[Card Game] Assassination - A 2 player Print and Play micro card game

mikethetike

So this was an entry I tried to finish for a BoardGameGeek competition where the entire game could consist of only 18 cards. That competition ended like 1 Jan. I finally have the most basic prototype. Nailed it.

RAPTOR PREY: Assassination (Working Title) is a 2 player card game, with one player playing a group of hired mercenaries protecting the President who is about to delivered an important speech. The other player plays a terrorist group trying to assassinate him.

The mechanic revolves around hiding and revealing the members of your team. There is a bit of bluffing, but it is more about setting up your snipers/guards in place to force your opponent into a kind of checkmate.

All operatives are in amongst the crowd undercover at the start of the game, so they are all facedown. Turning a card face up makes them drop their cover in order to do their thing. Cards like snipers cannot immediately kill, instead they have to take an extra action to ready, and get into position etc.

When the game is ready, I want to try publish it on GameCrafter and some of the many other print on demand sites. It's cheap to do an 18 card Mtg style booster, so I'm hoping that I can produce and sell them locally without a huge layout. I just want to state that I don't really care about profit and best markets etc. I actually just want to take a project right to the end and have the finished, polished product in my hand. The size of this game makes that really easy.

So I've attached the cards and the rules. Let me know if there are any errors.

Some notes:
In the finished game, each player will choose 6 out of their 9 cards to play. I have only included 6 here so I can try get the balance right.

I did intend to include a 1 player version, but there would be quite a lot of rules for it and my rulebook space is limited. Basically if you do want to try it, play the Raptors, and for the Marauders turn, try and make the best choice that they would. When revealing a card for the Marauders, choose one at random. If you randomly reveal the President, score a point and vanish him immediately.

Some feedback I am looking for:
- Was the game fun? Would you rather eat the cards than play the game?
- Was one side overly difficult?
- Is there a way to get into a no-win situation for one player?
- Is there an over powered card?

Lastly, I have based the game on G.I.Joe/Cobra. Yeah, I'm a fan. Yeah, I'm over 30. My question is: how different do I have to make it so that it is legal, but guys who get the reference can enjoy it?

mikethetike

Changed the name from Raptor, so that I didn't disappoint anyone who was expecting dinosaurs

watman

We played this over the weekend so here are my initial thoughts, observations, and questions.

* The card sheet has duplicates of The Red Fox and Nighthawk - was this intentional or an accident?
* The GI Joe/Cobra references went straight over my head.
* The iconography was really confusing (though it doesn't affect the gameplay). We were thinking of the president's side as Special Forces (ie an eagle icon) and the other side as assassins (ie skull) but you've used them the other way due to how you've named the sides. Admittedly this would depend on whether the president is a good guy or a bad guy but in your description he's a good guy.
* I would love the see the rest of the cards. You play in a certain way when you know what the opponent has. If you have uncertainty because the opponent has picked from a pool it might affect how you play.
* This isn't a judgement, just an observation: certain rounds in this game can be very slow and brain taxing because it's basically like chess - you're running a bunch of scenarios through your head and trying to figure out all the moves and counter moves. We just noticed this because we also played Loot Letter and that game is so fast because you can only make two - and sometimes only one - decision per round.
* It would be cool to have a card for the Raptors that causes a "failed assassination" with the effect being that the president is forced to flip face down to prevent a point on the next turn. (More on why further down.)
* Just a technicality: "vanish" on the cards should say "vanish this card" else there's an ambiguity in the rules ("it says vanish so can I vanish another card?")

* If you vanish a card such as Storm Wind/Shadow or The Duchess on your first action can you play it again that round as your second action?
* Are you allowed to look at your face down cards to remember what they are (or use a reference sheet)? There is a huge learning curve - knowing and understanding your cards; knowing and understanding your opponent's cards - and when you start it's really hard to remember what you have and what it does unless you can look (which we did). Even when you kind of know you still can't remember.
* Can you use Raptor Commander's third turn skill on the turn that you turn him face up and then on the next turn when he is face up or only on the turn when he begins face up?
* Does "expose" mean show (ie face up but nothing happens) or does it mean "reveal" (ie face up and moved into initial state).

* Why do some of the cards have people names and other just rank designations? Were you trying out a bunch of options?

* We hit a very specific scenario that I just want to point out. Without knowing what the other cards are in the game I can't guess at how often this is likely to occur but if it does happen quite often it's a horrible way to have a round end because the president basically just wins by default because everyone else is in a stalemate:

My side:
Back row (all face down but my opponent knew what cards I had): Shadow, Nighthawk, The Duchess

My opponent:
Back row (all face up): The Red Fox (ready to snipe), The Red Fox (ready to snipe), The President.

