Various games I've come up with. Or modifications to games to make them better. Or more interesting. Or both.

Psychological War

The name of this game stems from the fact that I noticed it was rather like a cross between psychological ju-jitsu and... erm... multiplayer everything. Huzzah.

Each round, each players gets a certain number of points. I'd suggest around 100, but going higher will let players more finely choose the exact amount to use. It won't really change much. Going really low would make it interesting too. Try various values and experiment. And tell me how it went.

Anyway, these points can be dividing between defense, or offense. If it is offensive, it needs to be targeted against a sample player. So one turn's point spendings might be: 12 defensive, 18 against Bob, 25 against joe, and 45 against Sue. All choices are done secretly, and then revealed at the same time.

If, during your turn, more points are directed against you offensively than you put on defense, you die. Try again next game. And the last player alive is the winner! Or, people can agree to a joint win or something, perhaps by choosing to spend no points [but it would be so tempting to betray them...].

An option I'm not sure would work is saving points. While I assumed it would be without carryover when I made it [any points not spent in a turn would be lost] playing so that you could save points would add an important element to strategy. Do you go primarily defensive and save up so you can do a good offense without having to risk yourself? Or would that make you too tempting a target to everyone else, who doesn't like the fact that you have almost twice their points stored up? Hoom.

Obivously, it would be best to play with more than two people, as, unless you had saving points option, the only possible outcome would be a draw. Both defend successfully, or kill eachother. Huzzah.

Oh, yes. It's been suggested giving points to other people being an option as well. Try it out if you want it. Personally, I think the game is fine as it, perhaps with carryover, but there's a point where simplicity and elegance are prefered to adding even more cool new powers. Otherwise, you end up with the current state of MtG. But hey, if you like it, roll with it. Any change to the rules agreed upon by all players can be implemented immediately. This is true, by nature, of all games.

I Never

This game was inspired by a link and comment on Kevan's page. The game it was inspired by was basically, that each person had to state a book they were ashamed that they never read, and they got a point for each other player who had read the book. Kevan's comment was "Thoughts you've never thought is the important thing." I decided to just generalize the whole thing, with a slight twist.

Each player takes a turn making a statement of something they never did. Never learned how to ride a bike, Never read "Foucault's Pendulum", Never felt guilty about not finishing your dinner when there are so many starving people in the world, etc. And as before, you get a point for each of the other players who had. Honesty is key, of course. It's just a game, and if you can only win by lying, you should probably play another game. Poker, for example.

Anyway, the slight twist would be if everyone else actually had done something you stated, or perhaps just a large enough majority, you would have to do it in a reasonable amount of time. This would prevent people from naming things they didn't really feel guilty about not doing, or haven't done because they actually didn't want to. And it's be an excellent excuse to go and finally do whatever.

Reasonable amount of time would, of course, be subjective. Having to take driving lessons would be slightly harder than saying hello to a random stranger. But visiting another country or learning a second language could be, most likely, much more problematic. But making significant steps towards doing so should be enough.

As I can see it, this game has a few merits. It's playable with pretty much any number of people, as opposed to games where you can either play with only 2, or it all but requires more than 2. You can play it anywhere, no cards, boards, or complex charts needed. And of course, if you win, chances are it will broaden your horizons a tad. Whereas, if you don't win, chances are you'll get to share some of your hobbies with someone, as they got points from something they hadn't done, but you had.

Life, Sorta

This was I game I came up with whilst pondering Jim Conway's little Life dealybob. In case you don't know, there's probably loads of good links if you care to search using Google or something. It isn't necessary to play the game, although it might help to understand the inspiration.

Anyway, play starts with a couple of pieces for each player on a board. Ideally, just use a go set, but a checkers board can make for slightly more constrained play. The initial configuration should be about four pieces, set in a "T" shape, placed somewhere on the board, preferably not directly on the edge.

Moves consist of the following choices:

  • Place down a piece anywhere that has exactly three adjacent pieces. It is controlled by the player who controlled the majority of those three pieces.
  • Destroy a pieces with less than two or more than three neighbors [adjacent pieces]. You can destroy any enemy's pieces, or your own pieces, if you like.
  • Move a piece you control to an (empty) adjacent space.

Your goal is to be the only player with pieces on the board, or, failing that, to have the most when you all quit. Strategies involve moving your pieces into stable positions so that you can create mroe but not worry about the other player destroying your pieces. Crafty strategems involve growing pieces of the enemy so you can start destroying nearby pieces before they restabilize their structure. Or moving a few of your pieces into an enemy's structure, where they still can't be destroyed as long as you avoid being overcrowded or isolated.

