Welcome to another edition of Analog Game Corner, where I discuss and introduce some analog games I’ve experimented with over the years.
I say ‘experimented with’ because that is very much the approach I prefer to take when making games—it’s an experiment to see what behaviors emerge when people are exposed to certain rulesets, and how modifying the rules effects the behavior.
Seen from this lens, the question behind Samurai Chess (which I covered in the last edition of Analog Game Corner) was “can simple, kinetic rules and multiple players make chess feel more like actual fighting and cause people to act entertainingly Machiavellian?”
The answer appears to have been yes.
Some twenty years later, while tending bar in an inner city dive, I tried to approach another question: “can people’s previous experience in playing RPGs, Magic the Gathering and Poker be combined in a way that brings out players’ nerdy fantasy side like the former two while only requiring the technology of the latter?”
One thing that had nagged at me since childhood was that poker decks do have clear character cards, but are hardly ever used in that capacity. My first order of business in creating Wizard Poker was to rectify that—kings, queens and jacks could be brought into play as knights, mages and thieves. Each would feature different distinct powers, which they could execute at various levels depending on the strength of poker combinations discarded by their associated wizards, the players themselves. This not only introduced personification and all the juicy play drama that enables, but also supplied a bit of the classic gambler’s dilemma: act now with what you have or bide your time for something better.
If I have a knight (king) in play, my opponent has a mage (queen) and a jack (thief) in play and my hand has two fives, I am faced with a choice. I could use my two-of-a-kind to activate the character killing power of my knight, possibly killing either the mage or the thief. Or, I could discard a less valuable card in hopes that I get a third five, another potential character, an ace, or the means to complete another poker combination—straights to cast offensive spells and flushes to block and redirect them.
The reason why I might want an ace? They are ‘artifacts’ with the power to look at other player’s cards. Collecting all four aces is the main objective of the game.
Wizard Poker features epic character build ups, sudden twists of fate and powerful spell redirections. It lasts around twenty minutes usually, though can end quite suddenly from time to time.
So, if you find yourself with just a deck of cards and a small group of entertaining nerds, feel free to check out the (uniquely sassy) ruleset here, undertake your own experiment and channel those epic fantasy combat vibes.
I’ll be back next week with something more serious.
For now, goodbye and thanks for joining me in Analog Game Corner!
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