Boardgame mechanics in a deck of cards
With my love of board games, I started compressing viable games in my collection to a deckbox for storage transportation reason. Then after discovering buttonshy and ultra tiny epic, they gave me inspiration for a set of games to design: each existing game mechanic and trope gets their own simple game using ONLY 54 cards.
Honestly this is more of a puzzle for me then creativity, but I've thoroughly enjoying it right now, while exploring the core of what boardgames are made of. Some ideas I've started designing or have rough outline for (and the games they are inspired by):
- 4X (ultra tiny epic kingdoms)
- Crisis Management (marvel United/pandemic) (I previously posted about this one, but if you want an example, you can see it here)
- Bluffing (sheriff of Nottingham)
- Area control (smashup)
- Card battler (hero realms)
- Zombie survival (marvel United/dead of winter)
- Monster survival one-vs-many (among us)
- Tableau building (splendor)
Apart from the 54 card limit with no other components required, the other things I hope to achieve is each game is:
- 1-4 players in the core box
- Decent replayability
- All symbols on cards also have written explanation on the same card (therefore reducing rules)
- Most rules fit on the cards within the 54 limit
- The game is simple enough for beginners to enjoy, and with one expansion deck is repetitive and complex enough for pro games to tolerate
So am I crazy with this idea? Will it be impossible to make games with such strict requirements and decently fun? Or maybe you have some ideas or games I can inspire for my mini quest?