Goblin Gambit - My first attempt at creating a solo card game with a regular deck of cards
Recently I've been trying a few solo games played with a standard deck of cards, and wanted to try creating something myself just for the fun of it.
I think I came up with something (even if very rough), but it's my first time attempting anything like this, so I'm a bit unsure if it's actually any good or has critical flaws that just ruin it. In short, I'd love to get some feedback on my scuffed attempt at game design to figure out what I did right and what I did wrong.
I'll add in some thematical fluff, just to have a label for each of the card types.
The setup
Card values: Aces are worth 1. Number cards are worth their face value, and face cards are worth J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13.
The deck is divided into two piles:
- Spell deck: 12 cards — A, 2, and 3 of each suit. This is your personal spells deck, and is placed face up
- World deck: Everything else, 2 jokers included. Red cards are villagers, black cards are goblins. Face cards are special figures: red face cards are head villagers, black face cards are boss goblins. Jokers are wild and can count as either color. Place it face down
Place down a 3×3 grid of 9 cards from the World deck, and add 2 spell cards to your hand. The next spell will be visible (but unusable), which is by design.
Choose your difficulty selecting a limit of 20, 30, or 40 penalty points (less points = more difficult).
See the this image for an example.
Each turn
You must play one spell to remove a row or column from the grid, then set both the spell and the 3 grid cards aside in a discard pile.
The spell's color determines what you're trying to do, while its value determines how many of that type you can properly deal with.
- Red spell: rescue exactly [value] villagers and kill the remaining goblin.
- Black spell: kill exactly [value] goblins and rescue the remaining villager.
In other words, a red 2 ideally targets a line with 2 villagers and 1 goblin. A black 2 ideally targets a line with 2 goblins and 1 villager.
If the chosen line doesn't have the ideal composition, you can still play the spell. You resolve as much of the line as the spell allows, and any unresolved card becomes a penalty equal to its face value. If there is more than one possible card that could be unresolved, you choose which one to take as the penalty.
For example, using a red 2 on a line containing 1 villager and 2 goblins lets you rescue the villager and kill one of the goblins. The other goblin becomes a penalty card. You chose which goblin to kill and which one will become penalty.
After removing a line, refill those 3 spaces from the world deck, and add the face up spell from the spell deck to your hand.
Face cards
Face cards are special. A figure can only be properly dealt with by a spell of the same suit.
For example, A King of Hearts can only be removed without penalty by a Heart spell. If a line contains figures of different suits, a single spell cannot properly deal with both of them. You may still choose that line, but the figures that do not match the spell suit will become a penalty.
The goal
Your goal is to work your way through the entire spell deck, using your spells to rescue as many villagers and kill as many goblins as possible without suprassing your penalty limit.
The game ends either when:
- All of your spells are used and you did not surpass your penalty limit (win)
- You surpass the chosen penalty point limit with unused spells in your deck (lose)
The game is much simpler (and boring probably) than it sounds, but if something is unclear, please let me know!