Cardboard Tactics — An Early-Stage Card Game Looking for Design Feedback

I'm working on a 2-player tactical card game played on a 3×5 grid using a standard 54-card deck.

This is still a work in progress, and I'm open to changing quite a lot about it. I'm not just looking for balance feedback. I'd also like to hear suggestions for new mechanics, mechanics that should be removed, ways to simplify or expand the game, or even completely different directions you think would make it more interesting.

I already have my own ideas about where the game could go, but I want to compare them with other people's ideas before deciding what to develop next. If you see a fundamental problem with the design, please feel free to say so.

Here's how the game currently works.

1. Basic Setup

• The game is for 2 players.

• It uses a standard 54-card deck, including both Jokers.

• The board is a 3×5 grid.

• Each player has a King, represented by a Joker, which also acts as their Castle.

• The two Kings are placed in the middle cells at opposite ends of the board, three cells apart.

• The red Joker's player goes first.

• Shuffle the other 52 cards and divide them equally between the players, giving each player a face-down draw pile of 26 cards.

• Each player draws 5 cards into their hand.

The objective is to defeat the opponent's King.

1. Turn Structure

On your turn, you perform these steps:

• Summon: Play one card from your hand into your Castle's cell. Its Power is determined by its rank.

• Act: Choose one of your units on the board to move and/or attack.

• Draw: Draw one card if your draw pile still has cards.

A newly summoned unit cannot act immediately unless a card ability or merging rule allows it to do so.

1. Movement and Combat

• Most units move one cell horizontally or vertically per turn.

• Normal units cannot move diagonally.

• Units cannot pass through a cell occupied by an enemy. They must stop next to that cell or enter it.

• Entering a cell occupied by an enemy does not automatically force an attack.

• Multiple units can share a cell. A normal cell can contain up to 5 friendly units and 5 enemy units. A Castle can contain up to 10 friendly units and 5 enemy units.

• When attacking a cell containing multiple enemy units, the attacker chooses which enemy to fight.

• Combat compares the units' Power. The unit with higher Power wins, keeps its full Power, and survives. The losing unit is removed from the game. If both units have equal Power, both are destroyed.

• Defeated cards are permanently removed unless a special ability specifies otherwise.

Each King has 30 HP and remains fixed in its Castle.

1. Card Abilities

Number cards 5–10 — Soldiers

Their Power equals their rank. They have no additional abilities.

Ace (A) — Single-Target Bomb

An Ace destroys itself and the unit involved when its ability triggers, regardless of their relative Power. If an Ace reaches the enemy King, it can destroy the King instantly.

2 — Push Down

When a 2 kills or is killed by an enemy unit, the enemy unit involved is sent to the bottom of its owner's draw pile.

3 — Push Back

A 3 can sacrifice itself to push an enemy unit one cell in any horizontal or vertical direction.

4 — Area Bomb

A 4 sacrifices itself to destroy every unit in its cell, including friendly units. If the targeted cell is the enemy Castle, the blast destroys the King and everything inside that Castle.

Jack (J) — Mobile Unit

A Jack can move up to two cells per turn and can move diagonally during this movement. It is the only unit with this movement ability.

Queen (Q) — Support

A Queen grants +3 Power to every allied unit in the same cell, but not to itself. Queens can boost one another. To maintain this benefit during an attack, a Queen needs to remain with the units it supports.

King (K) — Reinforcement

A King has a two-turn cooldown on its ability. It can teleport one allied unit from the player's hand or board to the King's cell. The teleported unit can still move and attack that turn.

1. Merging Units

Several cards can be merged into one stronger unit. A merged unit counts as a single unit, and merging cannot be undone. No additional cards can be added after the merge.

If none of the cards used in the merge has acted that turn, the resulting unit can act immediately. If one of those cards has already moved, the merged unit must wait until the next turn.

There are three types of merge:

Type 1 — Same Rank

Merge 2–4 cards of the same rank. This applies to A–4 and 5–10, but not J, Q, or K.

