The Shuffle Game: Part 2

Part 2: Objective, Card Types, and Turn Order

Welcome back to this experiment in creation. I’ve been chewing on the Shuffle Game, and am going to tackle some of the up-front fundamentals, what you need to know when you sit down to play a game of Shuffle Game.

Up-front fundamentals, by the way, differ from background fundamentals. Up-front fundamentals are all things you need to know in order to play the game, while background fundamentals are all things you need to know to understand the game. It’s a distinct line; knowing the first allows you to participate in the game, knowing the latter allows you to win. Needless to say, one must go before the other.

A game is really only two things: components and metaphysical rules to interact with said components. In a card game, which Shuffle Game obviously is, the primary component is almost always a deck of cards, each of which usually has a separate function. I’m going to stick with the primary four types that crop up a lot among card games based on an IP; characters, locations, equipment, and tactics. These are extremely common because they are easily associable, so much so that their functions can practically be assumed. Characters fight, locations provide, equipment enhances, and tactics surprise. I’m going to stick with these four for now, just because it’s easy, solid, and has a lot of room to move around in. No need to get abstract right away.

The game’s objective, since its tone is about land grab and control, is based around collecting a certain number of locations, let’s say about half the locations that’ll be available in a two-player game. I’m arbitrarily going to set this at five, figuring a 30-card packet will contain more or less five locations. A fair assumption, although having this rule so firm also makes deviation impossible...making a deck with only four locations could create an unwinnable game state, while making a deck with seven or more makes the game too quick. Still, it’s a risk that must be taken if we don’t want to get points or tokens unnecessarily involved, so five locations it is.

Set-up and turn order come next. The following is extremely likely to change, just because I’m making assumptions that may not be accurate. It’s still relatively unknown what’s needed, but a basic guideline allows you to place mechanics, and if any part of it doesn't work...well just change things.

Set-up: Choose one location from your deck and set it aside. Take the deck of each player and shuffle them together. Put each location set aside near the deck. Each player takes three cards, looks at them, then sets them face down in front of them.

Each turn - The active player performs actions in the following order:
1. Check for any start-of-turn conditions and apply them.
2. Take a card from the top of the shared deck, then place it somewhere in your field.
3. Perform any number of actions allowed you by cards currently in play.
4. Choose a location you do not control and lay claim to it, and resolve the claim if able.
5. Check for any end-of-turn conditions and apply them.
6. Transfer control to the player to your left.

In what manner you can put down cards during step 2, what actions you can perform during step 3, how resolving a claim exactly works, and just what conditions will need to be check at the beginning and end of turn are still as yet unresolved. There are some ideas, which I’ll tackle shortly, but for now that’s the basic turn layout. For sure, checking for victory happens at the beginning of your turn, just so that when you have five locations, your opponent(s) has a chance to react before the game ends.

There is the basic framework of the game...the rest of the up-front fundamentals will come into place once a card anatomy and other considerations have been made.