Welcome!

Here we have a (small) assortment of newly-developed games. Initially based on the premise of using standard playing cards to make something interesting and challenging, this expanded to encompass ‘found’ (aka, ‘whatever you have available’) pieces.

Boulesless - a homebrew game of boules for when you have no boules May 2020
1439 words 		can be anything that is even vaguely throwable, ranging from bottle caps to pine cones to footballs to tennis rackets, shoes or twigs.
Cardbot Derby December 2017
1862 words 		use a standard deck of playing cards to enter a world of more or less out of control cardbots
Pouches of Destiny June 2017
2513 words 		use a standard deck of playing cards to enter a world of garbage and marsupial desperation


More Games You Can Construct On The Spot

If we expand ‘found’ to include beer mats or, less pleasing but still practical, torn up pieces of paper and a pen, or yes, standard playing cards, you can construct a working version of Skull. The artwork on an official set is gorgeous, but if you are caught without one, you can still make do. The game play is simple and quick, but the nuances of who is faking it this time, or going for it, or nervous, or spotting the moment to pounce, … magnificent.

A paper and pen, you say? Well, there is a really rather good word game which can be spun up in no time. Can accommodate any number of players, from 2 to many, but is at its sharpest for 2. Will write up the details soon.

Not even pen and paper? Never fear, there is another word game which is even more accommodating of more players. In fact is better with many. Excellent for car journeys, since the driver can also participate. Some overlaps with the dynamics of Skull, if you squint a bit. Will write up the details soon.

Design Inspirations

Non standard, standard-cards-only games Lamarckian Poker by CheapAss Games, which comes as part of a set of standard-cards-only games. (boardgamegeek)
Multi-layered use of cards Race For The Galaxy (boardgamegeek)
Synergies between cards Dominion (boardgamegeek)
Interesting mechanics RoboRally (boardgamegeek)
Carcassonne (boardgamegeek)
Multiple uses of core pieces Pyramid Arcade by Loony Labs, based on a common set of coloured plastic pyramids. In particular, the stellar variant that works for me is HomeWorlds (boardgamegeek), a mind-blowingly intriguing, 2-player 'thinkie' game, available separately. So good.

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