Here's an interesting game for (at least) 2 people that can really get the ball rolling about what makes strategy. All you need is a deck of playing cards.
Rules Give each player a suit. This is their hand- they see all of it at once. Each player selects a card and places it face down on the table. When all players have placed a card, flip the cards up. The highest card wins (you can choose if aces are high or low- it makes no difference). The winner of a round takes the cards from that round and puts them in a score pile. In the event of a tie, set aside this round and the winner of the next round takes it. When all cards have been played, the winner of the most rounds wins.
Questions This sounds so simple you're probably think it's a baby game for silly babies. Well, maybe so, but here are some questions that should get you thinking. 1) What is the best card to open with? 2) What is the best card to respond with? 3) What card (if any) should you be reticent to play? 4) Is there a strategy that you could have a computer use to win this game every time it played?
If people like this, I'll post more thought experiments about strategy and game design. Even if people don't I will! In the meantime, enjoy this simple game for 2 players!
Thanks! It's not a game I made up, but I think it's more interesting strategically then it may appear at first!
It's kind of like war, but it involves making decisions, and there is no "war" functionality. Also it has an end that actually happens. From a design perspective, it's almost nothing like War except there are two people who play cards and win based on high value.
Well, work was a little slow today, and I just had mostly kindergarteners. They started playing and after about 5 mins just wanted to play "war" instead. I'll have to see how the older kids like it once the break is over (most of them stay home during the breaks and just come for a few hours after school).
Yeah- I cannot imagine like it much as a 5 year old. And "War" has the coolest name and is way easier to play.
Good luck if you try playing Magic via skype. Or Dominion. If you play Dominion over skype you are a braver man than I.
Some games, yeah, but I don't think any. I can't think of any specifics, but the crux, I think, is if you're drawing cards from the same pile, you need to share a physical space, otherwise you might get the same card as your opponent. In this one, each player is only manipulating one suit, so there isn't this problem. I can imagine playing Magic via VoIP, but, with all the stuff going in that card game, that's some hardcore gaming.
Non-random shared-space games can be solved by duplicating all of the components. E.g. you can play chess by mail if each player has their own board and two sets of pieces. Random shared-space games can be played so long as the players can have a shared awareness of the situation. E.g. you can play whist over Skype by putting your opponent's "hand" in a position where it can be seen by them, but not by you (your opponent will need to trust you to disable the reverse-facing "mirror cam" mode). Your opponent will tell you which card to play, numbered from their left (your right), e.g. "I pay the third card". @StephenBuckley's game, though, is neither random nor does it require a shared space. It doesn't actually even need a deck of cards, so long as the players have means to remember which numbers they've used. If you want to play a random, shared-space card with two separate sets, though, you'll need a real-world random seeding algorithm. I suppose it could be done, and it'd be pretty cool to try to do. For example: * All players "order" the decks - e.g. if we're playing Rummy or another shared-deck French-suited playing card game, we could put it in order from Ace to King in each suit, ordered Hearts, then Spaces, then Diamonds, then Clubs. We each then turn our deck face down.
* We "shuffle" the decks according to an algorithm produced by a random seed. This would ideally be done under the instruction of a computer program. So we both run the program and give it the same seed - a random number - and it then produces a list of instructions.
* Those instructions might be a little like this: deal cards face down into two piles, as follows - left, left, right, left, right, left, left, right, right... (etc.), place the left pile atop the right pile, deal cards face down into two piles, as follows - right, left, left, right, left, right, right... (etc.)
* Once the instructions have been followed, the two players have a pair of identically randomly-ordered decks, and can begin play.
* Play must be done carefully; e.g. I could say (via online chat, telephone, or whatever) "I deal seven cards to each of us, starting with you") and you'd know to put the top card of the deck into your hand, then the next card (face down) into my "hand", and so on, while I would do the reverse with my identical deck. We'd need to trust one another not to peep at each other's hands, and we'd need to not re-order our hands (at least; not without explaining the re-ordering to the other player), so that I could say "I play the 2nd card from my hand; the 8 of clubs" and be able to rely on the other person pulling the same card when they count the second card from their copy of my "hand". I suppose it's a little like quantum entanglement of playing cards. It'd probably feel quite spooky to have the same thing happen at both ends of an Internet connection, with physical decks. It'd probably work quite well for games like poker and blackjack, where drawing is rare, card order in hand is irrelevant, and few cards are drawn. It wouldn't work so well for games that required frequent shuffling (which would need to be done algorithmically, of course), and it wouldn't work at all for snap, of course! Is it crazy that I now have the urge to build a card shuffler that works to a seeded algorithm?
I haven't proven it mathematically, but I suspect that there is no best opening, assuming that all players are equally knowledgable. It's a random game, at that point. After that point, play may become strategic, but it's mostly a game of memory (especially with 3+ players) and perhaps of bluffing - a little too simple, perhaps, for actual play. I believe that it could be made better with one or more variants, though: Scoring Variant: Totals
The value of your score is the total of the cards in the pile, not the number of rounds won. This means that it's more-important that you win rounds with high cards in them. So losing to a King when you played a Queen is really painful, but it's not so bad if you'd played a Three. Further variants could, for example, rank all court cards (Jack, Queen, King) as Tens for scoring purposes (and faster score calculation at the end). Scoring Variant: Totals (Aces Trump)
As above, but Aces only score one point, but are counted as "beating" a King. This means that Aces are a great card to play to hedge your bets, because it'll beat anything (except another Ace) and in the event of a tie it doesn't put too many points in the "pot" to be stolen by another player. Scoring/Ranking Variant: Low Wins
As either of the Scoring Variants above, but the lowest card wins the round, not the highest. This is subtly different than the Scoring Variant, because the cards which are most likely to win you the round are the ones that gain you the least points.