The only move I could make was reorganise (twice per round) because two cards were useless and the third, when exposed, would immediately be sniped. My opponent had to be careful because he had a high chance of losing both his snipers if he sniped randomly at my cards hoping to get my sniper so, IIRC, he would just hide one of them and then reveal it again and put it in ready position to use up his turn's moves. We ended up in a stalemate and he won by default because the president's points ticked up each round.


On the whole we quite enjoyed the game though - you've definitely got something here.

mikethetike

Thanks @watman! That is some fantastic feedback.

* The card sheet has duplicates of The Red Fox and Nighthawk - was this intentional or an accident?

There are meant to be 2 snipers on each team. They may have different names later, but for now I have just copied them.

he iconography was really confusing (though it doesn't affect the gameplay). We were thinking of the president's side as Special Forces (ie an eagle icon) and the other side as assassins (ie skull) but you've used them the other way due to how you've named the sides. Admittedly this would depend on whether the president is a good guy or a bad guy but in your description he's a good guy.

I'm not really happy with them either. I used some free vectors. I'll try get some that are more suitable, or maybe just switch them.

I would love the see the rest of the cards. You play in a certain way when you know what the opponent has. If you have uncertainty because the opponent has picked from a pool it might affect how you play.

I haven't actually made any others yet, so I'm open to suggestions.
Some suggestions I've had so far:
* A guy who can create cover fire - Adjacent opponents cards must vanish.
* The failed assassination card you mentioned which I think will be great.
* a distraction creator - all of your opponents cards must un-ready

This isn't a judgement, just an observation: certain rounds in this game can be very slow and brain taxing because it's basically like chess

Yeah, we also had a couple of those. I'm not too worried about it right now because as you say it's kind of chess like.

* Just a technicality: "vanish" on the cards should say "vanish this card" else there's an ambiguity in the rules ("it says vanish so can I vanish another card?")

Good point, I'll add it.

* If you vanish a card such as Storm Wind/Shadow or The Duchess on your first action can you play it again that round as your second action?

Yes.

But if you ready a card, you cannot do anything else with him for the rest of the turn. Originally this wasn't the rule, which meant that when Raptor Commander was out, you could reveal a Nighthawk, ready him and snipe in one turn.

Are you allowed to look at your face down cards to remember what they are (or use a reference sheet)?

You are allowed to look at your facedown cards as often as you like. You may not move them unless you reorganize.
I'll add it to the rules.

Can you use Raptor Commander's third turn skill on the turn that you turn him face up and then on the next turn when he is face up or only on the turn when he begins face up

His ability starts immediately. Basically you get 3 actions for 2 turns, but one action is used up by revealing him.
I'll add it to the card text.

Does "expose" mean show (ie face up but nothing happens) or does it mean "reveal" (ie face up and moved into initial state).

Expose actually means you can look at and place facedown again. Hmmm, i suppose there are advantages to forcing them to be faceup. For example, once I know where someone is, I can snipe them without the facedown penalty. I'll maybe change the text to "Look at 2 of your opponent's facedown cards, you may turn them face up ignoring any abilities" or "you may reveal them". I'll play test and both.

Why do some of the cards have people names and other just rank designations? Were you trying out a bunch of options?

Just trying lots of options at the moment. The card space is tricky to fit everything in. I still want to add some flavour text as well. Especially to give those unfortunate people who don't get the GI Joe references some idea of the characters ;)

Yeah I am aware of that scenario. I didn't post it because I wanted to see if anyone else found it. It actually can happen earlier. In fact there is this opening for the Special Forces:

Turn 1:
Reveal President
Reveal the Red Fox

Turn 2:
Score 1 point.
Ready the Red Fox.
Reveal Brickhouse.

At this point the President will pretty much go on to score 3 points. Can anyone come up with a counter opening for the Raptors?

I may have to give the special forces only one action on the first turn to prevent this opening. Or perhaps one of the other cards will provide a counter.

I certainly don't want a stalemate to happen, but it does kind of translate to a real world scenario. If the President starts his speech with 2 snipers in position and ready, he may well finish it without dying. In that situation I suppose the Raptors would create a distraction and try act quickly to take out a sniper or something. Or perhaps they would break communications to the snipers. I'll give it some thought. Let me know if you have any clever ideas.

Thanks so much for your feedback. I wasn't expecting such detailed feedback, so I really appreciate it!

Out of the games you played, did the Special Forces or the Raptors mainly win?

watman

I meant to mention our results but forgot. IIRC we played five games, basically alternating sides. I won two with the president and one with the assassins and my opponent won one on each side so it seemed pretty even on average but it definitely felt as if, in specific games, one side had an early advantage, perhaps based on a few good opening moves. We'd need to play more to see. We think very differently though so my opponent would do things I just wasn't expecting and wouldn't have done in the same scenario.

