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The Well (2016)
🕑 Added 2021-07-24 19:46:55 +0000 UTCHad completely forgotten about this game I made in a flurry during a summer class in 2016. It was conceived, drawn and riso-printed all by myself in a 2-week period. I've never actually played it either!
It was essentially a bluffing card game a la Coup with an added layer of complexity on top of it (probably too much if I am honest). The premise was that each player controlled a group of survivors in an apocalyptic waste (yikes). Each round of play was a stand off around a newly discovered well. The goal of the game was to make it to the end of the game with either the most water or to be the last group standing.
The game would begin with 2-4 players drafting a small hand of cards which would act as their "survivors". Players would begin play by laying one card face down. When each player had done so, you'd go around the table and claim an identity (bluffing a la coup). If a player claims you're lying about your identity, you reveal your card, and if you're revealed to be lying you lose your card. If revealed to be telling the truth, the accuser loses their card. You continue with that identities "active" action. This would continue until each player has claimed an identity, at which point, the players would continue around the table playing a card face up behind their face down card (this is called the "Passive Position"). However, in the instance a player has lost their first played card, they'd play another card in their "active" slot. The cards in the "passive" slot tend to augment the cards in the face down "active" position. At this point, I get a bit foggy, but I believe players reveal their active card and resolve the Active action on their cards and then their passive. Any surviving cards are added back into a players hand along and any water they collected added to their reserve. I liked the idea of, throughout the rounds, slowly revealing your cards which gives you more of a reason to lie early on. Maybe this game would work better if the active card always remained face down unless you're caught lying?
Flavor wise, the active round are the survivors gathering around the well and becoming aware of each others presence. However - they do not know the shape of the threat so they remain hidden (in brush, cloak, or shadow). The bluffing round is a quick action from the shadows. The passive round is your partner, keeping watch in the shadow, realizing you're in need of aid. I am not so sure about the Post-Apocalyptic vibe of the game but I've always felt like this "stand-off" of sorts had a lot of flavor and would perhaps help the cards feel more memorable. I liked the idea that revealing the active card, with the passive, at the end of the round would be a flurry of chaotic violence, theft, and swapping. I feel like the cast is too big to quickly memorize but at least you only have to memorize the active ability.
All in all, this is something I'd love to revisit. I love games and feel like this has a pretty solid base. Maybe solid is a stretch but there are at least *ideas* here. Moving forward, if I ever get the time, I'd want to start by re-examining the theme and see if there were any other directions I could take it other than a post-apocalyptic fight over water. Rereading the cards and I can see a lot of ways this game could get kind of unbalanced. Obviously, a lot of the survivors would have to have their abilities changed and ironed out. Feel like redrawing this would be a lot of fun and I'd really enjoy play-testing it with friends. My future seems entirely too busy between Blind Alley, a comic project, and some contract work I am doing but it's always nice to have an idea like this on the side for whenever I have a brief window of time.
