Game Review: River Rats

Poker games where you play solo are banking games where ultimately it's only you against the banker, the other people around the table are there not there to play with you and in most cases that sounds illegal. Can poker even be a cooperative game?

In River Rats you take on two of them either alone or as a team like on a casino table where the goal is to have a higher hand, but there are no bets and actual card play is involved; there are even abilities each side can use.

Each player takes an ace that gives them an ability they can activate, or if you play a card of your suit you can use that power instead, the enemy also has a king up their sleeve and rats' suits also give them an ability that affects the table.

Players draw a card from the deck or a face-up market and play cards to form a hand. Once the river is laid down, it's showdown time, and all cards are shown. Whoever wins places the other team in debt, any side that gets 5 debt is out of the game. When you beat an enemy rat you get an extra advantage.

To make gameplay more than just playing for the best possible hand, the value on a debt card signifies the hand you need to make to acquire a joker, which you can use as a true wild card.

Interestingly, solitaire play doesn't require any different preparations from the multiplayer game and yet the gameplay can differ depending on the number of players, with co-op being a coordinating of powers while solitaire play is more tactical with only one available set of abilities in play to use against another. Solo play is just drawing and playing the five best cards you can make while making best use of your abilities. In co-op no one is allowed to divulge card information and with more abilities in play the team must reach their goal together as soon as their hand is made.

The risk in acquiring jokers is akin to a platformer: is it worth risking a wrong move to get a bonus? For higher debts the difficulty of the hand is itself the risk, for lower debts it's possibly losing the round (The lowest debts require a straight, though the requirement has to match exactly).

Beating the first enemy means a boon on the second round, though the second enemy is otherwise the same save for a different ability. Would it be better if the second enemy has a stronger fight for a level 2 is not something I'm ready to answer, as it is there are enough abilities to have to check.

At least it's more than simply playing out cards to make a hand, and already things are happening on the table that aren't beyond your control, just by that alone it's way more involved than any game at the casino that isn't outright poker.

Chadomancer: Where? WHERE does it say "If I stick my head through the partition again, you'll chop it off"?

muRnjENDoof: "the kid sitting next to me on the bus when he sees me playing a game on my phone:"

Rishi Sunak: Joko had an ability to look at problems from other angles and achieved amazing results

zANThia: And suddenly the concept of pivot tables was invented.
mATHeQUALS5: "And if I press this button here, the guillotine activates"
Don_Domat: "Oooooh, look! Some selling a min-priced IotM."

antic THE FEARless: Another day at work with Mr. Fantastic
vrdt: Jannet my evil double is crawling out of the mirror... again
Gawea: Oh, you're in luck! It says here these heads are buy one get one free!

Sinnaj63: Taking instructions after a computer mouse shortage very literally, tech support is now happening exclusively through computer mouseholes
lYNNIElIlY: "Look, have to head out after this, alright?"

 

Chadomancer: I asked God to show me a sign. This is what I got. Could have been worse.
amoebalady: "Ha! Kids these days think they're so smart. Steal all my rulers, will they? They didn't call me the MacGyver of Mobile City for nothing! This lesson WILL CONTINUE!"

Waimless: For astrological mathematics, Professor Rakesh likes to pull out the BIG ruler.

s8n8ataco: "So as you can see, the slope of the line continues indefinitely in either direction."

bLOCKhEaD77: Now you see kids, contrary to what jschlatt says, road signs are, in fact, free.

Zanthia: The Ho Chi Minh sign fell again. Mr. Dong was finding this pretty hanoi-ing!

dOctOr clAW: Remember that time you asked why a "yard stick" is only three feet?
Soxfan196o: My old work went out of business and I kept the sign for this purpose.

littlebitofSonshine: Yawn hes showing of his ruler again
Rishi Sunak: Ho Chi Minh rules, OK?

Sinnaj63: Caption: The ruler has decreed that all rulers shall decree the rulers decree

sdugicus: Wanna join in a chorus of the Amerasian blues? When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City

 

Chadomancer: It was at this exact moment that Michelle realized the drugs were starting to kick in and she wasn't wearing her adult diapers.

hUntanoMAD: Nobody can tell you you're doing it wrong if nobody knows what you're doing

Soxfan196o: Why did I choose this over jail?
Kemistry: locked in the heat of the game, the internet stared at the camera as the heat of the fart met her nostrils
amoebalady: Ellen was convinced she was going to die here, as the game stretched into Day 3. Everyone had forgotten whose turn it was next, but were all too polite to mention it.

Waimless: Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to fence off more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago- Oh, a joke about it? Uh... Whoever loses this is GO-ing to have a big headac

Verdant Purple: "I'll show you mine if you shogi yours."

nehzee: top 10 reasons why japan's population is not rising
Zanthia: Mr. Miyagi demosnstrated his skills once again, being 4 Nil up in the staring flies to death contest.

y2kjman: I cant believe that turd came out of her... how did it fit?

