Squirrels! is a collaborative collecting game in which players (as a scurry of squirrels) must help each other complete tasks like raiding the bird feeder and annoying pets, in order to collect enough nuts to last them through winter hibernation.
BFFs is a collecting and card game where you must win a hand of war in order to receive and collect friendship points and dominate your friend group.
Robots vs. Monsters is collecting game where players must collect both mech parts and mech compatibility points each round in order to create a mech capable of destroying the monsters.
Granny Squares is a competitive collecting board game in which grandmothers must collect more yarn than each other by moving around the board before the sale at the craft store ends.
Library of Alexandria is a fast paced card game where players must try to collect enough books (cards) for their collection to survive once a fire (burn card) is revealed.
Short Game: Pull 13 cards (one each from 2-A) from each deck and shuffle them together to make a deck of 52 cards. Set the remaining cards aside. Split the deck evenly between the players.
Long Game: Shuffle the four decks together into one large deck, then split evenly among players.
Objective
Be the last person with cards.
Actions the players take
Two players at a time flip over and reveal the top card on their deck. The highest card value wins all the cards in the round. The captured cards are set aside to be reshuffled into the deck when all current cards in the deck run out. Play will rotate one space per round. For example in a game with 3 players: the first round would be Player 1 vs. Player 2; the second round would be Player 2 vs. Player 3, the third round would be Player 3 vs Player 1, and so on.
Color Bonus: Red (+1) -> Blue (+1) -> Yellow (+1) -> Green (+1) -> Red
If there is a tie in card value, players will reveal two cards that are now part of the prize pot, and the final tie-breaking card. Whoever wins the tie-breaker wins all of the cards from that round.
Ending the game
If you run out of cards, you are out of the game. Only the person with cards remaining is the winner.
Examples
Round 1. Player 1 vs. Player 2. Player 1 revealed a blue 8. Player 2 revealed a red eight.Value of player 1’s card: 8. Value of player 2’s card: 8+1 (color bonus)=9. Player 2 wins the round.Round 2. Player 2 vs. Player 3. Player 2 revealed a blue Queen. Player 3 revealed a yellow Ace.Value of player 2’s card: 11+1 (color bonus)=12. Value of player 3’s card: 13. Player 3 wins the round.Round 3. Player 3 vs. Player 4. Player 3 revealed a red 4. Value: 4. Player 4 revealed a green 3. Value: 3+1 (color bonus) = 4. Tie case.Blue 6, red Ace, red King, yellow 2 revealed as part of prize pot.Player 3 revealed a yellow 7. Value: 7. Player 4 revealed a blue 8. Value: 8+1 (color bonus)=9All cards from the round go to Player 4.
Ronin, Delaney, and I played photosynthesis, the game about growing your trees to get points. It was a little strange at first, especially with the rotating sun mechanic, but I feel like it only took a round or two for us to get how the game worked. I had a lot of fun just trying to block the other two’s actions and generally planting my trees in annoying, obtrusive spots. Delaney grasped the objective pretty quickly and immediately went into gaining points. It was about 3/4 of the way through the game when we realized the rules said you could not use the same space in the same turn, which we had been doing. Despite Ronin’s monopoly on the four leaf square in the middle up to that point, Delaney ended up having the most points and winning. I of course had the least amount of points, but the greatest amount of ‘nyehehe’ energy.
Ames gave us a wee version of Carcassone to play afterwards. This one was really hard to understand because we didn’t have the rules in front of us, Ames kept getting pulled into other games, and we only had about 25 tiles. However, we did have fun collaboratively making a city in the shape of male genitalia before the game was over.
Mercy is a card conversation game where one person is the king and the other players are peasants affected by various afflictions (based on the cards they draw). The peasants must appeal to the king for mercy and aid in their plights. The king awards mercy to one person (the winner of the round), everything is rotated so there is a new king, and the next round starts. The person with the most mercy points at the end wins.
What a Drag is a card conversation game where the players must create a drag stage name for a drag queen/king based on the word cards in their hand, and then debate who has the best stage name of the round. Whoever has the most ‘best stage names’ at the end wins.
Married in a Hurricane is a card conversation game where players must create an absurd situation for two people to get married in based on the word cards in their hands. The person with the most absurd idea wins the round, and the person who wins the most rounds wins the game.
Phone Numbers is a card conversation game where players must use the letter cards to spell out the end of a phone number (ie. 1-800-96-TWINS) and explain what that phone number would be for. The best phone number/explanation wins.
Toppings is a card conversation game where the judge pulls a card that has something that can have toppings on it. The players must decide what toppings will go on the item based on the word cards in their hands, and the judge picks the most (or least) appealing.
Much Ado About Nothing is a turn based strategy game in which characters must work together to get Beatrice and Benedick (lead characters, NPCs) to fall in love by ‘cornering’ one of the leads and spreading rumors. If you spread x number of rumors, the lead is in love. Both leads must be in love before the wedding of Hero and Claudio (after x amount of turns), or the game is over.
