Retro Game Day - Crazy 8s

Most people have probably played this game at one point or another.

My favourite part of this game, isn't really the playing of it anymore but more along the lines of negotiating the various versions that people have played. The extra rules that come up and throw you for a loop when you hear them the first time.

I think we can all agree these are the basic rules.

Step 1. Draw one card
Step 2. Play one card under these certain conditions
a. It is the same suit as the previous card played.
b. It is the same rank as the previous card played.
c. It is an 8, at which point in time you get to declare what suit is now eligible to played in as per 2.a

These are the basic special cards that I know.

2 - The next player draws 2 cards.

What are your special rules? What do you think makes the right rules for Crazy 8s?

Metatopia - Bank Job (Working Title)

I was in the subway coming home one night and thought about the song The Bank Job by the Barenaked Ladies. It's a lot of fun, it's a great song and I felt like I should make a Bank Job game. Not much behind it other than that, I hope that it works as well as I want it to.

What is it, or the Elevator Pitch.

You play a group of bank robbers trying to get as much money as you can, while double crossing the others out of their share. 

The Slightly Longer Pitch

You play cards and bid on various jobs. These jobs give you bonuses, but of course depending on the situation might get you screwed over. Before you bid for the jobs, each person will determine what job they want to screw over. 

What does the game do, how does it work?

Each player gets a set of cards. These cards are valued at 1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5. You reveal the bank, and then each player decides what role they want to screw over and then you bid on the various jobs hoping that you end up getting the jobs that don't get screwed over even if you're the one who screwed over that job. 

What are you hoping to get out of Metatopia for this?

Really, a whole helluva lot. This is something that just came out of my head very quickly. I don't know if it's even a good idea, or if the game works. 

Traditions and Rituals - Card Games

I was listening to @JeffMarek on the Marek vs. Wyshynski podcast, which if you're a hockey fan you need to listen to, and Jeff Marek made a Euchre reference. I love it, because Euchre is one of those games that I've played for so long that I can pick it up and get back into the game without missing a beat. The rules aren't really something I know as much as they are ingrained into my very being.

Part of that is ritual. The Rituals in games are always interesting to me, because what I learned aren't the same as what you've learned. However, no matter where I've gone and played the game the rituals are never such that you're left scratching your head wondering where they came from. They may not be my rituals, but they are all part of the larger tapestry of playing cards.

The Pick-up
My favourite ritual in cards is that you don't pick up the cards until everyone has been dealt their hand. I remember being a child and wanting to pick up every single card as they came to me, so the anticipation could build with each card. It didn't take too long before this behaviour was corrected in my eight year old self.

I was told a variety of reasons why this was important. It was polite to make sure everyone had the same chance to look at their cards. It was a luck thing, and looking at the cards early was bad luck. Some people would organize their cards in a neat little pile, I will admit I'm one of those. Other people refuse to touch the cards at all until they've all been dealt.

No matter the reason, this little card ritual is something I find pretty fascinating. I'm going to go over a bunch of them as I think of them. If you've got any rituals that you do when playing cards, let me know and let's talk about them.

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Upper deck ... Hey Hey Hey! Goodbye!

That's the old chant in many a hockey arena when a team is about to get elimintated from the playoffs.

Why reference it? Apparently Upper Deck, those who used to purvey lots of hockey cards as well as games such as Yu-gi-oh and Vs, has apparently been packaging up cards outside of the license with Yu-gi-oh and were selling them out the back door.

Konami sued them good, as you would if you owned the Yu-gi-oh franchise, and Upper Deck tried to counter sue and all that.

Apparently all the judgements are in and the judge has ruled in favour of Konami in every single instance.

Quoting the report from the New York Post we see that a bunch of execs,

Instead, five Upper Deck execs involved in the alleged fakes -- including Chief Executive Richard McWilliams -- have resisted being deposed, citing their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Upper deck was trying their best to say that they had an approval clause in their letter of intent to Konami, but the Judge, Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank has ruled the following:

For the reasons asserted in Plaintiffs’ Motion papers, the “Approval” clause is not
ambiguous, and applies to advertising, promotional materials, and promotional activity. Exhibit C to the LOI provides illustrative examples, and though not an exhaustive list, reveals that a reasonable interpretation of the ʺApprovalʺ clause of the LOI would not include reproduction of unauthentic YGO.


They've got a lot of the court documents and other information here. This one is hilarious because it's got Konami's facts and UD trying their best to object to them.

Seriously? I think this is hilarious. UD used to be considered one of the big players in the game industry. They had the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh, which is really a license to print money, and had the only super heroes game that had the rights to both DC and Marvel in their VS game. Only to lose pretty much everything including MLB's licensing.

There have been a lot of grumbling that UD has always had a string of unethical business practices such as reprinting lots of wanted cards for individual executives who were able to use them for personal gain.

[H/T to Duk at Big League Stew]