Also, of course, with more cards in the mix it could change the balance.

More card ideas:
* I would suggest one extra sniper per team (or something "killer" that's more specific such as Storm Wind/Shadow (which is a damn cool card) but with a different focussed kill talent). There are situations where you feel as if there are too many action cards and not enough killing cards. And, again, people don't necessarily have to choose all the killer cards but sometimes they might want to.
* A diversion card (maybe slightly different to distraction) - causes an opponent's sniper to lose concentration (badly trained sniper!) and have to go back into face up, not ready (ie the card owner would have to ready it again in the next round).

With regards to your scenario, I have a question first: why aren't you readying The Red Fox on the first turn?

I think we hit something like this but I can't quite remember and it's hard to figure out a counter by myself - it's easier to brainstorm with an opponent - but I think what I would do is play Raptor Commander, a readied sniper, and Raptor Guard. The president then gets a point but you now have a scenario with possible options (depends on what the president's side does on turn two) - a third turn, a sniper that can take out Brickhouse, ready your other sniper, ... I can't really think further than this but I feel that you can get to a point where you either can kill the president or at least force him to vanish (more likely).

mikethetike

Interesting. So it actually takes an action to ready (for most cards), but if you played it with free readying and it still worked then maybe that's am unnecessary delay. I'll play test with free readying and see which works better.

Thanks again for your feedback, it's been incredibly helpful and really encouraging!

watman

We understood the rules to mean that "reveal" means that if you reveal your own card then you can immediately take Action I if you want to (so that would ready a sniper for the player's next turn when you can snipe with Action II).

You're welcome.

mikethetike

Ok so I've started playing around with some card designs. Let me know what you think.

Here's the commander:


I'm hoping to get some help with the actual images. These are just placeholders for now.

He only has one state, so that layout works. With the snipers and other 2 state cards I was hoping to have 2 images, one of the sniper in stand by, and the other where he has the gun aimed and readied. Kind of like this:



Space becomes an issue though.

Here is the other option:


Btw, Mr. Snipeski is standing in for The Red Fox because I couldn't find any royalty free images of a woman sniper with red hair.

mikethetike

This is what the tappable version might look like.

watman

Gameplay and aesthetics are two different things but since you asked...

I like the style of the Commander card and I don't like the half and half style of the sniper cards (although if I had to pick one I'd go for the one that's using the old style font, not the Commander style).

Basically, there is a lot of text to read on some of the cards so I actually prefer the text-only original cards (a lot) with a little bit of iconography and maybe slightly more graphic flair somewhere (a card border, an Action I/Action II delineator, ...). With your new style the cards get too busy and the fonts gets smaller, which makes everything much harder to read and comprehend.

Also, in my head The Red Fox was a Soviet assassin (even though she has a Swedish? name) hired because she was the best. I didn't imagine her as a redhead. President Houser could be black. I imagined Storm Wind to be Asian, although not Shadow. With text-only cards you leave the interpretations up to the imaginations of players. If you start putting art on the cards have you thought about inclusivity?

Most important, though, is that you can't have five-point text on a card. People need to be able to read it (upside down a lot of the time too).

mikethetike

I'll definitely make the text bigger. I see what you are saying with the text only cards but I would also like the cards to be identified from a distance and that's where the picture comes in.

I'll draw up some new cards and post them shortly.

Also got some feedback from the community night tonight so I'll be making a couple more changes to the rules or removing and replacing one or two of the cards.

mikethetike

So even though the game wasn't well received at the community night (to put it lightly), I have decided to continue with this project.

I've made a couple of changes:
- Increased the total number of cards from 18 to 36ish. I did this mainly because the 18 card wrap on Game Crafter looks like it is intended to be disposed, whereas the 36 card box is more sturdy. This also gives me more space to design combos between the cards, which is my favourite aspect of any game.
- Added a reinforcement card. The main reason for this was that the Special Forces team was playing with effectively one less card. I may remove it later, but it does add an interesting aspect to the game.
- Added a couple of restrictions on cards to prevent the President rush strategy.
- Some of the cards have been reduced in power. Let me know if I overdid it.
- Added some mediocre art.

I'm still working on titles, but I'll refer to it as Assassination for now.

Here are some of the new cards:

mikethetike

New Rules and Cards:

watman

Ok, we'll try it out next weekend if we have a chance and I'll let you know. I'm interested to see if adding more cards makes it more or less fun.

I much prefer these card designs.

I'm really sorry it wasn't well received. We enjoyed playing the original prototype.