Week 08 - Cards Against... Cards?

On Tuesday, multiple boxes of both known and unknown card games were placed under the camera and shown off to the class. Our job? Choose one and play it- learn it- and just enjoy. Following on Thursday, some of us switched to a different game - myself included - to learn about one of the different card games offered to us. As someone who does not actively play many card games, much less utilizing the traditional deck, many of the shown games were new to me. The one of the two I played that interested me the most was a game named “Control.”

“Control” is a resource management based card game made by Keymaster Games that is best played with two-to-four players. The theme follows the idea that the players are time travelers trying to escape from a shattered area of space-time, and trying to prevent the other players from doing the same. Following the theme, there are two types of cards- silver fuel cells and bronze fuel cells, which are burnable. ‘Burning’ a bronze fuel cell uses its ability, but puts the card into the discard pile. In contrast, silver fuel cells have abilities that activate upon being played. Each fuel cell card has a number on it, the goal being for the numbers of the played cards in someone’s hand to equal 21, like Blackjack. In the play space, the players “face one another in a shared space, allowing them to read both their cards and one anothers,” which also becomes a core way in deciding how strategies are formed as you try to play cards to sabotage one another (Altice 39).

“Unmatched: Jurassic Park” is a themed version of the game “Unmatched,” where the goal is to skirmish with one other player and defeat them to win. There are two sides and both have special powers that will give temporary advantages. the Raptor side has abilities called pack skills, for example “clever girl is a card that gains you an extra action if there is at least one other raptor adjacent to the target” (“Unmatched: Jurassic Park” - How to play 00:02:55- 00:03:01). The other side, the hunter, is given advantages as well such as “trap tokens. At the start of his turn he can place three of these tokens on any unoccupied space of his zone” (“Unmatched: Jurassic…” 00:04:19). While quite different from “Control”- there are surprising similarities within the cards and goal of play upon a deeper look. When attacking, using abilities, or generally acting on one’s turn, there are cards with energy counters- with a look very similar to the deck given in “Control.” Unlike control, you face off with only one another player, but similarly you combat and sabotage each other in order to win.

Many other card games exist and are played very differently, like Flux and its variants compared to Solitaire but even if “your deck and mine might look wildly different, [...] we were guaranteed that both contained the same fifty-two cards (Altice 44). This shows the variety of games possible within a singular deck, and how many more can be possible even with the smallest of changes. The class’s assignment is how to change Bartok and make it {hopefully} more enjoyable and we started with the theme- the four fantasy elements of Earth, air, fire, and water- and are going to continue to prove that one deck can make any card game can become a reality.