Category Archives: Card Game Design

This is the introduction from my draft ebook, How to Design a Card Game. Comments welcome. Designing a card game is messy. You will have what you think are good ideas that, when you play them, you find don’t work that well. With that in mind, start with a simple game and add complexity over time, as you play. Here are 7 steps to follow: Think of a game idea. Document the current state of your game idea. Create a playable prototype. Playtest. Apply feedback. Go back to step 2, […]

Synopsis: “Double Draw” is a variant of 5-card draw where after the second round of bidding, each remaining player may discard and take up to two additional cards, then bid again. Everyone who wants to play first pays to the pot an agreed-upon ante (typically one or two of the lowest-valued chips). The dealer shuffles and deals each player 5 cards, face down. First betting round – Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, bidding proceeds clockwise. Prior to any bet being placed, initial players can “check”, […]

Diamonds is a plain trick-taking game where ♦ Diamonds are trump, with prediction-based scoring. Players score 10 points for each bid trick that they took and potentially either 1 point for each excess trick (overtrick) or -10 points for each trick that they fell short of their bid (undertrick). Players compete against each other, without partnerships. The Cards and Deal Use a standard deck of 52 cards. For each hand, shuffle and deal the entire deck out, making sure that all players have an equal number of cards. Discard any […]

The secret of prototyping is to do the least amount of work you can to test the next iteration of your card game. If it’s for the first play, simply write on a collection of index cards. Just worry about the broad strokes of the game play, not all the little details. Don’t worry about naming specific cards or accurately simulating the theme. Or getting all the cards you plan to have. Just get a game that is fun to play. Write with a pencil, not a pen. Your game […]

Your design challenge is to take a published card game and adapt it to use only a traditional deck of cards. If you ever end up stuck somewhere with only a regular deck of cards to play with, you’ll be able to use that deck to play the game you invented! Example: Rummy Duel Rules Premise Rummy Duel is a fast-playing version of Rummy for just two players. It is adapted from the game Schotten-Totten, by Reiner Knizia, in which two players compete while assembling 9 separate hands of poker, […]

The purpose of playtesting is to collect real-world experiences with your game that you can use to help you modify your game so that it better achieves your goals. Early on, you might playtest the game by yourself (solo playtesting or self-testing) to make certain that its basic framework works or to test individual parts of the game. Your friends and family members will want to play a more workable version of the game, though it is best to emphasize the goal is to learn about the game rather than […]

Here’s another card-game design challenge and a case study for you: Design a game that can be played with a regular deck of cards. You don’t need to use all the cards in the deck. You can use each suit as a separate type of card, if you want to limit yourself to four types of cards. For instance, you could use the numbers to differentiate levels, so if hearts represent health, you can have 1 (Ace) through 10 (including face cards) represent how much health is involved, setting aside […]

Card games typically have different areas in front of the players. These areas have a variety of names, depending on their purpose: Arena – A common area to which players play cards face up to a contest, such as a “battle” or “war” in the game of War. Cascade – A set of face-up cards built on one another, with the value and suit of each card in the cascade visible. (For instance, Solitaire builds 7 cascades, from highest to lowest.) Cell – A spot that can hold only one […]