Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Standard Cards, Game #2: Feud

(I don't remember the rules of Game #1, but I think it's somewhere on this blog!)

I spent the weekend at http://tableflip.us/ in San Francisco. Met smart and interesting people and played and learned table top and social games.

Scoundrels is approaching a shippable/kickstarterable state, so I'm starting to get the itch to design a new tabletop game. In that vein, I've always enjoyed designing games within a standard 52-card poker deck, so today I came up with a quick little game.
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Standard Cards, Game #2: Feud (2-player variant)

Setup:
-Split the deck into suits.
-Take one red and one black suit. Place the King, Queen, and Jack from red in front of the other player and give them the Ace from that suit as well. Do the same for yourself with the black suit.
-Shuffle the remaining number cards from these suits together.
-Split the number cards evenly, and add your Aces to your hand. (You may look at your hand.)

Play:
-Choose one of the cards in your hand and lay it face down in front of you. Your goal is to predict the color of your opponent's card. Play an odd card to predict they will play the opposing color, play an even if you predict they'll play the same color. If you win, your opponent discards their card, if they win, you discard yours. (Play the Ace to predict they will play the same color as you. If wrong, you lose.)
-Ties initiate a Feud. Leave the cards on the table and continue play until there is a tie-breaker. All tying cards are now discarded, and the loser discards their final played card as well, while the winner keeps their final card. Additionally, the loser discards a Royal [see "Royals Rules"]. The Feud is now over and play returns to normal.

End:
-Upon one player losing all their hand cards or their King.

Royals Rules:
-The King is worth 3, Queen is worth 2, and the Jack 1.
-When you lose a Feud, you discard the Royal worth the number of tied battles. E.g. if a Feud ends after 2 ties, the loser discards the Queen. If they don't have the Queen, the player discards their lowest Royal. If a Feud ends with 3 or more ties, the loser's King dies and the game is over.
-The Queen and Jack at any time may be swapped into or out of the hand (except they may not be swapped after both cards of the round are revealed or during a Feud). While in the hand, they may be played like any number card. They cannot defend the King, but they win any battle against an opposing color. They lose against the same color.

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Hope you enjoy!
-Randy O
@randyzero