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Dice Pie (vers.1.0)

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federicolatini
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The game I'm going to show here is based on a simple and old as world mechanic; I split and you pick.
In order to get some fun out of it one player must know something the other don't, so splitting and picking become the mean to discover the secret information the other player is hiding.

With that in mind enjoy the Dice Pie rules and prepare to ignite your desining skill because I think this game can improve a lot if it's crowdly designed:

Dice Pie
Content:
a bag full of dice, 6 red, 6 green, 6 black, 6 blue, 6 white, 6 yellow
a deck of 6 cards displaying numbers from 1 to 6
a deck of 6 colors displaying 6 colors matching the dice colors
4 SetUp cards displaying 4 different combos of color/number, cursed/lucky (color/cursed, color/lucky, number/cursed, number/lucky)

Set up
Pick randomly one of the 4 SetUp cards, the card will tell the players if they have to pick from the number deck or from the colors deck, and it will say if the color or number picked is cursed or lucky. So both player will know wich number or color is lucky or cursed only for them.

Game play
Players try to win by collecting the most valuable dice, to do so they alternate on splitting in two groups a set of 6 randomly drawn dice. Once 2 group are formed by one player the other player get to choose one, leaving the remaining group of dice to the player that made the split.
At the end of 6 splits player sum up the values of the dice they posses, counting double their lucky dice or subracting their cursed dice.

Consideration
this game is really an odd one from a design perspective, the more I test it the more I cut rules and simplify, 3 test ago the number or colors hidden by the players counted cursed or lucky for both players, but it is really not needed. All is needed to let this game work is the most simple kind of unbalance of information distribution, nothing more. That is why player has their card applied only to their dice.

BUT and it's a big BUT...
I'm open to any advice or suggestion as long as they respect the rules of:
elegance, no special rules or gimmicky of any kind
fastness, the game must remain a 3 to 7 min game
components savvy, so no strange price-riser components

thanks in advance for your distributed mind-computing efforts

Federico

regzr
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Joined: 05/27/2012
Dice Pie

I left setup-cards out. Player_1 chooses cursed color and writes it down. Player_2 decide what's the lucky number ( usually 6 or 5, sometimes 4 ) and writes it down. Luck and curse is applied to player_1 and player_2 in the end.

The results of a test were depending on splitter's courage, good or unsatisfactory. If both players split cautiously, the results tend to form almost same numbers most of the counts. With a cautious split I mean for example 2 4, 1 1 6 (non cautious 1 1 2, 4 6). If splitting is done boldly, it's possible to guess opponent's hidden information.

Sorry I did not follow the rules vers 1.0 !

- regzr

federicolatini
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Joined: 04/15/2012
the 1.0 rules where part of a

the 1.0 rules where part of a showdown competition.
You will be surprised by knowing that I've already tried your rules, not because I 've ESP but just for a mere coincidence, after some the game goes like this:
both player pick randomly one color card, this card tell them wich colored dice will give them 6 bonus point at the end of the game
the first player draws and roll 6 dice, than he must split them in two groups, but he has to put every color in only one group, he cannot put one color in both groups. Then the opponet picks one group leaving the other to the first player. At the end of the turn the plaer that took the most valuable group of dice score a number of point equal to the difference between his group of dice and the opponent's one. Now the player with the most score value is the new first player.
the game goes like this until all 36 dice are rolled.
at the end of the game who has the most point wins

regzr
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Joined: 05/27/2012
Dice Pie rules

Latest version sounds good to me. Tactical set-up is obvious. Rules are easy to comprehend.

There's one sentence in the rules that worry me.
"he cannot put one color in both groups"
Can it happen that five or even six dice are the same color?

Another worry is only a slight adjustment. Usually players expect rare luck during play, but also something to fear. What's the scary fate in this game?

This mechanism, split and choose, even prompted me to sketch a variant of your game.
Image http://www.bgdf.com/node/7086

-regzr

federicolatini
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Joined: 04/15/2012
the one color per group adds

the one color per group adds a lot to the game, providing unstability and avoiding pure math approach to the game. the 5 color problem has been avoided by adding a simple "mulligan" rule, when the first player draws and roll, after the roll he can give one of his die to the opponent in order to put back all the die and re-draw and re-roll. that is a feared situation but adds a tactical path: by giving a die the first player is able to push himself to the second place for the next round in order to be the chooser and not the splitter, by doing so he is giving away an important information: the dice he give is not of his lucky color presumebly, so there is a kind of balance.
Actually I'm pondering to add or not a rule that gradually shows all the un picked colors in order to slowly reveal what color each player have. but I need to test this one to really understand the impact on the game.
thanks a lot for following this thread and for posting your comments, I do appriciate that!
ciao
ciao
fede

BubbleChucks
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Joined: 06/07/2012
Ok, please bear in mind that

Ok, please bear in mind that I’m not entirely sure how this game fully works. I couldnt fathom what the number and colour cards actually did in the game. So this will be my proposal for how the components could be used to create a game with a similar flavour.

First off I would scrap the 4 set up cards and then I would scrap 4 of the colour variations for the dice along with 12 of the dice.