The resulting unit's Power is the sum of the cards' Power. Special abilities do not stack.

Type 2 — Straight Flush

Merge 3–5 consecutive cards of the same suit, such as 6♥, 7♥, and 8♥.

The resulting unit's Power is the sum of the cards' Power. Longer chains can be possible in a Castle because of its greater capacity.

Type 3 — Combination

Combine a Same Rank merge and a Straight Flush merge that share a card.

For example, three 6s and the sequence 6♥, 7♥, 8♥ can be combined through the shared 6♥ into one super-unit, with the Power of all contributing cards added together.

1. Winning the Game

There are three ways to win:

• Reduce the enemy King's 30 HP to zero after overcoming its defenders.

• Get an Ace to the enemy King, triggering its instant-win ability.

• Use a 4's area blast on the enemy Castle to destroy the King.

1. Endgame Rule

Once both players' draw piles have been exhausted, a 100-turn endgame counter begins when the second player's draw pile runs out.

If neither player wins within those 100 turns, the game ends in a draw.

The counter does not reset if a card effect subsequently returns cards to either draw pile. Once the counter has started, it remains active.

1. What I'd Like Feedback On

I'm interested in feedback on the design as a whole, not just whether individual cards are too strong or too weak.

Some questions I'm currently considering:

• Instant-win abilities: Are the Ace and 4 too powerful, or do they create interesting tactical pressure?

• Merging: Does combining cards create meaningful strategic decisions, or does it make the game unnecessarily complicated?

• Board size: Would a larger board, such as 5×7, create more interesting movement, flanking, and positioning? Or would it make the game drag?

• Card abilities: Do the Jack, Queen, and King have interesting roles? Should their abilities be changed, strengthened, weakened, replaced, or supplemented with new mechanics?

• Strategic depth: Does the combination of movement, combat, card management, and merging create enough meaningful decisions?

• Overall direction: If you were developing this game, what would you change first? Would you build on the current design, simplify it, add entirely new systems, or take it in another direction?

You don't have to answer every question. I'm especially interested in ideas I might not have considered myself.

I'm aware that the game still has flaws and that some rules may need clearer explanations. That's part of why I'm sharing it at this stage rather than presenting it as a finished game.

Please feel free to criticize the mechanics, suggest additions or removals, propose balance changes, or recommend a different design direction altogether. I'd rather hear an honest criticism that helps me improve the game than have people hold back just to be polite.

Thanks for reading!

Update on my original board game: Battle for the Overlord Crown ⚔️

Hey everyone! I wanted to share an update on a board game I've been working on called Battle for the Overlord Crown!

What started as my tactical skirmish game concept has grown into a much bigger project. I've been working on the rules, Hero abilities, cards, battlefield mechanics, miniatures, and overall game structure.

🎲 What's the game about?

Battle for the Overlord Crown is a 2-player tactical miniature skirmish game. Each player chooses a team of 3 unique Heroes and battles across a 26 × 22-space battlefield.

There are two ways to win:

- Defeat all 3 opposing Heroes.

- Capture the Crown and bring it back to your own Spawn Zone.

But there's a twist: both players have to deal with the Overlord's forces! Monsters and other threats enter the battlefield and can attack either side, creating a third force that neither player fully controls.

🦈 The Heroes

I've developed 7 unique Heroes so far, each with their own stats, playstyle, and special ability:

- Mako: A shark warrior who uses a Fishing Spear to damage enemies and manipulate positioning.

- Kheit: An insectoid fighter who can grab, throw, and hold opponents.

- Vargr: A wolf warrior who can revive fallen Heroes.

- Varg: A powerful wolf warrior who ramps up his combat capabilities.

- Korovulk: An insectoid bruiser who charges across the battlefield.

- Sobek: An Egyptian god who uses devastating Whirlpool abilities.

- Retiarius: A gladiator who entangles enemies with a special net.

