Here’s my first game post, and it’s for a class. Our overall restrictions were simply that it had to be 100 index cards.
Title: Elements (Working Title)
Recommended Players: 4+
Items Needed: 100 Index cards. Color the cards, each with a different symbol as follows: 15 black cards, and 17 of each others: White, Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow.
Objective: Collect as many white cards in one deck play through as possible.
Setup: Shuffle all colors except white into one deck. Place face down in center of play area, and place all white cards face up adjacent the deck. Each player draws 5 cards for their hand, which they keep concealed from other players. Oldest player starts, and rotation goes clockwise.
Gameplay: At the start of each players’ turn, they draw a card. They may then make card exchanges and attack another player, which are detailed later on. A player attack is always the last action of a players’ turn.
Exchanges: The most important card exchanges are for white cards. A player may discard either 4 of the same color, or 1 of each color to make a set of 4 to discard to acquire a white card. Any white cards will sit visible for all players to see at all times. Discarded cards are placed on the other side of deck from white cards, face up. In addition, 4 black cards may be discarded for a 2 card draw from the top of the deck. Any white cards a player has may be used to negate a black card in their hand, which can either be discarded or placed into another players hand.
Attacking a player: First, a player may only attack another player if they; 1) Have the same amount of white cards or the defender has more white cards. 2) The defender has more than 4 cards in their hand.
A round of “combat” is dealt with the attacker announcing they are attacking a player of their choice. The defending player lays down an element color, and the attacker lays down a trump card.
Trumps are in the following order; red beats green, green beats yellow, yellow beats blue, and blue beats red. Black and White have no contribution.
Once the attacker has laid their card, if the defender has a black card in hand, they may lay it down as a counter to the attacker. This will negate the round and each player keeps their hands. If, however the defender feels they can out-trump the attacker, they may in addition to the black card, lay the trump of the attackers card. Both parties can repeat this process till one of them cannot trump the other. The winner is whoever was able to trump the other player last, and the winner chooses a color card from the opponents plays to place in their own hand. All other cards return to their original owner’s hands.
Scoring: Whoever has the most white cards at the end of the deck, or a reshuffle if an extension of the game is desired, wins. Any black cards in a players hand will negate one of their white cards, and there can be a negative score.
For the sake of clarification, black and white cards are considered to not be color cards.
Please post any comments or necessary clarifications!
Original posting January 28th, 2008. Any commercial use of this game’s design must be approved by Daniel Wilkins.
——After some play testing today, revisions will be done on this game in the coming week. These include how black cards operate in battles, a player hand limit, and a change to battle balance.——-
——-In addition, there will be an overview of why these changes occurred and if they, in fact, have fixed the problem or only covered them up——
