught with a raunchy card while playing cards against humanity by the unsuspecting person, so why not play the game, then when it’s your turn, you must run out into the hall and ask the first person you see to pick your card. *Bonus points if they think it’s funny or look at you like you’re an awful person.

• “Dixit, but it’s reskinned with our art”

We would either try to be so nice to each other, and go “oooh” or “ah” when seeing each other’s art, like seeing the cool stuff Reese comes with, or snicker and snide like the comments between Evan and Gideon when they argue about each other’s talents and who sucks more (you’re both great shut up) and we’d forget how to play the game, but in the end, it would be so fun to single handily describe each other’s art with single words

• “Bang!” but it is media arts-themed and it’s called “Collab!”

The characters are the professors from the media arts department, each having their taught skills, such as, Professor Ames’ talent is in game design, so when you play as his character, you can receive a bonus when you pick up a “collaboration card”, allowing you to collaborate with more than 1 player. (The collab card replaced the “Bang!” card because we don’t want our professors committing in mass murder of their colleagues) The goal of the game is to take out the player who is playing as “Finals week” because nothing hurts the artsy creators collaborative spark more than grading final exams!

Amber Holt

1. Fixer Upper – To start the game, players are dealt one house card that is to be flipped and sold. Each house card has unique requirements to fix the house to be sold. Players are also dealt X number of cards that have either resources or the required item to be fixed on them. I think that the game could either be played where you collected resources to ultimately trade for the desired requirement card or you just obtain requirement cards through drawing cards or action cards. A die would determine the course of action of a player’s turn, with symbols that represent different moves that can be made on that turn (This feature is inspired by the Bob Ross Art of Chill Game). There may be some actions that players can take every turn, such as drawing or playing one card, in addition to the action rolled on the die. Action cards would spice up the game a little bit and throw out little twists that could include actions that are already on the die or swapping hands with another player. Players can work on up to 3 houses at once, but start off at 1 at the beginning of the game. Players are not allowed to have more than one house at once until their first house is completed and resold. A new house card can be drawn randomly from the house deck of cards if designated on the die or on an action card.
   • Whoever sells X number of houses first wins OR whoever reaches X amount of money profited first wins (think having a game piece that moves along a spectrum of numbers, increments of 10,000, similar to the points mechanism in DiXit and Bob Ross Art of Chill Game)
2. Art Collectors (Billionaires Purchasing Art) – 
   • Art masterpiece cards (that don’t resemble other pieces of art to avoid copyright issues): Below the painting on each card is the art description plaque that lists relevant details such as how much the art is worth, it’s period or movement (Renaissance, contemporary, etc.), the year/years the artwork was created, and maybe a little made up artist name for funsies
   • Players bid on pieces of art by laying face-down a combination of up to 3 Asset cards (cards that represent wealth but are just random objects that a rich person might own like Yacht or Personal Jet). Each Asset Card has a number of points that correlate to the value of the object (not the same as money). If all other players do not choose to bid (after the first player who is bidding has already laid down their bid), the bidder automatically claims the art masterpiece card and all of the Asset cards are discarded. If another player bids on the same art card, the player with the highest bid wins (the total number of points when adding all cards layed down). In the event of a tie, the auction closes, and that art card is discarded. 
   • Collection objective cards are how a player scores points in the game. These will say something like “collect one artwork from the Baroque period) or “collect one artwork that has a value of $X”. Depending on how difficult the collection objective card is, points earned from completing collection objective cards will vary. 
   • Like my Fixer Upper Idea, and the currently existing games DiXit and Bob Ross Art of Chill, players would have a token that represents them that moves along a spectrum of points, with whoever reaching the end of the spectrum winning. 
3. The End of the World Game – solution cards and catastrophic event cards. (I wrote this down the other day and I need to think more about how this would play) 
4. Language Go Fish – same mechanics to go fish, but instead of grouping cards with the same number, you have to group cards with the same theme. This could be in a different language to help people learn a new language, or it could be in English with more difficult themes to decode (like NYT Games’ Connections). In the more difficult case, I think there would need to be a guide of sorts of possible group combinations, but I don’t know how that would work in actuality. 
5. Bug/Plant Garden Game – You want to collect bug and plant cards to develop a healthy garden ecosystem. The bug and plant cards could potentially have different rarities that correspond to points. You would have to plant a plant card into your garden as a turn, but bugs would automatically enter your garden. Some bugs can have beneficial effects and others can infest your garden and mess everything up. I think it would be fun for there to be an opportunity where players can share plants with each other or even plant bugs in others gardens to mess them up. I see this game having action cards or an action die that makes players do certain things on each turn. The goal of the game could be determined by garden objective cards that make each objective unique each game, such as collecting this plant, this plant, and this bug. 
6. Card/Word Game – Included is an (almost) standard deck of cards. However the name of the value of the card is spelled out on it to represent what letters can be used to create words. The value of the card is also equal to the points that can be obtained when using the letters. Formed words are written down and the points are tallied for that specific word and any unused letters from the card don’t get to be used and the card is discarded. I’m still working on the end goal/objective for this. (I think I just came up with an overcomplicated version of Scrabble by accident) 
7. No One Wants to do the Dirty Dishes – Players must make food throughout the game using different food items, dishes, and utensils and their goal is to make the most food items (or get the highest score). The problem is that the dirty dish pile can get to be quite large. It acts as a discard pile when the food dishes are made but plates must inevitably be cleaned so that they can be used to make food again. The dirty dish pile penalizes players who wash the dishes and they can’t make food during that time but if the dishes aren’t done no one can get points and make food. There are consequences when the dishes aren’t done. 
8. Matchmaker Card Game – Inspired by random match maker flash games on girly websites from my childhood and Tomodachi Life’s silly matchmaking. There are cards of different partners or characters and they all have different interests and characteristics. To be considered a match, interests must line up to another card meeting the condition card currently on the table. A condition card could say something like people interested in tennis and heavy metal can’t form a relationship at this time, but they must match with being cat lovers. The goal of the game is to be the first person with 7 matches made. This game would involve having a hand of character cards, drawing, and discarding like most other card games.