MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu CMS.608 / CMS.864 Game DesignSpring 2008For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.Developing a Variant of Contract Bridge INTRODUCTION Contact Bridge is a popular trick-taking card game that originated from the British game Whist. The first published rulebook for the game, titled Biritch, or Russian Whist, was printed in 1886 in London; this version of whist included auctioning and the use of trumps. The modern version of bridge was developed by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, who published a scoring system for contract bridge in 1925. The popularity of the game is in part due to its sociable nature; it is often played in teams of lovers and partners. Ely Culbertson dedicated his book Blue Book, a game about contract bridge, to “My wife and favorite partner” (Parlett, 1991, p.26). In this paper, a variant of contract bridge will be studied. The development of this variant was explored through iterations of playtesting, and the results of these iteration will be analyzed. The aim of creating this variation was to design a version of bridge that allowed players to feel a greater sense of control over what cards they were dealt as well as allow players to exert some control over what cards were given to their opponents. The information and feedback systems of bridge were adjusted and explored to see whether these changes could help create a variant of bridge that was challenging and enjoyable. RULES OF THE GAME The variant created was based on the rules of contract bridge defined by the American Contract Bridge League (ABCL, 2005). Contract bridge scoring was not used for the variant because it added another level of complexity that was not necessary to observe the desired effects rule changes had on gameplay. A dummy was not used either because this variation allows all players to play and make decision in the game. Since the rules were changed over several iterations, the specific rule changes for each variant will be mentioned when each variant is discussed; the general rules of play are discussed below. Bridge is played with four players at a square table; the players sitting across from each other form a partnership so that there are two teams. Bridge is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. First, all four players draw cards to determine who will be the dealer. Aces are the highest value card, while twos are the lowest. The order of the value of the suits from high to low is spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. The dealer than deals the cards face down one at a time to each player in clockwise order until all 52 cards are dealt. Each player should have 13 cards at this point. The players then take turns bidding. The dealer bids first by stating the number of tricks he believes he and his partner can take as well as the suit of the trump. The bidding then proceeds in a clockwise fashion; a player can outbid another by either a) bidding the same number of tricks but a higher suit for the trump, or b) bidding a higher number of tricks for any trump. The order of suits for the trumps from high to low is no trump, spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. Bidding ends after three successive passes after a bid. The winning bidder and his partner must achieve the number of tricks stated in the bid to win the game. The winning bidder then places down a card of his choice, called the lead. The other players then place down a card of the same suit one at a time in clockwise order. If a player has a card of the lead card’s suit, it must be placed down; otherwise, the player can choose to discard any card from his hand or play a card of thetrump suit. If a player has multiple cards of the same suit, he can choose which one to play. One wins the trick by placing the highest value card of the leading card’s suit or by placing the highest value trump card down. Once a trick is won, the four cards from that round of trick-taking are placed aside facedown. The player that wins the trick is the first to place down a card of his choice in the next round. This continues for thirteen rounds until all the cards are gone. If the winning bidder’s team reaches their contracted number of tricks, his team has won; otherwise, the other team has won. PLAYTESTING The following variants were playtested by two groups. The first group, Group A, was composed of four players that all had some experience playing bridge. The second group, Group B, was composed of four players that had no experience playing bridge. For the second group, several rounds of bridge were played with no trumps, bidding, or scoring, to familiarize the group with the basic rules of bridge. Afterwards, bidding was introduced, and finally, the variants were played. VARIANT I In the first variant, only eight cards were originally dealt to each player instead of 13. The remaining 20 cards were left in a stack face down at the center of the table. Normal bidding would proceed, and the first round of trick-taking would be played. The winner of the first trick would then look at the top card of the central stack without revealing this card to any of the other players. He has two choices; he can a) keep this card in his hand and then deal one card to each of the remaining three players in clockwise order, or b) pass this card along to the next player and then continue dealing one card to the remaining players so that he is the last one to receive a card. For example, the winner may pick up the first card from the stack and find a three of clubs. If clubs are not the trump, the card has little value, so the player will most likely pass this to the opponent on his left. Afterwards, he continues to deal one card each to his partner, his opponent on his right, and then finally to himself, hoping that the card he receives will be higher than a three. The game continues in this fashion where after each round of trick-taking, the winner looks at the first card in the stack and chooses to keep it or pass it. After the fifth round, when the last cards from the central stack are distributed, the game continues as a normal game of bridge. The purpose of this variant was to see how allowing players to exert some control over which cards they have or which cards their opponent have affected the gameplay. It was essentially an experiment on positive feedback; allowing the winner to look at the card in the center gives him an added