Card Capture - deck building with regular cards

Okay. Card Capture is a solitaire deck builder that uses a regular deck of cards.

As someone who is interested in PnP and DIY gaming, it was pretty much inevitable that I was going to check this game out. Im fact, considering that it originally came out in 2018, I’m amazed it took me this long. Almost as amazed that it took so long for someone to make a deck builder just using a regular deck of cards.

Card Capture was designed to be an introduction to deck builders. Which could be an excuse to make the game simple and dumbed down. Card Capture is simple but I wouldn’t call it dumbed down.

Okay, the full rules are online and free but let’s give the thumbnail. The object of the game is capture all the faces and aces. At the start of the game, you divide the cards up into a player deck (the jokers and all the twos, threes and fours) and an enemy deck that’s everything else.

The basic idea is that you have a row of four enemy cards. Every turn, you have to take one away. You can capture/claim a card by spending an equal or higher value of cards from your hand _of the same suit_ If you can’t do that, you can discard a card and the first card in the enemy row to the enemy capture pile. BUT if a face or ace card ever goes into that pile, YOU LOSE! The last thing you can do is sacrifice. Discard two cards into the enemy capture pile and put a card from the row under the enemy draw pile.

What makes Card Capture tick is that is all about trashing cards and making it a double edged sword. Getting rid of all the twos as early as possible? Great! But having to make too many sacrifices can make you run out of cards. If you short-suit yourself (and it’s easy to do it you’re not careful), you will lose.

I have not played the game enough to know if there is a dominant strategy that would make the game boring and I don’t know for sure that that bad shuffles can make the game impossible to win (but I think that is true) What I am sure that the game doesn’t play itself, that your decisions make a difference. And I think even if the game can be broken or solved, it will take enough plays to figure it out to still be fun.

Card Capture isn’t flawless. I do think luck can overcome clever planning. And, like any game that just a traditional deck of cards, it’s dry and themeless and that can be a deal breaker for some folks. And, to be honest, if I was introducing someone to deck building using a solitaire, I’d still prefer to use Friday by Friedemann Friesse. 

However, I am having fun with Card Capture. I love that I have a new and different option if all I have on me is a deck of cards. The mechanics hold up and, if all you have to work with is a deck of cards, that’s a big deal.

So, yeah, if you’re at all into traditional card games, check out Card Capture.

A deck of cards is a an abstract strategy game

I’ve been meaning to try out Card Capture for a while. A solitaire deck builder that just uses a regular deck of cards? That’s something that I have to look into. The idea taps into both the possibilities and the limitations of a deck of cards.

(This was going to be a review of Card Capture but the tangent just went to far. I do like to ramble)

A deck of cards is the most amazing tool you can have in your gaming library. It _is_ a game library, one you can fit in your pocket.  It is the most flexible game system you’re going to find and there are hundreds of games for it andit’s something that you can usually get non-gamers to play.

At the same time, a deck of cards is very abstract. Which doesn’t make any difference for traditional games but can make a more ‘modern’ game seem thin and dry, particularly if there is a theme attached to the game. 

Which, quite frankly, doesn’t seem quite fair :D I’ve seen a lot of trick taking games that might have spiffy artwork and a theme but really aren’t that far removed from Whist or other trick taking games. But even that teeny tiny step away from abstraction makes a difference. I love abstracts and even I know that that little bit of flair makes a difference.

(And there is an actual practical reason for this. Theme and specialized cards can make a game more accessible. Easier to process and understand. But that’s a whole other topic and I have already rambled far afield enough)

Which isn’t to say a regular deck of cards can’t work as a ‘modern’ game. Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of Lamarckian Poker, even pickup games with strangers. Admittedly, it uses many elements from traditional games but blends them in a way that feels non-traditional. 

On the other hand, even though you can easily play it with a regular deck of cards, I enjoyed The Shooting Party a lot more after I made a themed deck. A big difference between those two games is that Lamarkian Poker is built on mechanics and The Shooting Party is built on theme. 

Fundamentally, while no one lists a regular deck of cards as an abstract strategy game like Chess or Go, it is very much an abstract system and suffers when theme is pushed onto it. (Unless you view it as it’s own theme. Individual cards and poker hands are iconic, after all)

A deck of cards is a door to so many games, ancient and new, but we have to respect its limits.