Showing posts with label game systems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label game systems. Show all posts

Friday, May 30, 2025

Advent of Wyrms doesn’t push any boundaries but I had fun

 Advent of the Wyrms was one of the games that made me want to revisit the Decktet. It’s a soliatire game that was released in 2020 so it gave me a way to see what people have been doing with the Decktet more recently. For a certain definition of recent. I suppose.


The theme is that you are trying to prevent the revival of world destroying dragons. Wyrms are one of the six suits of the Decktet and this game revolves around that suit. Oh and you use the extended deck so 45 cards.

To win the game, you need to place four sets of three ascending cards. Each set needs to share a common suit. Remember, most of the cards have more than one suit. You can be working on up to five sets.

Shuffle the deck and deal out a hand of four cards. If you get a Wyrm card, shuffle it back in and deal out a new card. A turn is play a card/discard a card, then draw a card.

If you draw a card that includes the Wyrm, you have to discard a card that matches its rank, matches one of its other suits, the suit-free Excuse card or two cards from the top of the deck (which is the worst option) You discard the Wyrm card too.

If you make four sets before you run out of cards, you win. If you don’t, you lose.

I can’t help but compare Advent of Wyrms to Adaman, one of the first, if not the first, solitaire games for the Decktet. Both games definitely feel games originally designed for traditional cards adopted for the Decktet. 

Adaman is more intricate and I think it’s more difficult. I have managed to win Advent of the Wyrms and I haven’t won Adaman yet. I feel safe saying it’s the deeper game.

On the other hand, Advent of the Wyrms is a more fluid game with a definite tempo of play. It’s definitely simpler but that also makes it easier to 
just get a game rolling. Advent of Wyrms is, at least for me, more fun.

Mind you, I don’t think Advent of Wyrms really pushes what you can do with the Decktet. Not it has to. Innovation is not a requirement for quality.

Advent of the Wyrms is a fun game but more of one I’ll probably use to warm up before playing another Decktet game than on its own.

Monday, May 26, 2025

Adaman is a good but not to my taste

 When I decided that I needed to revisit the Decktet with a focus on solitaire games, I knew that my starting place was going to be Adaman, It is one of the earliest Decktet games, developed by the same guy who developed the Decktet itself, P.D. Magnus. Now, I had played it before, about twelve years ago. On the one hand, I remembered almost nothing about the game. On the other hand, I did remember playing it, which is still something.


The Decktet is broken down into two groups, the basic deck, which uses ranks like conventional deck of cards; and the extended deck, which has Tarot-like trumps. The deck has six suits but most of the cards have more than one suit on them, All of the cards have Tarot-like artwork, not unlike what you might expect if Pamala Smith had been possessed by Sir John Tennial while he was on a laudanum bender. Adaman, at least as it was originally designed, only uses the basic deck. The cards are also broken down into subcategories, indicated by the artwork. Your goal in Adaman is to discard/score/claim the eleven personage cards, ie, the cards that have 'people' on them.

The theme of Adaman is that you are one of the heirs to the throne and are building up power via palace intrigue. Gameplay takes place in three rows that can only be five cards long. The bottom row is resources, which functions as your hand. The middle row is the market and the top row is the palace. 

Shuffle up the basic cards. Deal out five to the market. Then deal out five to the resource row. However, if you deal a personage to the resource card, you move it to the palace row and deal a replacement card. So, the market can have any card in it. Resources cannot have any personages. The palace can only be personages.

Gameplay goes as follows. You discard cards from resources to claim cards from the market or palace. The discarded cards have to equal or be more than the rank of the claimed card and each card has to share suit with the claimed card. If you claim a personage, add it to your scoring pile. If it's any other card, put it in the resource row. Deal out cards to fill in any gaps in the market or resources and keep going.

You win if you score all eleven personages. You lose if you have to add a sixth card to the palace or you run out of moves.

