MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu CMS.608 / CMS.864 Game Design Spring 2008 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.Justin Moe CMS.608 3/17/2008 Pokermon Pokermon is a game designed out of an interest in combining the mechanics of a trading card game with the accessibility of a standard poker deck. As such, the game is built around a combination of trick taking mechanics with mechanics taken from trading card games. In particular, the game Magic: The Gathering (hereafter Magic) was used as an inspiration. The key design goals underlying Pokermon were merging the trading card game mechanics with a game playable with a standard poker deck, and maintaining a simple set of rules to make it easy to play. The Rules Pokermon is a game for two players, and is playable with only a standard poker deck with jokers removed. The initial setup requires splitting the deck into two halves, with each player taking one complete red suit (either diamonds or hearts) and one complete black suit (either clubs or spades). The pairing of suits is unimportant, only the color is key. In this way, each player has an equivalent 26 card deck, consisting of 13 red cards, and 13 black cards. Each player then shuffles their own deck, and draws a 7 card hand. The player to play first can be chosen in a random fashion, such as by coin flip or dice roll. At the beginning of each turn, the player first draws a card from their deck, if they have cards remaining. They then are required to play one card onto the table. Cards played are placed face up, and form the cards in play. After a card is played, a player can then choose to take one or more tricks from the cards on the table. The rules for trick taking are as follows: 1. A trick must be formed from one card from each player. 2. The card used to take the trick cannot have been played on the current player's turn.3. The card used to take the trick must satisfy at least one of the following conditions: 1. Be higher number than the card being taken 2. Be the same number, but opposite color of the card being taken 3. Be a two, if the card being taken is an ace Play proceeds in this fashion until one of the following conditions is met:. 1. One player has taken an insurmountable majority of tricks 2. All of the cards have been played and taken as tricks 1. The game can end with two cards of the same number and color on the table An insurmountable majority is defined as being a number large enough that the other player, were they to win all of the remaining tricks would not be able to take a larger number of tricks. This would be 14 tricks in a normal case, but may be 13 in the case of the sub clause of the second condition being activated by an untakeable trick. The winner is declared to be the player who has taken the larger number of tricks. In the case that the game ends in a tie, it is declared a draw. Design Analysis The driving principle behind the design of Pokermon was using mechanics from established games, while simplifying them to be easily explainable and playable in a short period of time. It was also an attempt to merge trading card game mechanics into a game played using a standard poker deck. The design appears to be relatively novel, with few comparable games. One key design element that was dropped early in the design phase, even prior to play testing was the idea behind requirements to play a particular card. One initial design involved the use of a full deck of cards for each player, with the different suits having different behaviors as types of cards. This was abandoned due to the added complexity, and requirement of multiple decks to play a two player game. Another potential design element which was abandoned was the use of poker chips as a way to gate the play of cards. The idea was that poker chips would be required for playing cards into the game. The winner of the game would then collect the chips at the end. This was abandoned as well forsimplicity, allowing the game to be played with the minimum amount of materials, requiring only a single standard poker deck. The most similar type of games played with a standard poker deck are trick taking and card collecting games. War is one example of a card collecting game with a somewhat similar mechanic. However, one key distinction is that War relies entirely on randomness, in that the initial apportionment of the deck decides the game,with no real player choice involved. Pokermon allows for meaningful player choices in two key ways. Meaningful player choice is allowing the player to make a choice that has a significant effect on the outcome of the game (Salen 61). The first is in the play of cards. Because they are not usable on the turn they are played, they must be played with a plan in mind, since the other player will take a turn prior to your ability to use the card. The second way that meaningful choice is incorporated is in allowing the player to choose when to use a card to take a trick. It is not required, and may not be possible for a player to take a trick on a given turn, but even if it is possible, it may not be desirable. One example would be when a player has an Ace of Spades out, and the opposing player has a 3 of hearts. While it would be possible to take the trick, it would not be strategically sound, since the ace is a very powerful card, while a 3 is a much weaker card. Pokermon, like most card games, is a game of imperfect information (Salen 204). The information known to all players includes the composition of both decks, the results of all of the tricks taken, and the cards that are currently in play. The information known only to one player includes the cards in each player's hand. The information known only to the game includes the order of the remaining cards in each deck, and the arrangement of each deck is randomly determined prior to the start of the game through the shuffling, along with which player will go first. Pokermon is a game driven by competition, and is a zero sum game (Salen 255). Each trick taken is one less trick that can be taken by the other player. Both players are competing to take a majority of the twenty-six tricks available in the game. The optimal strategy in the game would be totake each card with the same number in the opposite suit. However, the playing mechanic, of not allowing a card to take a trick until the turn after it is played