Components

12 black dice and 12 white dice

6 black cards featuring the numbers 1-6
6 white cards featuring the numbers 1-6

Gameplay

The 12 cards are shuffled together.

The black cards with even numbers are curse cards and the black cards with odd numbers are lucky cards. Conversely, the white cards with even numbers are lucky cards and the white cards with odd numbers are curse cards.

Round starts

Player 2 pulls 6 random dice out of the bag and rolls them. After rolling the dice player 2 has the option to re-roll any one dice or return any one dice to the bag - drawing a new dice from the bag and rolling that to add to the active dice pool.

Player 1 picks a card.
Player 2 picks a card.

Player 1 has the option to switch the card they just drew with any card in Player 2’s hand – unseen of course.

Player 1 chooses a dice for group A or B
Player 2 chooses a dice for group A or B

Repeat until two groups of 3 dice have been formed.

Player 1 gets to choose which of the two dice groups they will keep. The dice group that they choose not to keep will go to Player 2 by default.

However, if Player 1 chose to switch cards earlier in the round (and player 2 didn’t re-roll a dice when they had the opportunity to do so) then Player 2 is given the option to switch one dice from their group with one of the ‘kept’ group that now belongs to player 1.

By the end of the game each player will have 6 cards containing a potential mixture of curses and lucks. This will stretch the curse/luck element out from a single draw to 6 draws which should dampen its effect a bit.

The curses and lucks will also be linked to specific dice results. A player could be holding a black number 2 dice (even = curse) but it would have no effect if they didn’t have the black number 2 card.

More importantly, as the game goes on both players will gain information about what cards the other player has drawn.

The players will know what cards are in the curse/luck pool and what cards are in their hand. Through a process of elimination this will give them an idea about what cards their opponent could be holding.

When all the cards have been taken each player will know exactly what curse/luck cards the other player has – because they will be the cards they don’t have in their hand.

Each player will also have 3 groups of 3 dice and 6 dice will be left in the holding bag.

Why did I reduce the dice from 36 to 18?

If multiple rounds are played and a cumulative score is used then it makes no difference if you have 6 dice rolls in a round or 2 rounds of 3 dice rolls.

Having 6 dice left in the bag at the end of the round will also introduce another hidden element and make the re-roll option more attractive as the players will want the dice that match their cards on the table in groups.

More importantly using 18 dice and leaving 6 in the bag would mean a production expense of 24 dice instead of 36. In conjunction with the card reduction from 16 to 12 this could reduce production costs by a third.

Black and white dice are also more freely available than coloured dice and minimum order quantities could be achieved easier - resulting in economies of scale which might be difficult to secure with multiple coloured dice. Oh and black and white printing is cheaper than coloured printing for the cards.

If I had to add a quick theme to the game I would call it Pies & Dies

The dice would be red and green – representing apples and cherries

To complete a pie would take 6 dice points of the same colour – representing 6 pieces of pie. In order to bake a pie the player must have exactly six spots of the required colour available to them.

They couldnt bake a pie if they had a 2 spot apple die and a 5 spot apple die for example, because this would give a total of 7 spot apples which is 1 spot over the requirement of 6.

When the game reached its conclusion, each player having 9 dice at their disposal from three groupings, the players would divide their dice to bake the most pies.

Any remaining dice would be placed to one side. These remainders wouldn’t count towards the players point total unless they happen to be holding a curse or luck card that matches any of the remaining dice.

If this should happen to be the case then the player would either add or subtract the stipulated points to/from the total they received from the complete pies they made.

So if they happen to have a white number 3 dice and a white 3 card in their hand then they would deduct 3 points from their total.

Err not white, red or green – but you get the idea :)

Other pie combinations could also be possible. All even spot number pies. All odd spot number pies - although these would have to have a spot maximum of 5 or 7 instead of 6. Or even poker pies, 3x2 spots, 2x2 and 2x1 spots, 4x1 and a 2 spot and so on.

In respect to the cards these would simply show pictures of apples and cherries in the required groupings 1 apple for 1, 2 apples for 2 and so on.

The luck numbers would be represented by healthy apples and cherries and the curse numbers would be highlighted with worm riddled apples and cherries.

BubbleChucks
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Joined: 06/07/2012
Possible change

Instead of allowing the player to swap one dice they could be given the option to take the 'kept' group instead.

This would introduce some premium head screwing to the game. The choosing player could choose to keep dice they secretly dont want, hoping the other player will switch. Or they could keep the dice they really want, hoping the other player will think they are bluffing.

Alternatively, the player with the option to swap could be be given a free choice - swap one dice or take the group.

federicolatini
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Joined: 04/15/2012
Wow. You are a vulcano of

Wow. You are a vulcano of ideas, I invite you to play test this new game spawn by the "I cut, you choose" mechanism, your idea is far from Dice Pie so I think it should be playtested separately. Let us know how it goes.

BubbleChucks
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Joined: 06/07/2012
Thanks for the compliment -

Thanks for the compliment - it just popped out of my head when I read your post.

I'll try and test it over the next few days, but I've got some stuff to finish up for Evil Col Sanders and a protype to make for the game I've been working on for the last month.

Hopefully I can add something to dice pie when another idea pops up or some other posters add to it.

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