Game Design Challenge

I've been out of town, hence the blog neglect, and I'm working on a long piece that's taken more work than I thought. In the meantime I thought I would go ahead and propose a game design challenge, both for myself and for anyone who wants to join in. The challenge is this: design a game that fits on a business card. Why? Plenty of reasons. The size will require minimalism, and the games will be easily portable. They will be cheap to make with professional or at home printing, and thus easy to share. And restrictions are fun!

This all began when I was designing my first business card about six months ago. I thought it would be nifty for a game designer's business card to have a tiny game on the back. At the time, the card was for a conference for my job at Cartoon Network, so I ended up creating some pixel CN characters and identifying myself as a production coordinator (which, at the time, was more accurate anyway), but the idea stuck. Plus there's real appeal for me in non-digital games. They can be prototyped faster and played more easily, and are a good way to "practice" without the investment video games require.

The rules for this challenge are very flexible. I'm imagining a board game, where the card serves as a tiny board, but you don't have to look at it that way. The card could simply hold tables, numbers, dots, whatever. Perhaps placing multiple cards next to each other creates a flexibly sized game board? The game can use both sides of the card, and does not have to be a business card, it just has to fit on one. The design needs to be tailored to the small scale of the card, not simply shrunk to fit. Both single-player and multiplayer games are great. Perhaps the perfect game would include instructions on the card space as well (allowing you to leave them around to be discovered by strangers), but for multiplayer games the owner could always just explain the rules.

For pieces, the games should not require anything that can't be accommodated with spare change or something similar. Pennies could be counters, a dime heads up could be player one, tails player two, etc. I'm willing to allow the rules to call for a die, but nothing beyond a regular d6. Better yet would be for all game related decisions to be determinable with a coin flip.

Above is a quick mock-up of my first idea, hatched this afternoon: LifeRPG. In the game the player starts at the blue shield in the upper left. To move, the player has to complete a task in real life. It could be going to the gym, dodging an impulse buy, or speaking up in class. It could be cutting down your debt by a certain amount or skipping desert. It's the player's choice, but the object is to make a game out of real life. Players get one square per accomplishment, marked by X-ing out the square.

To win, players simply escape the maze, but if they choose to head for the red circles they get a chance to win treasure (determined by a coin toss or die roll). Treasure won is marked in the empty boxes, and can be redeemed by the player for a treat. If the player is cutting down on their debt, the treasure could equal a meal out, guilt free. If they're trying to exercise more it could be a free day off from the gym. The point is the treasure should be a sweet reward, but not something that will derail the purpose of playing the game.

The larger box would determine how treasure was won, but I haven't entirely worked that out yet. Maybe there are numbers 1-6, with two numbers winning treasure, two giving you a free move, and two giving nothing. Maybe treasure is won by a coin toss, and this area could be used for flavor text: "You've found some pirate's gold!" The final box is for marking your level. You level up every time to complete a card, plus one for every treasure you choose not to redeem.

Last but not least, this mock-up is only one of many in the complete set. There could be multiple floorplans for each type, and types could include dungeons, snow caves, lava fields, etc. Players would be encouraged to keep the game going, and maybe they could even relate the stories of their adventurers online and share their accomplishments. How many levels can you achieve?

So that's it, a challenge and a first idea. I'm hoping to generate a whole bunch more. Don't get too caught up in mine though; there are many ways to approach business card board gaming. No reason why there couldn't be a business card eight-player war game. Surprise me. If you hatch an idea, email me a concept or mock-up. Better yet, make the thing and send a picture. I'll post everything I get. There's no time limit, as I'm treating this as an ongoing personal project. Let's see what happens!