help me make a game!
November 21, 2015 10:56 PM   Subscribe

creative minds: assemble! i want to make a game for my very good friend who is waaaaay into board games and card-based games. but i need help.

i don't have the time or dedication needed to make a full blown board game/off board game. so i'm thinking that something like heebie jeebies or exploding kittens might be pretty cool. or something where you play cards to make moves, but don't need many other items to make the game work (kind of like a choose your own adventure?).

your ideas (any and/or all!) are most welcome.
posted by megan_magnolia to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
It's not clear to me what the question is here. You want someone to... invent a card game for you? You want to make a game, but can't be bothered, so want recommendations for existing games? To copy? Or something?
posted by quinndexter at 12:13 AM on November 22, 2015


Sounds like you may be into 1000 Blank White Cards?
posted by miasma at 12:27 AM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Quick note: The question is a bit unclear about the sort of help needed (and we definitely don't do crowdsourced projects on Ask Metafilter), but if members have pointers they can share for resources or models for creating simple board games, this sort of help will probably be useful.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:39 AM on November 22, 2015


You might be interested in the free games section of Cheapass Games.
posted by Mizu at 1:30 AM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you are just looking to personalize a game -- in other words, include cards with photos of you and your friend and in-jokes and whatever -- but the actual gameplay doesn't matter to you too much, you could do a version of Authors.

You'll need 10-12 sets of four cards, so you could make each set based on a thing you guys do together (like, "Trip to Bermuda" or "knitting" or whatever) and then come up with four details about that thing (like, "walking on the beach" or "that time the cat tangled the yarn"). Each detail gets a photo or piece of clip art or something to represent it. That could be personal and fun, and it gets you the "I made you a game!" credit without anything overly complicated, game-play-wise.

Of course, I may have understood what you are trying to do!
posted by cider at 2:27 AM on November 22, 2015


Reading your question, I came to the same conclusion as Hogshead--a Love Letter variant would be easy and on point: A look at Love Letter's variants, Six custom Love Letter sets that will make you want to make your own, A discussion of best variants / variant rules, HP Lovecraft Love Letter re-skin, Love Letter variants forum, I made a Dark Souls-themed Love Letter re-skin, My Zelda re-skin of Love Letter, Arkham City: Riddler's Letters, etc. Here's the original and a free copy of its rules from the publisher. This seems to be an unauthorized electronic implementation that has card lists and that might teach you the game.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:24 AM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Try creating a personalised Mafia/Werewolf variant. Should be thoughtful and straightforward.
posted by my-username at 8:16 AM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Keep in mind that creating a good board game from whole cloth is really, really hard. And if your friend likes board games, s/he is going to be able to tell the difference between a good game and a bad one. So as others have suggested above, personalizing an existing game is going to be a way better option than starting from scratch. Munchkin would allow for some personalization once you get the hang of it.
posted by craven_morhead at 11:04 AM on November 23, 2015


Riffing on what craven_morhead said. At the beginning of the year, someone asked about making a "personalized version" of an existing game (Hearthstone) for a partner. There were some good suggestions there; here is the link to that ask.me:

http://ask.metafilter.com/275287/How-can-I-make-a-fun-Hearthstone-deck
posted by kovacs at 5:49 PM on November 23, 2015


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