Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Shakespeare Deathmatch: Game Overview Part 1


The game ended up in a sweet spot for me of 'medium' complexity. I've played a few card games that were quite complex (if you didn't know how every card you had worked together, and you didn't know how every card your foe had worked together, you were at a significant disadvantage). I've also played a lot of games that were quite simple (UNO). I wanted to end somewhere in the middle. I wanted it to be complex enough that it was interesting and it challenged you to apply some strategy, but not so complex that you had to enroll in community college to keep up. I will record a demo video at some point, but I thought in the short term I'd talk through a few rules... the basics are this:

1. You play a character from a Shakespearean play, trying to kill other characters from a Shakespearean play. Spoiler alert: a lot of characters die in Shakespeare's plays. Don't get too attached to anyone; they are likely to be taken out.
2. You try to avoid taking damage of the types your character is susceptible to. For example, Ophelia is susceptible to letters (representing emotional damage - reputation and mean notes - the original cyber bullying) and to coins (she has a family of some wealth and status). She wants to avoid having others place those cards in her damage pool. She is the polar opposite of sticks and stones - sticks and stones won't break her bones, but names are gonna hurt her.
3. You try to deal damage to other characters that will hurt them. While at first you are just trying to throw any damage you can, eventually you can force characters to reveal who they are, allowing you to target your damage to what will do the most harm to them.
4. Once you have a total number of points in your damage pool equal to the totals on your character card, your character is slain. When Ophelia suffers 8+ letters AND 4+ coins, she is done. Last character standing wins.

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