All right. I would honestly describe Adaman as "just okay', at least for me. Mechanically, it definitely works. In fact, I'm finding it to actually be a tough game to beat. The royal cards, which are rank ten and have only one suit, are particularly tricky and help make the game interesting. However, there wasn't anything that really made the game sparkle for me. It doesn't have a hook, at least not for me. Adaman feels like a solitaire game for a regular deck of cards that has been adjusted for the Decktet. (In fact, that game may be Portraits)

There is a caveat. If you view Adaman as an introduction to the Decktet and a way to familiarize yourself with the cards, Adaman does an excellent job of doing that. It gets you used to the idea of a card having more than one suit and which cards are which. Another one of the early Decktet games, Bharg, was a two-player rummy game that felt like it had a similar goal and Adaman does it better. It forces you to examine the cards more closely and it makes use of the artwork. I feel no need to go back to Bharg while I still like there's some fun left in Adaman.

Now, on the third hand, I decided to revisit the Decktet because I've been playing a lot of Mysticana games. And the direct comparison to Adaman is Nine Perils, which also functions as an introduction to the core concepts of the deck. And that is a game I go back to a lot. In fact, I usually play a game of it as a warm-up before playing other Mysticana games.  Adaman doesn't have that kind of umph.

Adaman represents, more than some other Decktet games, using the game system like a regular deck of cards. Which isn't a bad thing. The standard deck of cards has to be one of the most, if not the most, successful gaming system in history. (Now someone will argue with me using dice as a counterexample) 
Adaman is a solid, good game but it's not why I like the Decktet. 

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

The Decktet’s vast potential

For years, I have said that if you were to only make one PnP project, it should be the Decktet. And, to be honest, I haven't changed my mind yet about that. It is one of the versatile one-and-done projects I can think of.

The Decktet is a game system that consists of a deck of 45 cards with six suits. The clever bit, and this is honestly clever, is that almost all of the cards are mulit-suited.

I have seen decks that add extra suits and ranks. The Decktet, having the cards be more than one suit? That I hadn't seen before and I'm not sure I have seen it since. Added to that, the deck is divided between 36 basic cards and nine extended cards. And eight of those extended cards are triple suited while the last one has no suits at all. 

And the Decktet has some crazy artwork, which I would describe as Tarot-adjacent, cartoony  and grotesque. It's definitely memorable.

A game system is just a concept without actual games. And the Decktet has some that I quite enjoy. The three that really stick with me are Magnate, a resource management game; Emu Ranchers, a Lost Cities variant that I like more than Lost Cities in some ways; and Jacynth, a Carcassonne-style tile laying game. All three very different games and, if they were all there were, the Decktet would still be worth it.

As I wrote that list out, I realized that those three games are like a snapshot of a slightly earlier time in gaming, a time when German Family games had more of the market share. And, frankly, when I first got into designer board games. So I might be a little biased.

I have been looking back at the Decktet because I have been actively exploring the Mysticana game system. To the point where half my blogs for the spring might be about it. It's a very different approach, only three suits that are interlocking and module expansions. Its also much more solitaire focused, which plays more to my current gaming.

I have only lightly looked into the Decktet's solitaire options and, quite frankly, I wasn't interested in what I saw. However, that was before I had any real interest in solitaire gaming. I really need to go back and take a second look. 

While Decktet games are still being developed, its heyday seems clearly in the past. And I think that is really because here isn't a company driving its development. Sadly, that’s a real thing. Support makes a difference.

That said, the Decktet remains a very versatile gaming system with a game library worth exploring and plenty of untapped potential.

Monday, May 19, 2025

In Curse of Dragons, Mysticana ups its game

Curse of Dragons was actually the second Mysticana game I learned because I was part of its playtest forum. But approaching it again after learning Cave of Djinns, Wild Magic and Harbingers, I have a different perspective.

Mysticana is a game system that is designed to use small expansions to create new games. This is a tried and true formula. I mean, chips + cards
= poker. The basic Mysticana deck consists of six ranks in three suits and the suits have a rock-paper-scissors relationship. And, to be honest, I have been surprised and happy with what Mysticana has offered. 

Every Mysticana expansion/game has consisted of six cards so far. In Curse of Dragons, those six cards are five dragons and a reference card that I’ve found quite helpful. Each dragon has three bits of mechanical info on it: its difficulty ranking, its hoard/attack effect and the card sequence you need to make to defeat it.

You fight three dragons in every game. While it can be random, the fact that they have a difficulty rating means you can curate how tough you want your game to be. After you select your dragons, you draw a hand of three. One of those cards immediately goes to the hoard. More on the hoard later.