Anyway, that's the game. It can be quite fun, although occasionally deadlocks can occur, so you might want to play with a "no previously repeated gamestates are allowed" type rule, as in Go. And you might make it so the first player can't destroy on his first turn, or if you are playing with more than two players [an idea that just suddenly sprung to mind] nobody can destroy on their first turn.

Elementism

For Elementism, you will need a large deck of cards, consisting of equal amounts of five different card types: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Ether. Theoretically, an infinite sized deck would be ideal, but however many index cards you are willing to sacrifice would be good. I'd suggest around 40 cards total as a minimum. Come to think of it, if I had any programing skills, I'd make the game, but alas, I do not.

Anyway, each player starts by drawing a hand of five cards. They then choose and declare an element type as their weakness, and whenever they draw a card of that type, they must hand it to another player and draw a card, or discard it. Also, any and all cards in their hand of the named type are immediately gotten rid off in the same manner when the game starts. You can't hand an element to a player who has it is their weakness, also. [No handing cards back and forth in conspiracy to gain mind-boggling amounts of cards, sorry]

Play proceeds in turns, clockwise order. During a turn, a player may choose one of several options:

  • Draw a number of cards so that their hand is equal to five
  • Draw one card, regardless of hand size
  • Change their spell
  • Cast their spell
  • Disrupt another player's spell

The spell is a set of faceup cards in front of you. When you change your spell, you may put cards from you hand into your spell, and/or vice versa. Cards in your spell don't count towards you hand size for drawing, but can be disrupted by an enemy.
To disrupt a spell, you can discard a card from your hand of a certain type to get rid of a card in another player's spell. Earth gets rid of Air and vice versa. Ether gets rid of Water and vice versa. Fire gets rid of Fire, and vice versa, technically. Keep this in mind when choosing what element is your weakness, especially regarding what people before you already chose. If several people chose Air, for example, you might not choose Earth, because Earth will be less likely to be disrupted due to a lack of Air.

Anyway, you can also cast a spell. This lets you win providing the spell has one or more of the following:

  • One each of four different element types
  • Two each of two different element types
  • Four of one element type

If you have excess, this won't stop you from winning. So the goal is to build up a spell of the proper type, hope nobody can or will disrupt it before it becomes your turn again, and then cast it. Potential strategies would involve working redunancy into your spell [six of Fire, to make it so more would have to be disrupted, for example]. Also, not disrupting an enemy spell so the next player has to waste cards and a turn to do so. You get the idea, I'm sure.

If anyone actually plays a game of this, I'd love hearing about the results. And if I ever go and buy some more index cards and make it, I'll be sure to post the results.

Kodo

Kodo is the kind of game you can hide within normal conversation, just to boggle people. It also relies on either a long memory, or playing it via chat/ICQ/whatever and checking the logs. If you don't have the former and don't want to do the latter, just assume if nobody remembers something it doesn't exist. How existential.

Before playing, a set number of Keywords and a Complexity must be chosen. The keywords can be any words, be they vague and mysterious, or articles and conjunctions. Players can either all use the same set of keywords, or there can be a different set for each player. Or there can be some overlap. Whatever.

Players take turns stating keywords. You get a point each time you do so. However, depending on the Complexity, certain keywords may be illegal to use in certain times. You can't repeat a sequence of keywords of complexity length. Let's take, as an example, the keywords "work" and "play", and a complexity of 3. Here might be a short game, between two players, ignoring non-keyword rules.

  • Work
  • Play
  • Work
  • Play
  • Play (The playercouldn't use Work, because the sequence "work play work" had been done before)
  • Work
  • Work (Play was similarly illegal, because, of course, play work play had been done)
  • Work
  • Play
  • (The player has no legal moves, because both wpw and wpp have been done before. The game ends, or something.)
For longer games, use more keywords, or a higher complexity. And of course, half the fun of the game is playing it within normal conversation. If someone else uses keywords, they count as part of the sequence. And they get points. Feel free to keep track of their score. And tell them if what they said was illegal. ;)

Or, if you wanted to drop the "within conversation" bit, simply use numbers instead of keywords, and play with paper and pencil to keep track of the sequence, trying to manuever the other player into crashing or something. Which reminds me: If there are two players, the game is won by the person who makes the last legal move. If there are more, use the keeping track of points method, and whoever has the most when the game ends wins. A player can say a keyword as long as they didn't use the last keyword.

Head on back.