Three Legged Tag is a physical game in which the players must work together to collect and tie up everyone who is free by running after the free people whilst tied up three-legged-race style. If a free person is tagged, they get tied onto the leg of one of the taggers, who then continue chasing non-tagged people.
Lavastones is a physical game in which a group of scientists must all cross a stream of lava by maneuvering the limited number of ‘stones’ that are safe to walk on into a path for everyone to cross.
Squirrels! is a resource-collecting game in which a colony of squirrels must collect enough nuts for winter hibernation by helping each other hit certain milestones or goals on the board (hitting a milestone or goal gives you x amount of nuts).
Matchsticks is a card game in which each team of two players must get to a certain point total before any other team by playing off what their partner has already played.
This week we focused on collaborative games. My group (Mia, Delaney, and myself) first played Pandemic with Professor Ames’ help to set up. We didn’t read the character cards, but rather just picked the colors we wanted and went with the corresponding character cards. I had the contingency planner, Delaney had the medic, and Mia had whatever the dark green character was. In terms of acts, it took us a bit to get a hang of the rules, even with Ames helping us out. We finally got into the swing of things after 4 or 5 rounds, which leads us to act 2. At this point, we had cured but not eradicated two of the viruses and we were really getting into the swing of things. We were working as a team to try and get the other two cured… when we ran out of draw cards. Which Ames gleefully told us meant the game was over and we’d lost.
None of us realized that lose condition for the game and were, understandably, shocked and upset. Ames asked if we would play Hanabi, but the three of us unanimously decided to play again. This time, we read the character cards and talked it over with each other to decide which roles would be the best. Delaney stayed the medic, Mia was the scientist, and I was the dispatcher. We were able to get into it a little better this time, and thankfully those stupid epidemic cards all came up relatively early. It took a round or two to fall into our new character roles, but then we were off. We had cured but not eradicated three of the viruses when we all simultaneously realized there was only two more draws worth. This started act 3, and though we tried valiantly in our last two remaining moves, we did not win.
In the last fifteen minutes or so of class, we picked up Hanabi. This also took us a bit to figure out because a) the board was circular and b) neither Mia or Delaney had ever played chess before, which Hanabi is based on. I think we got a decent way through the game in ten minutes before just packing it up and leaving class as it ended. I am unsure that I would play that game again, unless it was with people I knew had played chess before.
(1.1) If the game revolves around being the size of a nanometer, I would include a mechanic that lets you change your size. This could be done with a dice roll that determines how many powers of ten you can change your size (up or down). This change in size allows you to access things on the new scales that you need to collect in order to win.
(1.2) I am making games that I would play with my friends on game night.
(1.3) I have several close friends who would play test a game I make, and several acquaintances that invite me to their game nights that I could probably convince to play test as well.
(2.1) Does ‘refer to the rules’ mean at any time you have ever played the game? Or does it mean games where you already know the rules or the rules are intuitive enough to not need them? No one needs to know the rules for simple games like tag or Jenga in order to just play them.
(3.1) My gateway game was Set. I played this as a kid and loved it (still love it) so much that I remembered it 15-odd years later when I had my own money to buy games. I enjoy introducing my friends to it because they either get it and love it and want to play again, or they hate it and never want to play again but ‘maybe we could try something else?’.
(5) Luck and strategy are integral parts of a game that make it interesting. You have to have some degree of luck to create a possibility for everyone to win. This could be rolling the die, drawing a card, or randomly choosing a character card in Pandemic because you liked the colors, not because you read what each character does. Strategy also makes a game fun. This can be choosing which Jenga bricks to pick so you have the best chance of not knocking the tower over/making it extra hard for your friends, or it could be in actually reading the character cards for Pandemic and choosing the characters you think will help you ‘solve’ the game.
Card Color Theory – have a deck of rainbow cards. Each color is assigned a value based on color theory. You have to get to a certain color value by mixing colors without making a muddled brown color. Like blackjack, but with colored cards instead of numbered cards.
Jimmy Sprinkles – there are six piles of four cards face down in front of each person (2 players) and four face up cards between them. Looking at one group of four at a time, you can swap out cards from that group with the face up cards in the middle. You must have four cards in each ‘hand’ at a time. The goal is to have four matching cards. Once you have a matching four card set, that ‘hand’ is laid down face up. Cards can no longer be traded in or out of that group. The goal is to be the first person to get all six of their ‘hands’ face up AND shout Jimmy Sprinkles. Why Jimmy Sprinkles? I don’t know, it sounds funny.
Four Kingdoms – each suite is a kingdom (13 cards). Players take turns playing war, capturing the fallen card and setting them aside. Once the player is out of their original 13 cards from their own suite, they must use their captured cards to keep playing. However, if they play a hand of war with a captured suite against that suite’s original kingdom, the original kingdom automatically wins and discards the challenger from play (no matter the card point total). The last man standing wins.