You have four actions you can take. Draw a card. If the value of your hand is fifteen or bigger, you bust. More on that later. Summon: if you have at least three of a suit, you can deploy one of those cards for free. Rescue, if you have at least three of a suit, you can discard one to get pull a card from the hoard that’s a weaker element.

And deploy. Deploy is the main action of the game. You play cards next to dragons to build up a pattern to defeat them. (And they all have specific requirements) The cards must be in ascending or descending order. And you have to discard their value or greater to place them. But you do get to do a bonus action, depending on their suit. Water lets you add a card from the discard pile to the dragons. Fire lets you discard cards beside one dragon. Wood lets you rearrange all the cards of a single rank.

Remember how I’d get back to hoard? The hoard is a separate stack that is how the game puts the hurt on you. When you bust, each dragon gets to use its hoard effect, forcing you to add a card from your hand to the hoard. The hoard being fifteen or higher automatically makes you lose.

From my perspective, since I’m not quite sure what order Mysticana games came out, Curse of Dragons represents a jump in both depth and complexity. It is meaningfully more difficult than, for example, Cave of Djinns, which I think was the first solitaire expansion. 

There is a lot going on, given its small scale. Four different types of actions, plus three types of bonus actions. The decision tree starts to build up as you play. Gameplay isn’t complicated but there’s a lot to keep track of in a fifteen minute game.

The hoard definitely adds good tension to the game. Managing the hoard can be more important than managing the dragons because it’s the game losing condition. The hoard is your AI opponent playing by its own rules.

Curse of Dragon is fun and interesting. At least for me, it’s a tough game to beat but I enjoy trying. I don’t know what the end goal of the Mysticana system is but Curse of Dragons indicates ambitious plans.

Friday, May 9, 2025

Is the Rage deck the Omni-deck?

 As I blitz my way through the solitaire options  of Mysticana, I have been looking at the wider world of game systems. Specifically game systems designed to either build on or 'replace' a regular deck of cards.


And what immediately comes clear is that that is a vast topic. Someone, someone who is a better scholar than me, could devote a long running blog on just the subject of card-based game systems.

There are plenty variations on the standard deck of cards. The 52 card French deck probably is the global standard (Note that I don't feel confident to say that it is for sure) However, there are other regional variations that are still in use and production.  I've always assumed that was why the version of Euchre that I've been taught only uses 24 cards but I don't even know that for certain. 

But designers have been trying to intentionally come up with alternatives. There have been more than one deck than just adds another suit, for instance. But the real test is if you can play a game that you want to play with the alternative that you can't play with a regular 52-card deck.

It is interesting when a game system develops accidentally, even though I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case for the regular deck of cards.

Rage was published in 1983. It has six suits, ranked 0 to 15. It is basically the conventional deck blown up in every direction. And it's an Oh Hell variant that is also expanded, including special cards.

And when I first got into board gaming, I definitely saw it referenced a lot. And not because of the game itself but the possibilities it had as a gaming system.

Gamers listed 188 (and growing) different games that you could play with a Rage deck. That number is actually low since you can functionally play any game that uses a traditional deck of cards with a Rage deck. Game designers were known to buy Rage decks in bulk as prototype parts.


So I made sure to get a copy. And promptly did nothing with it.

The Rage deck has vast mechanical possibilities. For instance, I could easily play Lost Cities with a Rage deck, However, I would lose the vibrant pictures and the easy visual clarity of the handshake cards. Elements that aren't mechanically necessary but add to the enjoyment and engagement.

As I've discussed more than once, theming isn't just about making things pretty. Theming can create a visual shorthand that enhances the accessibility and engagement of a game. Theming can help you process a game easier. And the Rage deck is entirely abstract.

(Not that I'm knocking abstract. Sticheln is one of my favorite trick taking games and it is also entirely abstract. The sheer sadism of the game carries it without the need for theme)

Rage seems to have lost some of its luster. I haven't seen it discussed as a game library in one small box in a long time, although people do keep adding to the list. It also seems to be less available than it used to be but I doubt that that has anything to do with its role as a game system.

As I have become more DIY in my gaming in recent years, I wonder if I would do more with a Rage deck now. However, the game systems I have explored, like the Decktet or the Pairs deck or Mysticana, step farther away from the model of the standard deck of cards.

Game systems can be versatile tools. They can be powerful tools. Just look at the cultural impact of traditional playing cards. But they have their limits as well.

