Dice, Card and Piece three horseman of tabletop games #1 - Lucky Draw

Before even anything let me start with this. These are my ideas, thoughts, and humble games. Don't accept them as absolute truth or whatever. This is Part 1 of a series I'm planning about the game elements of some classic tabletop games. I'm only going to publish this kind of devlog with a game, and of course the subject is going to be about the games. And I'll tell you about more than just the game. Also, don't expect so much from these games, as I'm not trying to build a masterpiece with them; for example, the next one is going to be "blackjack with dice." Also dont expect subjects such as : why the chess board is 8 by 8, pions are useless but exists why, horsy move 3x1 but not 4x2... is this just lucky guess or design intellect, fascinating right? Nope, it is not going to be like this. I'm not here to prove anything or provide some statistics about these well-known tabletop games. Expect more : chess , checkers, and backgammon all have "pieces" that move, but only backgammon uses dice. I could add dice to chess—these are the kinds of ideas I have. You'll probably find new — or more — ways to incorporate these game elements into your game (including video games). Also, there might be some hidden game elements. For example, in "Tüç Game," you can press "T" to open a window to show a random seed panel. This panel will allow you to play the same deck again. You will understand what I am saying when you play the game. Im "JUST SAYING" you should play and "understand" the game before reading this, juuuuust saying.

Cutting to the chase with the introduction, this game and the devlog are about cards, card games, drawing a hand for card games, and how card games could become more engaging and fun... Cards are being used in more and more video games, even if they are not the primary mechanic of the game. And you probably played some of the card games that are simply not fun. not because of the art, sound, story, or content of the game, because it doesn't feel fun to draw a hand to play the cards (and I'm not going to name drop any of these games, successful or not). To simply understand what I'm talking about, you should play "Tüç Game" (yes, I'm going to refer to my game a lot) with different scoring styles. There are two different scoring styles that I only made to show the concept of using cards in combination.

While playing the game in "Simple" mode, you don't need to think of using cards in any other way. All the cards will result in the same score. You are not going to get more than 291 for rulestring "17NSUY" if you play your cards right. Again, I'm not here to prove anything; you might get a higher score, but the idea is that the value of the in-hand card won't be affected by the combination. And there is no fun playing because you don't make any choices; you just play cards back to back without trying to have a better strategy. Now we getting into "Multiply" gamerule which fun. because it involves making choices and getting to see good and bad results for these choices. Again im not going tell you or go in detail how it works, play the game. Enough of the saying, "Play the game stuff," let's get to the fun. In this mode, you're really getting engaged with the card game by trying to find the best in-play combination of cards to yield the highest point. Your choice of card really makes the difference and that feeling and giving user the action it the sauce for fun. Simple example with a hand of Q,4,4,10,8,5,Q (just the starting hand from a random game not something so particular). In "simple" score style, you don't need to think of anything; just score with everything except 10 to draw cards. With "Multiply," now you have choices that would make a difference. You have the choice of just doing the same thing, using everything except 10. Or you might choose to keep those 2 Qs in hand to get better cards. Because in "Multiply," you're trying to achieve higher in-play values to get the best multiplier. And using 4,4 and 5 dont even worth a multiplier so these low value cards not just low value also not getting multipliers. What im saying is that you can use 4,4,5 to score(which worths nothing) than use 8 to draw a better hand. Next cards would make the hand yield more because of 2 Qs are so worth to achieve multipliers. Also you might use 4,4,5,8 to score and use 10 to draw new hand. I'm saying that a simple multiplier rule makes the card game fun because of the idea of "drawing a hand." The poker scoring combinations might be another example of this, but I'm not going into detail. At the end the sauce for this recipe is, designing a card game with combinations are the right decision for fun and engagement.