Mismatch – several mismatched decks of cards are mixed together and divided evenly among the players. Players take turns playing war. Card numbers are important, but so are the decks the cards came from. For example, red themed cards have a plus one against blue themed cards, blue themed cards have a plus one against Tennessee tchotchke novelty themed cards, and Tennessee themed cards have a plus one against red themed cards. The card number + the color/theme bonus = total card value. If your total card value is higher than your opponent’s, you win that round and the challenger is eliminated from play. Last person with cards wins.
Fridge Magnets – the deck has many different words, each printed on its own card. Players must make a poem/sentence/joke out of the cards from their hands. Only play one word at a time, draw a new word at the end of the hand. First person to make a coherent phrase wins.
I really enjoyed this game, once we managed to understand the rules. Apparently we were supposed to take out two of the royals (picking the one that suited our fancy), but we accidentally played with all three royals in the game. I feel like this made things complicated but in a funny way. There were a few times when the remaining two players each had a royal. They either tied the round and each got an affection token, or they knew the other person had a royal, and forced them to discard so they could win. Act 1 was learning to play the game, and the first few rounds. Act 2 was starting to use strategy and actually playing the game. I thought we were going into Act 3 when Aaron had 3/4 necessary affection tokens to win, but Ronan managed to come back. The real Act 3 was when Ronan and Aaron each had three love tokens, while me and Luke each only had one.
Munchkin
Wow I absolutely hated this game. I couldn’t even tell you what the different acts were because we literally stopped playing this after a few minutes. Way too many rules to follow. I think we collectively gave up as a group halfway down page 2 of reading the rules and seeing there was still nearly four pages of rules left to read. We tried to play with what rules we had already read and just read the next rules as we went along, but the whole system was too convoluted to make that work. -1/10, would not play again ever.
In my opinion, every game should have a good reason to play it. Do you want to play it because the art is pretty? Because it is a beloved childhood game featuring your favorite artistic license? Because the idea of an ever-changing set of rules intrigues you?
For all the games I’ve played, please see the attached file. Note, this list is nowhere near conclusive, I just don’t have a great memory.
I’m not sure what my favorite game is, so I’m not sure if the three act structure applies to it. Some games I have enjoyed include Dragon Age 2 (video game), Hand and Foot (card game), and Red Dragon Inn (board game). Dragon Age 2 definitely has a three act structure, as it is telling a story. How long you spend in each act depends on how many of the side quests you do and what story paths you choose. Hand and Foot has a ‘setup’ bit, a ‘meat of the game’ bit, and a ‘conclusion’ bit within each round, but also across the whole game if you count trying to win as the conclusion. Finally Red Dragon Inn could probably be considered a three act structure if you think about it really hard. I tend not to think too hard for that game and just enjoy knocking people out of the Bar.
When coming up with the ideas for a game, I find myself doing a mix of both mechanics and metaphors, though I would probably lean more toward the metaphor and working out a mechanic to fit it.
Over the course of this semester, I would like to collaborate with all of the graduating seniors. They have seen the change from Interactive Media to UX/UI design and they’ve been around the RMU block a few times. I would like to be able to learn from their experiences going forward as a ‘new’ student.
A person or group is given a list of landmarks they must hit around campus. They cannot use any stairs or cut across any grass. Different groups can be given a different list of landmarks.
NAME THAT TUNE but the music is whatever short pep songs the RMU band plays.
Must answer trivia questions about RMU. If right, you get to ‘chop’ an opponent. 3 ‘chops’ and the person is out. Last one standing wins.
Puzzle! In The Library: Given a Dewey Decimal #, you must find words/letters/phrases in specific books to spell out the answer to a riddle.
Given a small time limit, you can only grab supplies that you find on campus (textbooks, pencils, water bottles, etc.). Using only what you have grabbed, you try to build the tallest tower.
What was fun? My group played the space themed Fluxx. I thought all the references to various sci-fi media was a lot of fun! These included Star Trek (expendable crew member in a red shirt) and Doctor Who (the Goal was to get the Doctor card and the Time Traveler card), two of my all time favorite things. I appreciate all the various rules that can come into play. For me, the best part of the game is trying to be compliant with all of the rules set up throughout the game or even using the rules in a specific order to win!
Interaction between players? Ethan was openly bored and unhappy with the game, so sometimes I felt like I had to remind him it was his turn. It made the game a little hard to enjoy when he clearly wasn’t into it.
How long to learn? I already knew how to play basic Fluxx, but it did take two or three rounds to get the space theme’s own rules (like computer viruses or holographic projectors).
Would I play again? Heck yeah I would play again! I actually have two different versions of Fluxx at my own home (Marvel and Star Trek: Voyager).
