Regarding the solo trick-taker For NorthwoodâŠ
Iâve come up with a custom variant which allows the player to lead and the automaton to follow suit.
It changes the gameplay significantly when you can lead, so the balance is going to be all off, but the system broadly works (although itâs comparatively fiddly). It does needs custom card backs though, with each cardâs suit displayed on the back. (Iâve just slipped paper into the sleeves I was using, but I might investigate custom printing if I decide I like it enough.1)
Details
Essentially Iâm just leveraging the fact that the automatonâs âhandâ comes from the randomly shuffled deck, and any sequence is as likely as any other; therefore you can mess with the sequence during the game without messing with the randomness (n.b. I have not done the maths on any of this, so Iâll assume what Iâve just said isnât actually true :â). The player does gain some information they wouldnât otherwise have, but I decided itâs acceptable for a solo game.
The player starts with 8 cards as usual, and so I consider that to be the initial size of the opposing hand as well. After each trick the hand size shrinks by one, of course. Whatever the current hand size is, that is the maximum number of card draws which the automaton is permitted to âfollow suitâ (identified using only the custom card back). Each non-matching card is simply cycled to the back of the deck, without looking at its face. If a card of the correct suit is found within the current hand size then it is played. If no matching card is found, the final card drawn is played and the automaton is now âoutâ of the lead suit, meaning that in future any cards of that suit drawn by the automaton must be discarded and replaced with another card.
(When the automaton leads, the gameplay is exactly the same as for the normal game.)
The player can obviously see the suit of the top card of the deck, but thatâs ok â you can easily start each count from the first hidden card. I was going to do that, but I couldnât really tell from my bits of paper what the suits were without looking carefully, so it wasnât an issue.
In this variant Iâm holding the automatonâs deck in my hands the whole time, as Iâm handling that way more than my own cards; so when I deal my initial hand I place the cards in a row with each card separated from the others, so during the round I can easily pick up and play any of my cards with one hand without putting down the deck.
As mentioned, the player does gain information â as an extreme example, if you led the first trick with a âflowerâ and the automaton drew all 8 âclawâ cards in succession while trying to find a flower, you would know that there was no possibility of it playing another claw for at least the next couple of tricks. More likely youâd be able to know that some proportion of cards from each suit were out of the way for a bit, but not know which ranks they were, so thereâs still a good amount of uncertainty most of the time. Depending on the state of the game, it could be very beneficial information. In practice Iâm (purposefully) just not paying attention to the non-matching cards, though.
My theory is that, as well as feeling closer to a regular trick taking game, this variant gives me more player agency and consequently it shouldnât be as frustrating to fail a critical bid (often losing the game) on account of dumb luck. Iâve had a few rounds of the standard game when all I needed to do was lose the final trick with my 2 or 3, and I go and draw the 1 of that suit from the deck. Itâs inevitable â sometimes the luck goes your way, other times it doesnât â but after several plays this does stand out as an issue for me. If the game was quicker to play I expect Iâd more readily shrug off those occasions and reshuffle; but as it is they can sting a bit. I still think itâs a neat design, but Iâm keen to play with my new rules for a while and see whether I like it more (even if Iâm sure Iâll never put the work in to re-balance it2).
1 Keen to hear of anyoneâs experience or recommendations for ordering single custom decks of cards.
I did wonder whether âregular card decks, except with the suit on the back of each cardâ might possibly already be a niche thing, but I could not come up with an unambiguous way to ask search engines for that :â)
I guess if I make the designs for the card backs, then the sensible (cheap) next move is just a better version of what I have now â print a set on paper, cut them out, and slip them into the card sleeves. Iâve never had custom cards made, though, so am still interested in learning more about that.
2 Although if it turned out that no one else had used this approach previously, thereâs a very naive part of my brain saying âgo on⊠design a game⊠how hard could it be?â
. Played 3 players and then 5 players.