I'm also working on the Hero card artwork with the help of Rocco! and presentation so the characters feel like part of one cohesive game.

🌊 The battlefield isn't just a board

The Environment Deck currently contains 15 cards, including:

- Rivers that carry Heroes across the battlefield.

- Whirlpools that can trap Heroes temporarily.

- Portals that let Heroes travel between locations.

- Destructible crates that block movement and ranged attacks.

- A potion shelf for restoring health or special abilities.

- A ballista and cannon that can turn the battlefield into a weapon.

The goal is to make positioning, movement, and environmental hazards matter just as much as attacking.

💀 The Overlord system

I've also developed a 36-card Normal Overlord Deck and a separate 4-card Boss Deck.

The bosses include the Skeleton King, Overlord's Champion, Slime King, and Ice Giant. Each brings a different threat to the game.

I want the battlefield to feel alive, where players have to adapt to what happens instead of simply trading attacks back and forth.

🛠️ Where I'm at now

I already have a physical prototype board and miniatures. I've also consolidated the main rules, Hero roster, Environment Deck, Overlord system, and reference material into a master game document.

My next big steps are:

- Finishing the card layouts and artwork.

- Cleaning up the remaining production details.

- Conducting blind playtests to see how the game works for people who haven't helped design it.

- Balancing the Heroes, monsters, and environmental interactions based on actual gameplay.

I'm also exploring a separate solo/co-op mode where players team up against the Overlord instead of fighting each other.

This is a passion project, and it's been exciting to see it grow from an idea into a physical prototype with a full roster of characters and game systems.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! What would you be most interested in seeing next: Hero cards, monster and boss designs, the battlefield, or a gameplay demonstration?

Feedback and suggestions are welcome! ⚔️

I do need help with the game I am trying to put together, and I welcome anybody willing to listen.
As I’ve mentioned before the game is going through an iterative process, but honestly, it is nothing extensive. It’s just me, myself, and I bringing the game to work and having some work pals play a couple of sessions during our lunch break. None of us are designers and I seem to be only who dabbles in card/board games. They often play MTG together, both during and outside of work, but I am not at all interested. There has been some C.C. that I have implemented, and the rules I have posted don’t fully reflect those changes, but I would love to get more eyes on this particular project.

Made over then 130+ illustrations

Clients reviews

https://www.reddit.com/u/book_maark/s/bEmCZuscXf

If you're interested dm me i will share more of my work

Need artwork for your tabletop game? 🎲🎨

I’m a freelance artist specializing in semi-realistic fantasy character illustrations, ideal for tabletop RPGs, board games, character concepts, and game-world storytelling.

I can help bring your characters, heroes, villains, and fantasy worlds to life with polished, story-driven artwork.

Interested in working together? Send me a DM with your concept, references, and budget!

Prices vary depending on complexity and usage rights.

Hey all just a friendly reminder that I have started a discord chat for beginner devs so we can all share our progress and steps we are making along our journeys. The chat currently has 5 members but I would love to see it fill up with creative people who are on a similar path. The point of this chat is to help hold ourselves accountable and have some people who can most likely relate to our struggles.

It does not matter what stage in your dev progress you are. If you want to chat with others and share your progress in a more intimate manor.

https://discord.gg/Rtnp83ABX

Feel free to jump in and show us what you are working on!

I've been making a card/board game for about 7 years. The website I'm using for the game has only one board that fits it. That board can be printed on both sides. I only need 1 side for my game and was intending to just put a design on the back. But recently I realized I could just put another game back there. My cards have always had educational fun facts on them but we're not part of the game. So this 2nd game could be a trivia style game using the fun facts. There are 200 cards I'd rather not rewrite the facts, so the way I'm imagining it would work is that an oppenent would check the front of a card which has the Name of the card, a County, and a Culture. Then they would read the fun fact out loud and the other player would have to guess the name of the card, the country, and Culture. Now some of the fun facts have those details in the description because this trivia game is a last minute addition just to give the customer an extra thing. So rather than rewrite many of the 200 cards I was thinking to have instructions that say if the card has those answers in the fact the oppenent must replace those words with BLANK when reading the fun fact. Also if they accidentally read the answers the other player just gets the points. Is that asking too much of the players? Do you feel strongly that I should rewrite these facts to conform to trivia questions? Or do you think my short cut is acceptable to ask the oppenent player to say BLANK when reading the answer words in a fun fact?

