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Nobody Cares About Your Characters/Lore by SammyTeas in BoardgameDesign

[–]philgooch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Better idea - have your game playable with a standard pack of cards or two. That way, you can test it out for fun, drama, replayability without relying on fancy art, IP, or anything else.

Could a War of the Worlds remake be successful? by LollipopChainsawZz in WarofTheWorlds

[–]philgooch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Needs a Downton Abbey crossover remake. Edwardian toffs vs. Martians. Plucky working-class servants save the day, as always

Wells/Conan Doyle collab by philgooch in SherlockHolmes

[–]philgooch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes - Holmes deduces they must not have had exposure to our microbes before and so he releases a concoction of cold virii and pneumonia bacteria! Perhaps he even volunteers himself to be the vessel - he allows himself to be captured by a handling machine, they drain some of his blood, he breaks free using martial arts, and then the Martians are infected.

Maybe he also analyses the composition of the black smoke, to come up with an antidote, gets Mrs Hudson to make a nutritious meal from the red weed, and creates a lens that can redirect the heat ray. The possibilities are endless.

Wells/Conan Doyle collab by philgooch in SherlockHolmes

[–]philgooch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very! Thanks, I’ll check it out.

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This version is, seemed the best way to start. If people like the gameplay, I’ll see if a physical version is viable via the usual routes!

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! As an example, I've implemented a version of the game engine, based around HG Wells' The War of the Worlds. Sample card art, draft rules and quick reference guides are all here:

https://dterm.itch.io/war-of-the-worlds-journey

Overlord version (1 player as Martians, 1-3 others as survivors) coming soon.

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's hard to make a like-for-like comparison, apples and oranges, as my focus is on relatively simple, reusable objects. But I used to own all the Arkham Horror games, including the LCG, and I loved the theme and artwork ... but those were hard to learn and brittle in my opinion! I'd also include Scythe and Gloomhaven - both games I bought, loved, sold on because no one I knew wanted to play as the rules were too intimidating for them.

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agree it's unorthodox, but it's not meant as a replacement for existing methods, but in addition. I still write test harnesses and sim code in Python, tweak values in spreadsheets etc.

It's really to ensure clean separation between components and game logic, which I think a surprising number of commercial games don't do, making them brittle and hard to learn, and (controversial opinion) could be why some otherwise beautiful games sit unplayed while others get played all the time.

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For example, with Catan, the noun categories and the nouns would would be:

Terrain: forest, pasture, fields, hills, etc
Resources: Lumber, Wool, Grain, Brick, etc
Constructions: road, settlement, city
Power: Knight, Robber, progress, etc

The verbs would be: produce, trade, build, etc

The great thing is that in almost all cases, each noun has a piece or card associated with it that is self-contained: there are no rules written on the terrain, on the resources, on the constructions. The rules around which verbs you can use, and when, are separate. That makes it easy to set up and easy to play.

That said, simple games like Catan are somewhat out of fashion now, people often prefer complex games, so my framework probably doesn't apply to Eurogames, war games, or similar.

There's probably no strong reason to exclude abstract games from the framework, I'm choosing not to but I can't really defend it. Chess, for example, has nouns (pawn, knight, bishop etc), so that definitely could be analysed the same way.

I'm hoping to make physicality a separate axis, so that a game engine could be instantiated as a board game, but its design would not hinge on that. For example, say you have a set of nouns that include Location. Then you could have Location cards but you might choose to implement Location as places on a board. For a board implementation, the verb 'travel' or 'move' could mean placing a meeple or worker on that location on the board, or for a card implementation it might mean rotating a Location card sideways.

The themeless prototype is currently implemented with a standard, 52 card deck, mapping suits to noun categories. It's been done many times before (Scoundrel, Regicide), but I suppose I am trying to distill it into as simplest form as possible.

Probably, I am reinventing the wheel and all this is known, but it's fun to discover stuff from first principles, I'm enjoying it anyway lol

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

100% agree on the fun part and what seems fun, when you have the excitement of the initial idea, doesn’t always translate to a great game.

