Card game design principles

In card games, design principles inform both game syntax and game semantics.

Basic principles

• Start with a standard deck of playing cards, and then customize to make new Cards! games.
• Develop Cards! protocols -- game rules as well-formed formulae.
• Develop Cards! skins to customize the design and content of Cards! protocols.

First pass

First pass, be as simple as possible.

• Codify these Cards! games as logical structures, algorithms, frameworks, protocols.
• Call each such game a Cards! protocol.
• Assign each Cards! protocol a unique identifier (name, UID, etc.).

Goals include protocols which can be skinned with infinite varieties of content.

Second pass

Second pass, for a given Cards! protocol, design one or more skins.

• A skin is a set of design principles, used to customize the appearance and content of a Cards! game, without affecting the Cards! protocol.

See also

• Card game
• Game design
• Games by Karl Jones and Friends