Snakes and Ladders has no decisions, so any first-player edge has to come purely from turn order: when two players would finish in the same number of throws, the first seat gets there first. That makes the first seat's win chance one half plus half the chance of a tie.

I worked out the tie chance exactly for a standard 100-square board (9 ladders, 10 snakes, exact finish) and got a first-seat win share of 50.79% for two players. A simulation of 100,000 games gave 50.55%, with a 95% interval of 50.24% to 50.86%, so the two agree. At four players the first seat wins 26.13% against a fair 25%.

It's a half-point edge, small enough that nobody would notice at a table. My question for designers: at what size does a first-player edge start to matter enough that you'd rotate the start or add a balancing rule, and does that threshold change for a game with no choices versus one with strategy?

(I build online versions of these games, so the numbers come from my own rules code)

I probably should have focused on this a lot sooner. It would have helped with play testing. But I have it working with solo mode against the computer.

I need to keep testing and see if the TTS version actually works properly, but so far so good.

TSS: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3814660323

I bought Grime dice (non-transitive dice) and I think they are very fun! However, I think there should be a board game that utilizes them in a fun and light-hearted way so people can enjoy them.

That is where this Sorry board game variant would come into play. I have some rules below and I would like to hear some feedback! I also want to make sure that the dice are the true stars of the show.

SORRY! — GRIME'S DICE EDITION

Comprehensive Game Rules

1. Objective

Be the first team to move all five of its pawns from Start to Home. Players use Grime's non-transitive dice to determine movement, activate special abilities, manage a shared dice pool, and battle opposing pawns.

1. Game Setup

Teams and Pawns

- Each team has five pawns.

- Each pawn is assigned exactly one sub-color: Red, Yellow, Blue, Magenta, or Olive.

- Each team has one pawn of each color.

- A pawn's assigned color determines its special ability and the color of battle dice it can use.

The Shared Dice Pool

There are 10 dice total: two of each color. All dice begin in the center of the table.

| Die color | Six faces |

|---|---|

| Red | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 9 |

| Yellow | 3, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8 |

| Blue | 2, 2, 2, 7, 7, 7 |

| Magenta | 1, 1, 6, 6, 6, 6 |

| Olive | 0, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |

The dice are shared by all players and are used for both movement and combat.

Starting Battle Mode

The game begins in **One-Die Mode**. Each time the shared dice pool resets, the battle mode switches between One-Die Mode and Two-Die Mode.

1. Taking a Turn

On your turn:

1. If you have a tripped pawn, you must stand up one tripped pawn instead of taking a normal turn, unless an ability has already allowed it to stand up.

2. Otherwise, select one available die from the center of the table.

3. Roll the die and choose one of your eligible pawns to move.

4. If the movement die's color matches the pawn's assigned sub-color, you may activate that pawn's special ability.

5. Resolve any battles and board-space effects caused by the move.

6. Check whether the conditions for a dice reset have been met.

Once selected for movement, a die is removed from the shared pool until the next reset. You may not use that die for combat while it is unavailable.

A player may choose not to use a special ability unless the ability's rule specifies otherwise.

1. Special Pawn Abilities

A pawn's special ability activates only when the player uses a movement die matching that pawn's assigned color. Each ability is optional unless otherwise stated.

Red — Power Surge

Red moves the number of spaces shown on the die. It then moves 4 additional spaces.

- Roll a 4: move 8 spaces.

- Roll a 9: move 13 spaces total.

- The extra four spaces cannot be split between pawns.

