Exploring how Reiner Knizia's Circus Flohcati makes an open draft card market feel dynamic without the usual incentives and discard mechanisms. Also, the SCM Annual Reader Survey!
Have you encountered the Japanese version of the game, Summer Treasures ? I know it's an abstract Knizia but personally find the theming to match the rules much better.
For those that haven't you are collecting treasured memories of a summer holiday. The fact that only the "better memory" will score and that you can't have two memories of the same type in the market feels much more intuitive. Plus doesn't hurt that the art is beautiful!
I've never played Star Realms, but I think it's similar in some ways to Ascension which also doesn't have many ways to clear the market. But yeah, if all the cards are valuable that solves the problem too! Thanks for the comment!
Not sure I’d agree 100%. Star Realms and Dominion both feel like games where you can buy anything and it would be good. They give you a lot of flexibility to buy what you want and try out any strategy. It feels very much like a point salad type game where multiple routes to victory might exist. However, my short experience with both of these games usually ends up that there is a best strategy and the player using that strategy often pulls ahead with no chance to catch up unless you are also using that same strategy.
Base Dominion has some known working strategies that have developed over the last 17+ years of play. If all players are aware of those, it becomes a race to implement them first. The many many many many expansions for it would presumably solve this. As noted above, I haven't played Star Realms, but it sounds like there might be similar things going on.
For my personal preferences, Dominion might be the one that kicked off the deck-builder craze, but there are other deck-builders I'd prefer these days.
So related to the topic, I am designing a deck building game and I have always found an open draft market to be a real time killer. Most players spend an unusually long amount of time looking at every card that comes through as it gets revealed. Myself included. Even if that card has very little likelihood of staying in the market by the time it makes it to their turn. For instance they just finished their turn and there is a market clearing mechanism. On the flip side, I often loathe when a player doesn’t look at the market at all even when it is about to be their turn since it often results in more time wasted.
To solve both these issues, I have implemented a draw 2, keep 1 system in the game. Its still a ‘market’ of cards, but not open to all. Players can all buy simultaneously, but can’t analyze cards they have no hope of getting. Since buying is simultaneous, players are taking parallel game actions and people don’t feel like they are waiting on others.
What are your thoughts on this? Is this still a market?
So it's certainly not an open draft ("market") any more in that case, as you pointed out. Is "draw 2, pick 1" a closed draft with a single participant? Hah, perhaps. At that point, I'm not sure the term is very helpful.
That said, I personally love "draw X, pick Y" mechanisms. It's my favorite way to select asymmetric at the start of games that include them. I enjoy it when it's included as part of a game as you described. It gives choice/agency without a lot of pressure. For those who don't want to ponder it, they just pick one of the two. Or for those who want to think more, they have something to consider vs. being stuck with a random card.
It’s a combination area control/movement and deck-builder on a hexcrawl map. (Thanks for the recent article about pointcrawl, it really helped collapse some of the decision space for designing hexes so that they were worthwhile.) You play as someone who stumbles on forbidden magical power and then compete with others to gather more, exploiting the land and coming into conflict with other players over limited resources and learning more powerful spells. The goal is to have the game continue to escalate, getting out of hand and culminating in a final turn of mutual destruction. However, players have the option to cooperate and avoid destruction to win together instead of one survivor winning alone at any time. Underlying theme is mutually assured destruction. As an educator, I wanted to help teach my students why it was a good thing in a tight one-hour activity. This game is the continuation of that goal.
Have you encountered the Japanese version of the game, Summer Treasures ? I know it's an abstract Knizia but personally find the theming to match the rules much better.
For those that haven't you are collecting treasured memories of a summer holiday. The fact that only the "better memory" will score and that you can't have two memories of the same type in the market feels much more intuitive. Plus doesn't hurt that the art is beautiful!
I'm not familiar with Summer Treasures, but now I want to check it out! That cover is gorgeous: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/6005996/circus-flohcati
Thanks for pointing this out!
In the original star realms it is "solved" by almost always having cards that are good enough to buy.
It fees however really awful if no player in a market want's to buy something.
I've never played Star Realms, but I think it's similar in some ways to Ascension which also doesn't have many ways to clear the market. But yeah, if all the cards are valuable that solves the problem too! Thanks for the comment!
Not sure I’d agree 100%. Star Realms and Dominion both feel like games where you can buy anything and it would be good. They give you a lot of flexibility to buy what you want and try out any strategy. It feels very much like a point salad type game where multiple routes to victory might exist. However, my short experience with both of these games usually ends up that there is a best strategy and the player using that strategy often pulls ahead with no chance to catch up unless you are also using that same strategy.
Base Dominion has some known working strategies that have developed over the last 17+ years of play. If all players are aware of those, it becomes a race to implement them first. The many many many many expansions for it would presumably solve this. As noted above, I haven't played Star Realms, but it sounds like there might be similar things going on.
For my personal preferences, Dominion might be the one that kicked off the deck-builder craze, but there are other deck-builders I'd prefer these days.
So related to the topic, I am designing a deck building game and I have always found an open draft market to be a real time killer. Most players spend an unusually long amount of time looking at every card that comes through as it gets revealed. Myself included. Even if that card has very little likelihood of staying in the market by the time it makes it to their turn. For instance they just finished their turn and there is a market clearing mechanism. On the flip side, I often loathe when a player doesn’t look at the market at all even when it is about to be their turn since it often results in more time wasted.
To solve both these issues, I have implemented a draw 2, keep 1 system in the game. Its still a ‘market’ of cards, but not open to all. Players can all buy simultaneously, but can’t analyze cards they have no hope of getting. Since buying is simultaneous, players are taking parallel game actions and people don’t feel like they are waiting on others.
What are your thoughts on this? Is this still a market?
Thank you for the comment!
So it's certainly not an open draft ("market") any more in that case, as you pointed out. Is "draw 2, pick 1" a closed draft with a single participant? Hah, perhaps. At that point, I'm not sure the term is very helpful.
That said, I personally love "draw X, pick Y" mechanisms. It's my favorite way to select asymmetric at the start of games that include them. I enjoy it when it's included as part of a game as you described. It gives choice/agency without a lot of pressure. For those who don't want to ponder it, they just pick one of the two. Or for those who want to think more, they have something to consider vs. being stuck with a random card.
Can I ask what the theme of your deck-builder is?
It’s a combination area control/movement and deck-builder on a hexcrawl map. (Thanks for the recent article about pointcrawl, it really helped collapse some of the decision space for designing hexes so that they were worthwhile.) You play as someone who stumbles on forbidden magical power and then compete with others to gather more, exploiting the land and coming into conflict with other players over limited resources and learning more powerful spells. The goal is to have the game continue to escalate, getting out of hand and culminating in a final turn of mutual destruction. However, players have the option to cooperate and avoid destruction to win together instead of one survivor winning alone at any time. Underlying theme is mutually assured destruction. As an educator, I wanted to help teach my students why it was a good thing in a tight one-hour activity. This game is the continuation of that goal.
Sounds like some ambitious design goals! Good luck!