Tabletop Game- Exploration

Since we are creating board games for my Game Design 1 class, we are tasked with studying Print-and-Play games.




The first game I played was Punch!, a simple  2 player fighting/boxing card game reminiscent of Rock-paper-scissors and  War. To play, both players have an identical deck of 30 cards and a stamina bar (the game's  version of an HP bar). The gameplay is nearly identical  rock-paper-scissors except we are limited to the cards in our hands, there is a fourth option, and a player loses either if his Stamina reacher 0 (knocked out) or has the lowest stamina at the end of the third round. It is slightly luck based in the sense that you have to predict your opponent's play and play with your limited arsenal of cards each round. It was a very fun, simple game and I admired how simple it was to pick up and play. The game's visual theme of boxing also helped the players understand it's rules and mechanics.
 At first I thought the game would have in flawed in the sense that we could not succesfully knock each other out, and our first two play-tests resulted in me winning by dragging the game out until the final round with the most Stamina and by a tie, but I finally managed to win by a knock-out on the final play-test.

The second game we played was Cards Against Humanity. We opted to play the retail version of the game since one of us happened to own it . Unlike Punch!, Cards Against Humanity works best with a large group of players, preferably players that know each other since it is a universally offensive game. It is a very casual social party game identical to the much more family-friendly Apples-to-Apples. We first played the primary format of the game with 5 people (one not shown in photo), which resulted in much more player interaction both in discussions and in trying to decide which cards to play. Then we played the Rando Cardissian variation of the game, were there is an invisible 6th player named Rando Cardissian that plays a random card from the main deck. If Rando Cardissian wins a single round, we all lose the game and "go home in shame". This was a lot more hectic since the card Czar was always under stress that if he chose the Rando card, the game would end prematurely. It was unknown to all of us what the Rando card was until the end of the round, and there were a few close calls. As a result we were relatively quiet compared to the default format.

Overall I really enjoyed the print and play experience, and will definitely play more for both research and entertainment. We tried to play a few other games but some like Witch Trial required dice or additional chips and were a bit too complicated and convoluted to learn and comprehend in a single sitting. Looking through both the games I played and the ones others brought, most games were aesthetically simple yet elegant. Many were clearly made with the intention of being printed at home, so the designs try to stay minimalistic to prevent drying up the printer's ink. Even the more ornate ones leaned towards individual monochromatic cards for pieces such as cards and money. The illustrations also considered the scale of the cards in order to prevent visual clutter or unnecessary details and focused on implying details.