Demit: "staring into your soul" team leading 4-0 in cheese staring contest

Chadomancer: It was then that Jerry realized he had confused the scalp wax for Super Glue once again. - 11 pts
Soxfan196o: Thats my good boy. - 8 pts, 3 vts
Don_Domat: Did you put superglue on your head to paste your hair??? Omg, yes, you really did! - 4 pts

Vitellozzo: When you are bald but your love is so angry she forgets it and start pulling you by your ghost hair strings - 2 pts
hleghe: "trying to get hair from a stone" - 5 pts, 2 vts
Marconius: when my spouse wants to try a little hair pulling and I'm doing my best to make her happy - 7 pts, 4 vts
Zanthia: It's called a pony tail because when you lift it up there's an arsehole underneath! - 1 pt
Yawwn: "I know a bowler when I see one" - 7 pts, 3 vts

The Patron Saint of Depravity: As you can see, my kink has been adversely affecting my hairline. - 4 pts

amoebalady: Neville was horrified to find that his brilliant plan to shave his head did not, in fact, shield him from the consequences of making derogatory and insulting "jokes" at Sheila's expense. - 10 pts
Cheese: When your kink isn't feasible but she works with you anyways - 5 pts, 4 vts
Drbanjo: You're fighting ed the unbalding - 8 pts, 4 vts

	2				2	3			3	1			11
		3	2					3					8
	3			1									4
							2						2
		2									3		5
1		1						2		3			7
									1				1
2					3				2				7
				3			1						4
			3	2		1	3				1		10
			1		1			1			2		5
3	1					2				2			8

Review: Checkmate in Your Pocket

Cards and chess, two game forms so different from each other yet every now end then someone tries to make a synthesis of a game. The results of mixing luckless chess and literally-associated-with-gambling playing cards have varied, but you cannot have one without the other. 

Checkmate in Your Pocket is surprisingly a solitaire, but your goal is still to checkmate the opposing king on a 1-dimensional board of eight cards. Cards move and capture each turn, new ones appearing until finally the kings pop up for the last standoff. Each card moves and captures a certain way that is as close to chess as a linear board allows. Each turn you move a piece, your opponent moves a piece then you capture. A piece capturing a piece worth four points more lets that side discard a card from the reserve.

As this is a solitaire game, the enemy's moves are predetermined generally by which piece is furthest ahead and which capture is most valuable, overridden by a priority to avoid or escape check. Pawns reaching the end of the board don't become another piece, but a passed pawn in your favor lets you make two turns while two enemy passed pawns is a loss.

For a chess-themed game, the game doesn't feel like chess even considering the liberties needed to make a chess-like one-dimensional game. For one, the pawn promotion mechanic works differently, pawns sort of stick around at the end of the line, pushed back whenever a card enters the board. The move sequence takes a bit to understand, but a turn must end in a capture. Considering the board can only shrink once the kings arrive, checkmate is inevitable if you haven't lost before that.

Card values are similar to chess, if a pawn captures a rook or any other piece captures a queen you get to discard an extra card, a hard thing to pull off when higher-scoring cards are more slippery, add the enemy algorithm's preference to capture this way and high-level sacrifices are riskier.

We're still a ways until we find that perfect mix of cards and chess, but you can't say this game didn't try to be unique. I'd argue the mechanics make 2-player play possible, with pawn promotion the only sore spot.

Game Review: Seat and Eat

You guys remember Diner Dash?

Seat and Eat tasks you with optimally seating customers in your restaurant across four tables. There's no need to worry about diners impatiently waiting for a table; you score points based on complete table arrangements, each card scoring based on seating and table conditions. Draw a card and place it on an empty seat. Once a table is full you immediately score, then the table is cleared for the other guests, and this goes on until the end of the shift (the whole deck). Partial tables score half in total. The goal is to score at least 120 points.

Simple enough to play, but as with most games that have self-referential scoring conditions, you have many factors to consider with each play even if there are optimal arrangements. A card scoring might prevent another from scoring, and it's a matter of decisions given the non-zero nature of the scoring dynamics.

The layout is also another dynamic to this. There are three positional relationships that score: being adjacent to a card, being across a card and being in the same table as a card independent of whether either of the first two are true. Each card scores based on only one of these relationships and one card scores based solely on where it sits, though it scores decently enough to be a consideration. Every table is a set of cards mutually connected to each other, and there's four of them working independent of each other. Card placement has its consequences even if it doesn't affect the whole board; a card has effect once it's placed.

The quick points/long term gains dilemma happens at the same time given the way the game works, there is no rush to complete a table but you can't just delay until the right card comes. As for counting cards, what matters is what can no longer score so you safely make a play without interference.

The game requires a large play area but it's simple to get the hang of and is just like arranging real tables.