Skip to main content

On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(+1)

Thank you for leaving such a thorough comment, and for giving some of the games a try! I hope you play some of the multiplayer ones sometime, or try the ghazal one with another person -- as you've pointed out, it doesn't work very well when you play it alone, and much of the fun of the deck is in using it with others. (I threw in the Solitaire game just so prospective players could realize that there are ways to play with it by themselves. Incidentally, the way you ended up playing it is the way I hoped people would!)

In any case, I really appreciate your feedback on the rules! "Fish" was adapted from this website and "Pyramid" from this one, but the rest I'd learned from others I'd played cards with in person. I was trying to keep the instructions within the limits of a single page, so I was banking on my audience having some prior familiarity with them (at least enough to recognize to which classic game each set of rules corresponded if they felt puzzled, and to know J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13). I'm sorry for any confusion/frustration because of that! I will definitely run the "Ghazal" game through more tests and watch some of my friends play it to figure out where the unclarity lies. I'm curious -- what rules did you come up with when you played it to make it work for you?

As for my use of "cohere" in the instructions: In future versions, I will consider making it clearer that I mean verbal coherence, but I also wanted it to be vague enough for people to put, say, "passion" and "rapture" together and for this to feel legitimate (even though this is not a coherent set of words without an "and" inserted between them). I wanted the deck to be seen as an occasion for players to negotiate the meanings of different terms and the ways they might go together.

Your suggestion to make my own cards is a great one, and I hope I can once I have more time! I also hope I can someday make a digital version where players can save/use decks that have words of their own choosing, but I still need to get the coding chops for it...

(1 edit) (+1)

the way you describe "cohere" is great, you could just take this paragraph and put it in the rules. it's an explicit rule : "interpret this rules as you feel / want". in fact, many experimental games have this as rule ;)
I'm pointing this, because culturally I'm used to the fact that card games' rules are very explicit if not otherwise stated (epecially with traditional 52+2 card'sz deck in use)  but again this is my perspective as game designer.

For Ghazal I tried matching figures, I though of matching suites but I never had any. I did not understand how to put the verse with the couplets. the free phase was cool. In the end I just tried to make 3-5 word phrases at random. I admit i enjoyed my solitaire game more.

To solve the rules length problem you could maybe imagine this as a small zine, with the letters you've put in separate files and have one page where you just list the games with a brief description + photo and then a separate page for each game rules, use more images (ex. photos of example games), have more examples. 

I really enjoyed the fact that it is a physical game, and though making a digital game gives opportunity to have more words etc. I fiand that "playing"/"toying" with this poem is it's biggest quality. I would rather iterate on this version, make it more accessible, quicker to set etc. rather that going digital but it's your call :)
players can always use tape to paste our own words just like you did. I mean the rules for the game could be litteraly: "take an old deck of cards and paste this list of word on them" ;)