Game Review: Voleur

Poker cribbage. Not the most accurate way to describe Voleur, but you are forgiven for thinking it looks like it. It's mechanistically a last-trick-only piquet but with scoring based on poker-like hands.

Two players are dealt six cards and discards two each. Then a card is placed face-up for trump. Eldest hand leads and players must follow suit, if they can't they must trump otherwise may play any card, highest trump card or card of suit led wins the trick. Tricks aren't collected and are placed before the players. 

The winner of the last trick wins the value of his hand. You only score for one combination of cards but you can replace a card with the trump indicator to make a better combination. A basic combination scores while a special combination steals the points from your opponent (scores can't go lower than zero). First to 40 points wins. Unusually the deal continues with the remainder of the deck until it runs out, only then is the whole deck reshuffled.

Cribbage comparisons are thin, but strategy in discarding (albeit less consequential) and skillful card play remain. Should you discard for a high-scoring hand or a likely winner? After all, a high-value hand is nothing if it can't win even a trick.

Playing to win the last trick requires an approach different from simply winning a majority of them. Most last-trick games are luck-heavy and this is no different, the four tricks offset by only having two players.

A fine mix of games resulting in its own thing, though it does need to raise its stakes some more.

Game Review: Digging Graves

An interesting find in the 2024 traditional deck contest, a vying game with an unusual mechanic. In Digging Graves you bet on having the highest single card in your hand. Players ante, cards are dealt, then two betting rounds where betting consists of discarding a card first then staking. Highest card wins, ties broken by suit so the pot is never split. Whenever you discard a spade you are given another card.

How can you make a single card showdown interesting? The same way poker did: having more cards available for each player. Unlike most forms of poker in this game hand sizes can get uneven though having more cards isn't doesn't matter in the showdown. More cards does mean more bluffing power in the betting, so do the discards you make.

Discards are open information so you can do even more bluffing with what you discard, not just using it to get rid of low cards. The adding up of information for each round doesn't take a lot from betting, remember that the cards do not lie but the player can.

If you need a quick betting game for dealer's choice, this one works great for three rounds of betting.

A couple of variations are given, one is by comparing pairs and the other is where if you discard a spade you must keep discarding until your discard is no longer a spade. These give way different approaches to betting.

Review: Base of Spades

Base of Spades is Gregg Jewell's puzzler disguised with a theme for the 2024 traditional playing card contest, where you rearrange a row of cards to match them and score within a range. 

To bring down the defenses of the tyrannical Ace of Spades (whose only appearance is to take part in the pun), you must rally your nine even-numbered cards (kingdoms) by matching them with nine odd-numbered cards (champions) by suit. Every turn a commander dictates how a champion of a suit can move on the line, after a move another commander takes charge.

Once you match all cards by suit, you then make an attack based on how many matches total seven. You flip down the card that equals this total if it's still face up. Commanders can give champions optional movement range adjustments depending on how many defenses are down.

Taking down three cards of the defense is a win, a bigger win if it's one of each row of the pyramid. Once the deck of commanders is used up you shuffle it again, retiring a random card. If you use up all your turns this way without hitting three you lose.

Doing all this in 21 turns seems daunting, but matching suits is rather easy if you think of the other cards that shift to make room of your move. The extra moves you get whenever you take down a card means fewer moves thanks to additional options and thus finer moves

The goal is not to make as many sevens as possible, but you can't just match suits willy-nilly. If you have seen any skill-based arcade game that counts for example the number of spins a ball rolls around a circuit this game sort of works like that, overshoot or undershoot this six-number range and you've wasted moves.

There is a reference sheet for commander movements, the only real external piece of equipment. The gameplay is simple and works as a puzzle.