Friday, July 5, 2024

Nine Perils: Mysticana’s first steps

 It only makes sense that my first foray into Mysticana was Nine Perils, the solitaire option of the core games. I mean, I only have to find myself in order to try out the game.

For me, Mysticana is going to live or die by the solitaire games. If I’m not enjoying it, then at least I’m not spreading the misery around. Solitaire games are how you test drive game systems.
 
And I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am alone on focusing in on the solitaire options. It seems like more and more games have solo modes. There is a definite demand for it. Out of the first nine planned expansions, if I’ve counted right, six of them are solo or have solo options. (Holy cow, that’s a lot)

Mysticana is an eighteen card deck that has three suites ranked A to 6. The suites are elemental themed with a rock-paper-scissors hierarchy. Water beats fire. Fire beats earth. Earth beats water. If I keep looking at these games, I feel like I should copy and paste the paragraph.

Nine Perils is pretty darn simple. Shuffle the deck and make a line of nine facedown cards. The other nine cards are your draw pile. Draw a hand of one to three cards (the bigger your hand, the easier the game) Flip over the middle card in the line and you’re ready to go.

Turns are simple. Turn over a line card. Draw a card from the draw pile. Play a card under one of the line cards. Game ends and figuring out if you’ve won or not when you’ve got a line of your own nine cards under the original line.

If every card in your line is greater than the card above it, you win. Which would mean you have to be lucky and good at card counting. But there’s a twist. If there’s a tie, that card and the next card down the line are determined by third card.

Basically, if you can set up a cascade of ties ending with your card beating the last card in the line, you win. Ideally, four cards will get skipped over and it doesn’t matter what you played on those spots.

So, Nine Perils really comes down to trying to do this one clever thing. You could also hope to being really lucky but the cascade move is really the goal. And that one clever thing is a very obvious strategy.

But… I found myself playing three times in a row until I got that cascade. The game play and the goal are simple and obvious but it was still satisfying. I’ll keep playing it and probably at a higher difficulty.

Nine Perils isn’t revolutionary or brilliant. It is a solid little solitaire though. I don’t think it’s a killer game that will make Mysticana famous. It does make me think that the deck does have potential.

Friday, June 7, 2024

So what is a foundation deck?

 Button Shy’s June Kickstarter is Mysticana: A Foundation Deck. I haven’t finished making a copy of the demo version but I did want to get some thoughts out before the Kickstarter ends.


(And, yes, I can make a functional copy with a regular deck of cards. However, let’s be honest, artwork does make a difference in how a game feels. Also, the built-in rock-paper-scissors of Mysticana’s element system is a good visual shorthand)

So, what is a foundation deck? That just sounds like a way of saying a game system that you can try and copywrite. Well, it turns out a foundation deck is a subset of game systems. 

A game system is a set of components that you can use to play multiple games with. A standard deck of cards is the most quintessential example that I can think of. Even the most conservative estimates say there are over a thousand games you can play with the regular deck of cards.

A foundation deck is a game system where you add additional cards for different games. Some games just require the base deck but you can modify the deck with other cards for specific games.

This isn’t a new concept. Looney Labs Looney Pyramids is totally a foundation system. Almost all its games (at least the good ones) add things like boards and dice or other stuff. And I think there’s nothing wrong with that. Yeah, the purity of a game system that uses a core set of components is appealing but purity tests are just for gate keeping.

What I think will make or break Mysticana is whether or not it has a killer app. If a game system has one really good game, one that people want to play, then it will have legs. A game system can survive having plenty of meh games as long as it has one good one. Poker is a great example of a game system’s killer app, although the standard deck of cards has a whole bunch of them. (Being around for centuries helps with that)

And I don’t know the answer to that yet. It’s not even a decision I can come to. It will end up being a community call.

I was very pleased that the designer diary explicitly mentions the Decktet as a major influence. A six-suited deck with multi-suited cards, the Decktet remains one of the most flexible game system decks I have found that isn’t just a modified standard deck. And it’s killer app, Magnate, requires additional components so it’s a foundation deck too.

Friday, January 22, 2021

The Clever dice games are a system

 While I consider Clever Hoch Drei the first game I’ve taught myself this year (after 2020, I decided to start with a game I felt confident would be good), I have come to think of the Clever games as a system as opposed to a series of games.