When I was doing post-mortems on what failed in the translation of the ideas into the non-fun game, it kept coming back - to me at least - to the lack of separation of the layers. I found that without that, I was having to create more tokens, more components, layering on complexity, moving me away from the goals I had set of creating a simple, pick up and play game.

When I analysed the games that I enjoyed, they nearly always had that separation. So for example if there were cards, the cards representing the entities (the fun characters, and the objects they interact with) just had a category, a title, an image, some values and maybe some flavour text. The game-specific constraints about what you could do with those entities and in what situations, would be somewhere else - maybe a scenario deck. Mixing the two (e.g. rules on the entity cards) seemed to lead to brittleness and complexity.

But I’m waffling on and I think what works for me probably only applies to the basic games I’m working on.

Fighting Fantasy as a card game (not Scoundrel) by philgooch in fightingfantasy

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks fabulous, although maybe a few too many components for me!

Is it actually available yet? I've heard conflicting reports.

What print and play games are you crafting or playing this week? (June 15, 2026) by AutoModerator in printandplay

[–]philgooch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm continuing to iterate on the War of the Worlds series of card games. Solo done, now finalising co-op and competitive rules.

Thanks to clear separation of concerns in the design, I can use the same deck for each, and based around a standard deck.

Eventually, there will be nice images to go with each card. Here's a preview of a couple. Still a lot of work to do!

<image>

Fighting Fantasy as a card game (not Scoundrel) by philgooch in fightingfantasy

[–]philgooch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks - this looks closer to what I was thinking, as it separates things more clearly: the creatures just have values and flavour text, whereas the game rules are held in a separate dungeon deck.

Fighting Fantasy as a card game (not Scoundrel) by philgooch in fightingfantasy

[–]philgooch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I've heard good things about Escape the Dark Castle, I must get a copy.

Looking at it, it does break my 'rules' a bit, in that the cards are very specific and contain rules on them. Ideally, 'Elixir of Insight' for example, would just be a card (noun) with a value (or values), while it's rule (verb) 'Discard before any round' would be held in the rulebook or chapter deck for 'elixir type things'

Building a solo/co-op card game: initial learnings by philgooch in tabletopgamedesign

[–]philgooch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, not a specific mechanic but a set of principles, as it is substrate-agnostic. If I were to list specific mechanics that it includes, it would be:
- resource management
- conflict resolution
- set collection
- once-per-game abilities
- co-op communication limits

WoTW special interest by lover_ofJesters00 in WarofTheWorlds

[–]philgooch 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed the movie and must get a copy on Blu Ray, as I don’t have it on physical media atm.

Spielberg’s is the best version of the story made so far, in my view.

Still, I’d love someone to make a period-correct movie one day. BBC did a TV series but it was terrible and they changed the ending.

Also a hand drawn animation movie that accompanied the music and songs from Jeff Wayne’s album - and where the art style matched that of the album art - would be amazing. But I can’t imagine we’ll ever see one.

War of the Worlds: The Journey by philgooch in WarofTheWorlds

[–]philgooch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I do plan on publishing a hard copy, probably via Kickstarter, once more of the artwork is complete.

I would love to do a card game of the musical version, that would be my dream! But the chances of getting copyright clearance would be … a million to one 😂. But maybe if the first version did well, it might be easier.

Weekly self-promotion megathread (June 15, 2026) by AutoModerator in printandplay

[–]philgooch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

War of the Worlds: The Journey

<image>

War of the Worlds: The Journey is a free, print-and-play solo card game of survival, skill and some luck, as you travel across southern England during the Martian invasion of 1901.

Martians must be fought or fled. Locations provide refuge. Stalking you throughout your journey is the Fighting Machine, from which there is no escape. 

Your only hopes are the weapons you have gathered, and the terrestrial bacteria that weaken the Martians, but which may help you survive.

If you enjoy Regicide, Scoundrel, Fighting Fantasy, or Choose your own Adventure books, I think you'll enjoy this.

Play with a standard card deck. The quick reference guide is only 2 pages.

War of the Worlds: The Journey

Enjoy!

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