Also, I tend to play with score piles face up so that you don't have to remember every card played. But there's no reason you can't make it a memory game.
Great! These ideas all change the game dramatically. While I'm personally not a fan of the Totals style, I think your Low Wins Total is an excellent idea. I'm definitely going to try it out! You are correct that their is no best opening- and mathematically this is difficult to prove because of the phrase "assuming that all players are equally knowledgable." The game depends on Yomi- being able to predict the move of your opponent. At a very simple level, it seems like you'd want to play your highest card first then work your way down- but all I have to do to win against that is recognize what you're doing, throw my 2 to your King/Queen (I lose something to your Ace/King when you throw it), then throw my highest card every round, and I will always beat your "strategy" Similarly, if you start playing by any strategy which allows me to anticipate your moves, I will be able to win. Reliable prediction means you're screwed in this game, and that's why I think it's a great place to start thinking about strategy. Because it is completely and unabashedly a game which acts as a very thin interface between two minds. If you know that I already blew my Ace on a 7, then you have the advantage of being able to beat any of my card, but you still need to be able to guess when I'm going to throw high, or trick me into playing lower cards out early to give you an advantage in the later game. I'll be posting some variants of my own that I think you'll be happier with and move into the realm of incomplete information. Thanks for playing this!
I played it with my gf over skype. She didn't have a deck, so we just kept track of our cards in a sheet of paper. She won me over by one round. I started playing small and saved my big cards for the end. The exciting part comes when you play a middle card, like a 7 or 8 in the hopes your opponent throws a 2 or a 5. Or when you play a 10 in the hopes she doesn't play the fucking jack.
Actually, throwing a 7 and beating a 2 is awful for the person throwing a 7! The trick of the game is to always guess the number 1 higher than what your opponent will throw. In the Ace-High version* your 2 is all but an automatic loss, unless you think that you can 100% predict when your opponent is throwing their 2 in which case it has as good an odd of winning as your best card (assuming you're playing a random number generator, I suppose). If you throw a 7 and I throw a 2, then you win the round. Whoot! but now that means that your 6-2 are vulnerable to 1 card more than mine are. My 7 becomes, in terms of cards that it can take, as valuable as your 8! Actually, more valuable since I will have another 8. Another way to look at this is that the average value of cards in my hand has gone up relative to yours. If we were to throw random cards, I have a better chance of winning. So if you think your gf is going to throw a Jack, what should you do? If you need to win the trick, you should throw a Queen, King or Ace (but which one?!), and if you need to lose the trick you should throw your lowest card- it's almost definitely a loss anyways, and you exchange it for a very powerful card! * (which is how I play because despite some "definitions," Ace means Awesome and always will/should)
I mean, unless your lowest card is a 7 and her lowest are 2 and 5. In which case, carry on!
A friend showed it to me over the summer. He had a name for it- I'll ask him when I get home. He is not only a friend, but also a roommate! He used it to determine who would go first in other games, but I like it enough on its own merit.
Our preferred way to decide who goes first in games: Start Player.
There's an iOS app of it now, if you're an iOS user, too. Or else yeah: make your own. Just be sure to have a good number of variants of types of cards (whoever touches their nose first, whoever's wearing most buttons, whoever spoke to their mother the most-recently, whoever drew the card) and a tiebreaker arrow (the little arrow that points to the person who wins in the event that there's no clear winner otherwise).
The only thing that I know is your chances of winning will grow if you open with a 2. Spending your low cards will make your hand stronger. You can calculate your chances by assuming your opponent(s) will always play a winning card. The more they spend their winners, the weaker they become. Or you can calculate from a suit of 1 card (no winners) to a suit of two cards (again no winners) to a suit of three cards (a tie or a winner). At a suit of 4 it becomes more complicated but a tie is very likely. There is always the possibility (especially in even numbered suits) of a tie (if everyone keeps playing the same cards). A sure way of trying to lose would be to always play your second to highest card.
But if I know you're opening with a 2, wouldn't I just lead a 2 as well? There is no best first card, actually. As long as you're following a strategy which I can anticipate any part of, I'm at an advantage over you. In this case, the advantage is slight, since I can make your 2 worth a contested point you might want to throw a high card on, instead of just a point to me which took a 10 or something. It's definitely useful to think about the different length suits. As you get to 4 cards, you get into Level 3 Yomi- there's a best card you want to play (4) and I have a counter (1) but you have the counter to my counter (2) and I have the counter to that (3) which is countered by your original best play (4). The 3 is third level yomi, and the fourth is loop around of first level yomi. It's the beginning of true strategiery! (Note:Made up/nonsense word for strategy.)