I like this a lot. The breakdown of the suits is clever and the dice rolling is SIMPLE! I also like that it's fully collaborative, but you could certainly have one player "run" the game as a GM. One thing I might suggest adding is a mechanism for reintegrating the set aside cards. I can imagine a scenario where specific meanings "stick" to specific cards so it'd be a fun twist to have a way for an "old foe" or white whale to resurface again and again!
I really dig this take on the Dread-style block tower. Have you ever seen the 1993 Sandia National Laboratories report about this very thing? It's pretty interesting stuff. I can see using this game in a class.
I'm a sucker for golf games—in part because it's a difficult thing to replicate at the table. You've inspired me to give it another go. I dig the utter randomness of this and having to work within those limits.
Clever hack! A friend of mine is always trying to start a fighting ring in our larger RPG campaigns... I might propose this as a mini-game within to keep things interesting.
I love this. I'm always on the lookout for emergent games and how we naturally generate games from our environment and experiences. This is that in a nice clean package.
