Rock, Paper, Failure

The Appeal of 18-Card Games

I've been really interested in building an 18-card game ever since I learned about "wallet games," which I most notably associate with Button Shy Games. Constraints often breed creativity, as limited space requires unique solutions. You can't simply add more cards, components, or pieces to accomplish your goal.

Limiting scope when building software—whether that's enterprise applications or video games—often leads to faster delivery, as it simply requires less work. I assumed the same principle would apply to board games, or in this case, a card game. Limit the scope, invent something simple, and boom, I have a game! Spoiler alert... this is not true.

Another benefit of 18-card games is that card printers typically print on sheets of 18 standard playing cards (measuring 2.5 x 3.5 inches). A standard American letter-size sheet of paper fits nine of these cards, making print-and-play options incredibly easy.

Fitting a game onto 18 cards might be simple. Fitting a fun game onto 18 cards is incredibly difficult.

Mathematically, 18-card games are interesting because there are very few ways to equally divide an 18-card deck: it's either two sets of 9 cards or three sets of 6 cards. This can limit many games that require an equal number of cards per player, often making them only 2- or 3-player experiences.

A Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) Experiment

During one of my shower-thinking sessions, the "game" of Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) popped into my mind. Could I make RPS interesting? What if I added an element that made RPS feel less random and more like a game of reading your opponent and mitigating risk?

The Idea

• 18 cards: six of each type (rock, paper, scissors).
• Each type has a value from 1 through 6.
• Two players take turns drafting from three available cards, with the third card being discarded.
• Each player ends up with six cards and plays them simultaneously, one at a time.
• Normal RPS rules apply, with the winner taking both cards.
• If players play the same type, the player with the lower number wins both cards.
• At the end, you add up the values on all your won cards as your score.

The Reality Check

I tried the game with my partner. As soon as we played the first card, I knew it didn’t work at all. It felt no different from just playing RPS with our hands. There wasn't enough information to really read your opponent. My partner won the first card, and I asked why she picked rock.

"I just picked randomly."

"Okay, this is stupid. This game obviously doesn't work," I responded.

Conceptually, I had this idea that, based on the draft phase, you could try to read your opponent—trying to lose low-value cards while winning high-value ones. But there wasn’t enough public information to make any meaningful decisions. This probably would have been obvious to seasoned designers. I’m just glad we tested it with a standard deck of cards before I even attempted to print a custom set of cards.

Lessons Learned

Although the game didn't work, failure always leads to learning. It made me think more deeply about games where you can read another player's strategy by observing the state of the table. There has to be a little more to the game than just Rock, Paper, Scissors with numbers slapped on.