Time to move the next sauce, card being unknown to draw or facedown. For this example im going to start with poker and blackjack cards being facedown. In a poker game, the fun part is looking at the faces of people and trying to guess the hand they are holding. Again, I'm not here to prove anything, so my style will be here. So imagine cards being handed face up; there would not be any more poker games because you already know the results of others' and your own. There's nothing to bet on; you already know the result. The core gameplay mechanic becomes pointless. This also works for blackjack, im giving blackjack example because its not pvp games in sauce. The reason you do not know the card of the host is because that is the sole purpose of the game. You bet on the condition that you have a better hand, knowing the host's hand, making this gameplay invalid. This condition is not only for gambling games. Almost all other folk card games use cards face down. But why am I bringing this up? Because other games like chess, checkers, and backgammon do not use secrecy in their games. You might the heard or see the joke about chess "play chess againts a mirror so you could see oppenents movements".  Simply put, there is no secrecy about these games; all the pieces are visible, and moves are literally made while informing the opponent how they were made. Not counting battleships game obviously, also you dont move pieces in battleship game. Now getting to "Tüç Game", there is two custom modes to try : "Nextcard" and "Overdraw", aaaaand im not explain how it works play the game. "Nextcard," being face-up, is really there to bait you. Giving you the idea "hey get this high value card" or "your next cards sucks lol". The "Overdraw" is the main action; if you disable it, the game is not risky at all. Of course if you know that you can score 450+ points with good cards in a single-play and how to do it. So having your cards never go to waste is kind of cheating. To feel the difference, play a game with "overdraw" disabled and try to always get a better hand. Another secrecy in game for card game the draw pile is being random and facedown. Image "Tüç Game" with draw pile that all cards are visible in order, at that point game ivolves into more math equation than game. This is the interesting fact I discovered while playtesting that feature, so I literally didn't add it because I wasn't going to force the player to do math instead of playing the game (this is why in the game there is all this calculation literally next to the buttons for action like score and draw). So the sauce is in pieces, and the card being secret adds fun as a risk factor. I did not forget the dice, the blackjack with dices will have a lot more in this. Just keep in mind that there is no difference between a card and a die. I mean, you can hide players' dice to add a risk factor. Like "Liar's Dice," the game that played in Pirates of the Caribbean (I'm allowed to name drop for references, but not for video games). I'm not going to go into detail, but hiding your dice and betting on them will be enough for this subject.

getting to the next part, video games. How could i add card into video games, and not make them board games like "Tüç Game". One choice is to add them as actions. Basic example would be : think of a game that a game where you face and enemy to defeat it, use your skills to defeat this enemy. The skills you use would be buttons to click on them. You might add cooldown to some buttons and such to make the actions, add option to allow more skills or different types whatever. Now change this button into cards, than have same function with buttons when you use the card. The problem would be the count of these cards; you would have literally 5–6 cards with all separate skills, and drawing a hand would be meaningless because of the count of cards. You would need to duplicate low power, low cooldown skills into more cards. This would make sense for card games to also have balance for cooldowns. Now you get a card video game; generally, it's favorable for slow-paced, tactical turn-based games, but it doesn't have to be. Getting into another example, you might change rewards into cards. It's not a core game mechanic that you interact with, but it would have meaningful impact that makes the game more fun. Another one would be making these cards into player effects that you would change. You might also make the cards into a stack effect... and many more. Im not going to in detail for all of these techniques and such. The point im trying to make these game will use the same concepts to make card game fun that i mentioned perviously. Time for "Tiç Game", the most common method that being used is card cost which i did not add into game directly but there is something similar to that concept. The cost for cards implies the effect of not using most of the cards from hand, so you would make the choice of using 1 best card with 3 cost or 3 meh cards with 1 cost. For this concept, there is "Card Drawing Style" mode, which gives the ability to remove the value of cards being used; instead, using the count of the card forces you to have more cards in your hand if you want to draw a meaningful new hand. meaning giving up 2 cards to draw 3 cards, or giving up 3 to draw 5. Now there is also a trap for this if you ever let your hand to down 1 than you lost because you would only draw 1, its really a trap aaaaand making you to change the worthless card with better next card. What im saying with my design choice, you might add cost style gameplay and that would be giving player to make the choice of which cards to not use. This adds another layer of engagement, which is fun.

Before reaching the end of this blog type devlog, I only hope that I did not bore you, the reader, a lot. I hope you will find these useful. As I said, these are my ideas, and I have shared nothing more. For this one, there are not many dice because I am planning to add them to the next one. Also, I do have a game secret that I want to share (yes, the same one I mentioned earlier). There is a secret panel in the game to manipulate the deck opened with key "T." This was meant to use the same deck with different modes. So I hope you have fun playing the game and reading this. I will be back with "DiçPök," a blackjack game played with dice, later.