Between That’s Pretty Clever, Twice As Clever, Clever Hoch Drei (which I’m sure will be published as Clever Cubed if it hasn’t already been), the bonus boards for Pretty and Twice, AND at least one fan-made board, there’s a bunch of distinct boards that still use the same dice-drafting core. Once you have the basic concept done, you can play any of the games. However, learning how to play each board well does take some work.

One of the things I look at when it comes to dice driven games is the idea that there are no intrinsically bad rolls. Oh, there can be situationally nightmarishly horrible rolls but I don’t want a game where you have to roll all sixes all the time. Castles of Burgundy is a great example of that but it is more complicated than most Roll and Writes. (I am planning on trying the roll and write version this year)

The Clever system  doesn’t quite hit the threshold of every roll can be good but it has taken stupid plays for me not to be able to use every roll. As a basic rule of thumb, I feel I can safely say that the Clever system makes every roll viable. 

When I first tried That’s Pretty Clever last year, I wrote that it killed Yahtzee for gamers. (Qwixx kills Yahtzee for everyone else) And that seems more true than ever. While I love abstract games, they have a bigger hurdle to be accessible and the Clever system makes that hurdle.

The worst thing I can say is that the Clever system can get to be formulaic, particularly if you are playing it solitaire the way I do. But that’s a sin most solitaire or roll and write games can have. And having so many variations helps keep it fresh.

This started out as a review of Clever Hoch Drei (I am having more fum with it than Twice but not as much as Pretty) but turned into an overview of the series. And the Clever games are ones that I can play over and over again.




Friday, December 13, 2019

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.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

My absolute failure to define a game system

When talking about game systems (and I feel like talking about game systems), you have to ask yourself “Where do you draw the line?” I don’t think there’s a definitive answer but I do think there are murkier cases.

A game system, for those are curious, is a set of components that you can use to play a variety of different games. A deck conventional playing cards is my absolutely favorite example because everyone gets it. There are books upon books of different games you can play with just a deck of cards. There isn’t a game called Cards. There are families of games that you can play with those 52 little pieces of cardboard.

There’s a few places that it gets murky for me. One is when you have to add additional things to make the game work. I adore the Looney Pyramids but I also have to admit that a lot of the games involve adding more than just pyramids. Dice, playing cards, tokens, boards, Tarot cards, a Piece Pak set, etc. Although Looney Labs kind of killed that line of questioning by publishing the Pyramid Arcade and including all of that other stuff in the same box. And there are times when this kind of argument gets a little silly anyway. Poker needs poker chips or some equivalent  (like actual money) to work so Poker doesn’t count SAID NO ONE EVER.

Yes, it is really nice when a game system is entirely  encapsulated in one set of components. I mean, you have a game library in your pocket by putting a deck of cards in said pocket. But it is clearly too limiting to insist on that.

Another question you have to ask is if something is a game system or a game with a lot of variations. I remember being told that Quarriors was really a tool box because there were a variety of ways to play the game. I don’t think that makes it a game system since you’re still just playing Quarriors. Carcassonne having expansions doesn’t make it a game system. Just a game that can be expanded. On the other hand, Ablaze actually does cross into being a game system since the three rule sets that come in the box are fairly distinct. Ablaze is a very close call, though.

It’s also interesting when a game isn’t known for being made from a game system but clearly is. You can, of course, play checkers with nothing more than a Checkers set. But there are other, very solid games, that you can do that with. Lines of Actions and two-player Focus are my personal favorites.

And you can take the concept to work interesting extremes. You can argue that the early Cheapass Games, having you raid other games for components, turned your entire game collection into a game system :D


How I love game systems

Ah, game systems. A subject I never tire of going back to and a subject that is on my mind because I just made a copy of a game system, a Pairs deck.

A game system is a set of components that you can use to play a variety of different games. And, as far as I’m concerned, the king Of game systems and the greatest game system is the deck of conventional playing cards. I’d be willing to hear arguments for a challenger to that title (You can definitely make an argument for dominoes) but it would have to be a really, really good argument.

I think a game system needs two things: versatility and at least one killer game. A game system needs at least one game that you’d have still bought the thing even if that was the only game you could play with it.

And a deck of cards has both of those traits in spades (and diamonds and clubs and hearts) You can do so much with just one deck. And it doesn’t just have a killer game or just a bunch of them. It has _families_ of killer games. You have the poker family, the rummy family, the climbing family, the trick-taking family, etc.