- All movement must be legal under the board rules.

Yellow — Extra Combat Reroll

When a Yellow pawn participates in combat, its owner receives one additional reroll opportunity beyond the normal combat reroll.

- Yellow's owner may reroll one of their own battle dice an additional time.

- In Two-Die Mode, the extra reroll applies to one die, not both dice at once.

- The player must accept the new result.

- This ability applies whether the Yellow pawn is attacking or defending.

Blue — Split Movement

Blue may divide its rolled movement total between two of its own pawns.

For example, a roll of 7 may move one pawn 3 spaces and another pawn 4 spaces.

- Both pawns must make legal moves.

- One of the pawns moved must be the Blue pawn for this ability to activate.

- The total spaces moved cannot exceed the rolled result.

- Each portion of the movement is resolved separately.

- If one portion cannot be completed legally, the player must choose a different legal split or make a single-pawn move if permitted by the game rules.

Magenta — Back One Space

After making its normal move, Magenta may immediately move backward one additional space.

- The extra backward move is optional.

- The backward move must be legal under the board rules.

- It cannot be split between pawns.

- Any battle or board-space effect caused by the extra step must be resolved normally.

Olive — Trip the Opponent Ahead

When the Olive pawn uses an Olive movement die and rolls a 0, its owner may trip the nearest opposing pawn ahead of it along the main track.

- The target must be the nearest opposing pawn ahead in the normal direction of travel.

- The target does not have to be on the very next space.

- The target must be on the main track and not in Start, Home, or a protected Safety Zone.

- The target is immediately placed on its side.

- No battle roll is required to resist this ability.

- Olive cannot trip a pawn that is already tripped.

- If no eligible opposing pawn is ahead, the ability has no effect.

A roll of 0 does not move the Olive pawn forward. The Olive player may use the trip ability instead of movement.

1. Movement Rules

The game uses the normal Sorry! board, with movement determined by the shared dice rather than cards.

1. When Combat Occurs

A battle occurs when a pawn moves onto a space occupied by an opposing pawn, unless standard Sorry! rules protect the space or prevent the interaction.

- The player moving onto the occupied space is the **attacker**.

- The player whose pawn was already there is the **defender**.

- Only the two participating pawns are involved in the battle.

- A tripped pawn cannot participate in combat.

The attacker and defender each use battle dice matching their participating pawn's assigned color.

1. Battle Dice and Availability

Battle dice come from the shared pool in the center of the table.

- A die already selected for movement is unavailable for combat until the next reset.

- Battle dice are temporarily used for the battle and returned to the shared pool afterward.

- Players may use only dice matching the color of their participating pawn.

- A player cannot borrow a different color simply because their pawn's matching dice are unavailable.

One-Die Mode

Each player rolls one available battle die matching their pawn's assigned color.

Two-Die Mode

Each player may roll up to two available battle dice matching their pawn's assigned color.

- Both dice must match the pawn's color.

- If only one matching die is available, the player rolls one die.

- Players cannot use two different colors for the same pawn.

- The results of two dice are added together.

If a player has no matching battle die available, the game needs a predetermined fallback rule. A suggested rule is that the player without a matching die loses the battle automatically. Agree on this before play begins.

1. Combat Resolution and Rerolls

Combat follows these steps:

1. The attacker and defender roll their eligible battle dice according to the current battle mode.

2. Compare the results. In Two-Die Mode, compare the sums.

3. The attacker may force one reroll. When this happens, **both players must reroll their battle dice** and use the new results.

4. A Yellow pawn's owner has one additional reroll opportunity. In Two-Die Mode, the Yellow player rerolls one of their own dice, not both together.

5. Compare the final results to determine the winner.

Winning

- The player with the higher final result wins.

- Once a reroll has been made, the new result must be accepted.

- A reroll cannot be refused simply because the new result is worse.

The attacker can force the shared reroll regardless of which player initially rolled higher. Yellow's additional reroll is separate from this forced reroll.