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"? - 7 pts

muRnjENDoof: "the kid sitting next to me on the bus when he sees me playing a game on my phone:"- 10 pts

Rishi Sunak: Joko had an ability to look at problems from other angles and achieved amazing results - 4 pts

zANThia: And suddenly the concept of pivot tables was invented. - 10 pts
mATHeQUALS5: "And if I press this button here, the guillotine activates" - 13 pts
Don_Domat: "Oooooh, look! Some selling a min-priced IotM." - 5 pts

antic THE FEARless: Another day at work with Mr. Fantastic - 2 pts, 2 vts
vrdt: Jannet my evil double is crawling out of the mirror... again - 2 pts, 1 vt
Gawea: Oh, you're in luck! It says here these heads are buy one get one free! - 0 pts

Sinnaj63: Taking instructions after a computer mouse shortage very literally, tech support is now happening exclusively through computer mouseholes - 2 pts, 1 vt
lYNNIElIlY: "Look, have to head out after this, alright?" - 11 pts

	2			1		2	1			1			7
2					3	1	3		1				10
			1			3							4
		1		2	1			3		3			10
	3		2				2	1	3	2			13
			3						2				5
1	1												2
		2											2
													0
					2								2
3		3		3				2					11

 

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.

hUntanoMAD: Stealin' - 3 pts, 1 vt

ihatesegfaults: if doraemons pocket was a backpack and the painting was a portal... - 6 pts

NotTaskmgr: "so yeah, this bag was given to me by hermione granger, as you can see, its bigger on the inside than the outside..." - 4 pts, 3 vts

Fargblabble: "No... not that. Not that either... Look, I am pointing at your penis, alright? There is only one sacrifice that will break the ancient curse." - 11 pts

Chadomancer: Airport Security is getting downright medieval. - 9 pts
littlebitofSonshine: Cleaning the blood off from the last knights ears. - 3 pts, 2 vts

Kemistry: it took a long time, but it does seem trickle down comings eventually filled his purse - 4 pts, 2 vts
Avandor: Do you have a receipt for that? - 10 pts
silvermare: harvesting Sword Lesbian sap in AO3's smut fields - 4 pts, 2 vts

								3		3
			3		3					6
				1		1	2			4
	1	2		2	1		3	2		11
3	2	1			2		1			9
			2					1		3
1		3								4
2	3			3		2				10
			1			3				4

Kemistry: the AWF champion "Dead Bones" getting prepared for his nemesis, "Raising Bones" - 3 pts
vrdt: new baki the grappler season looking LIT - 1 pt
Waimless: Vocaloid? More like Wrestleoid! - 0 pts

Boo_Boy525: Miku has had enough. - 7 pts, 3 vts

Soxfan196o: And now Harley Quinn enters the match. - 6 pts, 3 vts

Chadomancer: Things were about to go from uwu to owo pretty quickly. - 18 pts

haha4: The Rock was a very enthusiastic spectator in his early days - 6 pts, 4 vts
Avandor: She entered the ring, despite the warnings that he had mastered the Hair Pull technique. It would not go well... - 7 pts, 5 vts

	3									3
				1						1
										0
		2			3		2			7
			3		1	2				6
3	2	3	2	2		3	3			18
2			1		2		1			6
1	1	1		3		1				7

Gawea: Wanna supersize that McChicken meal? - 9 pts 

Avandor: Elephant scab sandwiches just never took off - 11 pts

Servius: Looks like someone misunderstood portion control and made a steak-ment!" - 4 pts, 2 vts

Chadomancer: Step 1: Run a whole chicken over with a steam roller - 16 pts
Soxfan196o: seems like the chicken in this sandwich got their antibiotics - 2 pts, 1 vt
Waimless: 2-chicken sandwich - 0 pts
Fargblabble: Bread Berets! - 2 pts, 2 vts

haha4: Barb knew the only way to get rid of Ralph without implicating herself was through his stomach - 6 pts

Cervantes: whole chicken skin sandwich damn - 4 pts, 3 vts

		3	2	2			2			9
1			3		3	1	3			11
							1	3		4
3	3	2		3	2	2		1		16
2										2
										0
	1		1							2
		1				3		2		6
	2			1	1					4