SCOPA! (Traditional Italian Card Game)
Scopa is a traditional card game that my wife and I fell in love with when travelling through Italy.
It's an extremely fun game! The basics: you have a hand of 3 cards and there are also cards face-up on the table. You play one card to capture either a card of the same rank, or a group of cards that add up to it (ie: capture a 7 and 3 with a 10 from your hand). Clear the whole table in one go and that's a "scopa" (it means broom/sweep), which is worth an extra point. At the end of each hand you score for most cards overall, most coins suit, the 7 of coins, and the best "primiera" (which is essentially collecting 7s and 6s). First to 11 wins.
This game is great because it's a healthy mix between tactics/strategy and luck/skill. I found it super addictive when I first learned, and thought it would make a great fit for Pico-8!
In the game, you travel across 6 cities in Italy, each with a different opponent (I tried to make them unique rather than just "harder"). There are 3 challenges in each city, the first will always allow you to progress to the next city, then the second two unlock cosmetics for your deck and board! Try to beat the final opponent in Milan to become the Scopa champion of Italy, and beat all 18 challenges to 100% the little campaign.
I spent way too much time on the game feel and juice, so hopefully it paid off and more people learn about this amazing card game. It can be played with a normal deck of 52 cards, just remove the face cards, so please help me evangelize the greatness of Scopa!!!