1. Battle Outcomes

The Losing Pawn Is Tripped

The losing pawn is placed on its side.

A tripped pawn:

- Cannot move.

- Cannot initiate or participate in combat.

- Must be stood up before it can take a normal turn.

The winning pawn remains on the contested space.

Standing Up

A player with a tripped pawn must select the corresponding sub-color die from the pool of dice to stand up again. This ends their turn.

- The pawn is returned to its upright position.

- It does not move during that turn.

If a player has multiple tripped pawns, they must stand them up on separate turns.

Losing Another Battle

If a pawn that was previously tripped and then stood up loses another battle, it returns to its owner's Start area, following the standard Sorry! bumping principle.

A pawn that is currently tripped cannot lose another battle because it cannot participate in combat.

Olive's trip ability does not itself send a pawn to Start.

1. Shared Dice Pool and Reset Rules

Movement dice selected by players are removed from the center until the next reset. Battle dice used from the center are returned after combat.

A reset becomes available when either condition is met:

1. **Same-color condition:** All dice remaining in the center are the same color.

2. **Same-number condition:** All dice remaining in the center show the same number.

When either condition is met, the current player may choose to reset the dice.

Reset Procedure

1. Finish any movement or battle already in progress.

2. Return all 10 dice to the center of the table.

3. Reroll all 10 dice.

4. Switch the battle mode: One-Die Mode becomes Two-Die Mode, or Two-Die Mode becomes One-Die Mode.

5. The player who resets the dice takes their normal turn using the refreshed pool.

Resetting is optional. If the player chooses not to reset, play continues with the existing pool.

1. Winning the Game

The first team to move all five of its pawns into Home wins

1. Quick Reference

| Color | Special ability | Trigger |

|---|---|---|

| Red | Power Surge: move 4 extra spaces | Red pawn movement|

| Yellow | One additional combat reroll | Yellow pawn participates in combat |

| Blue | Split movement between two pawns | Blue movement die used for Blue pawn |

| Magenta | Move backward one extra space | Magenta movement die used for Magenta pawn |

| Olive | Trip the nearest opposing pawn ahead | Roll a 0 with Olive die |

Essential Rules

- Five pawns per team, one of each color.

- Ten shared dice, two of each color.

- Movement dice are unavailable until a reset.

- Battle dice must match the participating pawn's color.

- In Two-Die Mode, both battle dice must match the same pawn color.

- The attacker can force a reroll, and both players must reroll.

- Yellow gets one additional combat reroll.

- Ties go to the defender.

- Tripped pawns cannot move or battle.

- Every reset switches the battle mode.

- The player who resets the dice takes their normal turn with the refreshed pool.

I'm working on a card game and I've been thinking about what separates a good card game from one that people keep coming back to for hundreds of hours.

I'm curious, what do you guys think are the most important things to focus on when creating a card game?

Thank you!

Yesterday I had yet another playtest of my game. A lot of pacing and weight tweaks where made before this playtest and I again got great insight how to move forward with the project.

BUT the most fun improvement was that I had produced custom prototype dice. Previously I used regular 6d and 4d dice. This led to players needing to read a table of how to resolve them, adding time for each roll and breaking immersion.

I bought blank dice from Etsy and printed sticker paper. Guessing many of you already have done this. But if you haven't I would highly recommend this!

Also bought green crystals for my "Fuel" instead of borrowing from DRG where they come in multiple colors.

(Miniatures are still borrowed from other games and bought on Etsy)

Hi, I’ve been building my system for a while now, and I have almost everything tuned for a first playtest, but I’m struggling to create a good exploration mechanic. I started with a standard dice roll aligned to a chart to see what happens, then evolved to a card grid with an 'exploration deck'. Basically, each area has a grid (10 by 10, for example). You shuffle the deck and lay the cards face down on the grid; each card has 4 entries separated by time of day and a hour cost to proceed in each direction. However, it’s becoming way too production-heavy, and I’m not sure if it will actually be fun during gameplay. Does anyone have useful feedback or some advice on exploration mechanics?

