Pub Trivia 2 | Main | Games: Outpost and Merchant of Venus

July 18, 2003

Games: The Golden Deuce and Game Design

Played The Golden Deuce last night which is another game based on the traditional Chinese game Zheng Fen and relatives, as are Tichu and Gang of Four and others. The game isn't terrible but nor is it good. The main innovations it has are a board which is used for scoring but adds absolutely nothing to the game and is a bit confusing as to how it works and the very bad idea that when a player passes he draws another card. This later change causes one to be unable to reasonably plan how to play a hand as your cards will change as the hand progresses. Overall, the game is mediocre and I'll probably give it a 5.

What is interesting about all of these games is how well they show how tricky game design is. Both this one and Gang of Four are very similar to Tichu but the small (but very important) differences of Tichu make it a much better game (and I mean orders of magnitude better). The Devil is in the Details. I've never wanted to design games myself and don't think I have the creativity for it but the details are something I am quite good at, or at least in realizing where they are wrong even if I don't know how to fix them.

Posted by aarondf at July 18, 2003 12:56 PM

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