Still, it’s fun to look for more modern game systems. A deck of cards is one of the basic building blocks of the hobby, part of its primordial DNA but something more modern can be fun and fascinating.

My personal favorite is Ice House/Treehouse/Looney Pyramids/Pyramid Arcade (I’ve been playing with pyramids with a long time) That said, since you might use dice, cards, tokens and boards in addition to the pyramids, I also view it as kind of a cheat :D Still, the pyramids are a gateway to a wide variety of great games.

I have a ways to go before I’ve explored the Pairs system to have a really good idea how versatile it is or what, if any, killer games it might have. But I am glad to have made it. I think there’s fun in there.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Traditional games for Father’s Day

As sort of a Father’s Day gift, we picked up one of those traditional game sets when we were browsing at Goodwill. You know what I’m talking about. A collection that has chess, checkers, backgammon and such. 

This one is a fiberboard box with a decent veneer. There’s a Chess board on top, two more wooden boards that fit into slots and a tray at the bottom. The boards include Backgammon, peg solitaire, Snakes and Ladders, Chinese Checkers in the tray, Ludo/Parchesi and perhaps the most unusable Mancala board I’ve ever seen. (They are tiny pits next to the solitaire board) In addition, it has a deck of cards and a set of poker dice.

Yes, I already own at least one version of most of these games. I’m not such a game snob that I don’t like a lot of traditional games. Chess and Backgammon and Checkers (if you play with the mandatory capture rule) and Mancala (when the pits are bigger than 3/4 of an inch) are all classics for a reason. I have to admit I don’t like Chinese Checkers but I have been taught it with both capture and no capture rules so I never know how it will be played.

In a lot of ways, this set is as much a piece of furniture as some games. If our coffee table wasn’t devoted to LEGOs (honest, we glued LEGO base plates on the top), this would be a coffee table item. As it is, it will still live in the living room.

And it’s real role will be to help introduce our son to these traditional games. Having it handy and in sight will keep him aware of them.

I’m actually pleased to have Snakes and Ladders like this. I don’t like the game but it is very accessible for a four-year-old so it will be useful. It will be nice to move on to Ludo or Backgammon though. And I can teach him Lines of Action with the Checkers pieces.

While my focus is on modern gaming, I still have an appreciation for traditional games. Especially Go, which isn’t a part of this set :D Still, traditional games are going to be played a hundred years from now and longer than that. They are both the origins of gaming and it’s ever present bedrock.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

How much fun can I have with a Checkers set without laying Checkers?

One of the reasons I've been thinking about game systems is because I've been thinking about much you can do with a magnetic travel Checkers set.

See, while it isn't as amazing as a deck of cards, there are a shocking amount of games you can play with nothing more than to checkers set. Really, an eight-by-eight board with two different colored pieces is some of the most basic components you can get. Checkers is one of the ur-games of history.

A lot of these games aren't new. Some of them have been around for centuries as well, like Fox and Geese, which I understand is good for bar bets, as long as your opponent doesn't know it's been solved. And there are a lot of Checkers variations, some of them regional and some of them just people being wiseacres. (Diagonal checkers, where you turn the board 45 degrees?)

But I'll be honest. I'm not a big Checkers fan. Part of it comes from being taught it too young and not being taught a couple key rules (that you must make a capturing move if you can and that the game can also end if someone cannot make a move) 

When I was old enough to understand that there was some real depth to Checkers, I was already into games like Go or modern abstracts like Hive or ZERTZ, dynamic games that made Checkers seem slow and plodding.

Really, the game that really makes me seriously think about using a travel Checkers board is Lines of Action. It's a game about connecting all your pieces and you can only move the exact number of spaces as the number of pieces in that line.

Seriously, it's an excellent game that uses nothing but a Checkers board and feels nothing like Checkers. Truth to tell, if that's all I used a travel set for but I got to play Lines of Actions a lot, I'd be happy.

(Oh, Focus by Sid Sackson. That's another great game you can play with a Checkers set. Also doesn't feel like Checkers, by the way)

Of course, our son is two so I'm really going to end up playing Fox and Geese long before Lines of Action :D

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2083/checkers
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10213/fox-and-geese
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3406/lines-action
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/789/focus
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/11169/checkers-set-game-system