When trying to tune a card game through updates and playtesting there’s a good chance a lot of the cards won’t make the final cut and will be replaced. There are a lot of cards that didn’t make the cut for the final version of Crazier Eights: Camelot. Some of these cards are really perfectly good and interesting, but they might not have been needed for one reason or another. Let’s take a look at some of these cards: Continue reading
Game tuning & playtesting
Tuning a game requires that you try to improve it through an update. It is important to tune a game several times. I also recommend game designers make multiple significantly different versions of a game to check what works best. How much should a card game be playtested and updated? There is no easy answer, but I can talk a bit about how much Crazier Eights has been updated over the years. Continue reading
Counter-Balance in One Thousand & One Nights
When developing every version of Crazier Eights I want to make sure the set of cards is balanced. When you think of a card game’s balance, you might think of the balance of particular cards. Are any of them too strong? That is a concern, but a more important and interesting concern is the balance of the game overall as a whole, which is a bit more difficult to discuss and examine. Still, it is an incredibly important issue, and it is the issue I will focus on here. In particular, I will discuss a bit about how I tried to make sure Crazier Eights: One Thousand & One Nights is balanced through counter-balance. Continue reading
I will be at GobbleCon
I will be at a protospiel event at GobbleCon on Friday November 24th from 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM (at Burlingame, CA). I will bring high quality prototypes of multiple future versions of Crazier Eights for playtesting.
The main concern is tuning the games at this point to play as well as possible. How long it takes to play the games is one issue in addition to keeping the sets properly balanced and elegant to at least some degree. Continue reading
What’s Crazier Eights: One Thousand & One Nights?
The One Thousand & One Nights were Shahrzad’s stories, also known in the West as the Arabian Nights. They include stories of famous men, such as Sinbad, Aladdin, and Ali Baba as well as many lesser known yet very impressive women.
Crazier Eights: One Thousand & One Nights is a stand alone version of Crazier Eights inspired by these stories. Every card has a new and unique ability inspired by the stories, which could represent a character, place, or event from the stories. Continue reading
The first review of the up to date version of Crazier Eights: Avalon is up on Nonstop Tabletop! This is a thoughtful and honest review, and they liked the game overall. Go Virtues of Card Design
I wrote about the virtues of card design, a major part of my thought process when I make card games. Any other virtues of card design that I should discuss? Any other major elements of card design that I should discuss?
Go here to take a look.
You can get a PDF of the article here.
Tabletop Kickstarter Checklist
I have been working on a checklist of important information for anyone who wants a Kickstarter campaign for a Tabletop game, but really the advice goes even further than that and covers much of what is involved with development and publishing a tabletop game at least a little bit. Go here to take a look.
Camelot & Avalon Card Clarifications
The rules for Crazier Eights: Camelot, & Crazier Eights: Avalon should be fully explained in the rule book & FAQ. However, I decided it might be easier for some people to have a document that clarifies the cards individually, so you can check how a specific card works. Get the Camelot & Avalon card clarification guide here:
Updated FAQ (Updated 7/21/19)
The rule book contains a lot of clarifications, such as a FAQ (frequently asked questions), and I will expand the FAQ as new questions arise that weren’t in it for the rules page on this website. I have also updated a rule book that’s online to have the new questions here.
The first nine questions are in the rule book that comes with the game, but the rest are new. They can all be seen below. Continue reading
Crazier Eights 