Geekery Collision / Brainstorming from constraints

Not much of a column this week. Between a fast-approaching finals season and various events at home, I’ve been pretty busy.

One piece of news: two of my favorite things are colliding. Alan Moore is going to appear on The Simpsons. The episode is going to feature competition between Android’s Dungeon and a new, “cool” comic book shop.

As far as game design goes… I’m challenging with a specific format for our upcoming line of games. Constraints can often be helpful to the creative process, since it sets your mind thinking along a narrower track then limitless possibilities. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for creativity: even some pretty strict constraints still need creative energy to make them into a playable game (and even then, there’s a good chance it won’t be worth publishing.)

The constraints are a 48 card deck, with printing only on one side. The cards are also a specific size. So  I brainstormed a bunch of ideas for this game line. Here’s all the different genres/game types that I could create with those constraints:

• A tile-laying game, like Carcassonne. (Maybe make it more interesting by having them not line up exactly, creating negative space?)
• A push-your-luck game with cards
• A dexterity based game. Maybe dig up my old “Chaos Orb” game from years back, where you drop cards onto the table from a foot up.
• A “unit based” game where the cards move around the table by flopping around.
• A trading game
• A role-selection game
• An auction game
• A trick-taking game
• A game where some of the cards form a board, and the rest are in the hand. (This one can be tricky since I can’t use other pieces on the board, and cards don’t usually make good pieces)
• A game where the cards are flicked across the table
• A set collection game
• A race game, where cards move along a path
• A game that can be played in line
• A trivia game

Some of these ideas are being developed, and some are still waiting to come forth as a great game. Any good ideas using the constraints?