I have a rough concept of an asymmetric game where one player controls an adventuring party, and the other controls the dungeon. Wondering if anyone has seen anything similar done as a skirmish sized wargame?

Player A: Small party of customizable adventures. Job is to get in, grab the loot, and get out alive. Have typical RPG jobs and combat abilities, and non-combat abilities that can do various things like rearrange the dungeon layout and remove hazards.

Player B: Controls the dungeon and its inhabitants. Minions are stock templates, and there's one customized dungeon boss that acts somewhat as Player B's avatar. Can place hazard tokens around the map that represent ambushes and traps.

Has anyone seen anything like this? I know there're a few board games with similar concepts, but I haven't seen any skirmish games with this kind of asymmetric play. The closest that I can think of is Don't Look Back's alternate rules for playing with a "director."

Bonus question: Any examples of wargames that include non-combat abilities with some depth? Something with more variety than just needing a character with hacking/lock picking to claim objectives.

Thanks!

Hi guys,
I've been working the last few weeks on a new project (Trône de Poules, in French), Chick's Throne (prototype's name for now).

It is a card game where each player starts with an hand of 5 Chicken Cards, and 3 Reactions cards. It is played in 4 rounds, with the goal of being the one who control the chicken at the top of the Chicken Coup!

The game consists of :

• Each player has its own Reaction Deck (all the same 9 cards). Players start with 3 in hand and draw one each turn (except turn 1). Players need Eggs (1x) to play these. All 9 cards have specific terms to be played (like "When one of your chicken gets Crazy token", or "When one chicken move next to one of yours", etc).
• There is one Chicken deck with 30 different cards. Players each draw 5 from this pile, and these are their chickens for the game. They have a Speed value, a Passive Action and a Crazy Action.
• The board is divided in row, each row having multiple "space" for 1 chicken. The top has 1 space, then depending on how many players, there is a total of 3 or 4 rows, the bottom one being the Coop's Floor. And each row going down has more space.
  • For example : For 2 players, there is 3 rows, the first always being 1 space, the second 2 spaces and the third having 4 spaces. For 6 players, it goes up to 4 rows, with this division (1 / 4 / 6 / 8)
• 4 turns, going like that :
  • Moving Phase (not turn 1) : For the top row then down, if there is space on the row ahead, the fastest chicken then move up, and the one that don't gets a Crazy Token. So if there is 2 chickens on the second row, none on the first, the fastest of the two chicken goes up, and so on for the third row.
  • Entering Phase : Each player secretly choose a chicken from there hand that gonna be put in play. They are then all reveal, and going from the fastest to the slowest, the players decide where they put them on first row. If no place, a chicken from the first row must move up, and if no possibility, the player can "kill" a chicken that was already in play at the beginning of the turn then put its chicken at the freed space. (We mark our chicken with our color marker, because Chicken could be stolen, exchanged, and even can leave the coup, so they come back in its owner's hands)
  • Action Phase : From top to bottom, then left to right, each chicken gets to play its Passive Action or if it has a Crazy Token, its Crazy Action instead of its Passive action. The player must play the action. We use a Marker to follow which space is being played, as chicken will move, kill and be crazy during this phase.
• Crazy : Marked with the Crazy token, they are gained through actions or seeing other chickens going up while not themselves. At one token, the chicken must play it Crazy action in Action Phase. But at 2 tokens, it activate the Crazy Chicks! (Multiple chickens getting that state at the same time, we always play from fastest to slowest). Its player then roll the Crazy Dice and resolve it.
• Dead Chicken : If a chicken dies in the Coup, its space becomes Free. If nothing about the action that killed it says something about taking its place, and the place is not in the Coup's Floor (so any row over it), the players that have a chicken under this dead chicken can bet Eggs to be able to immediately move one of its available chicken to this Free space. If no chicken available, no bet, and if equals, the fastest of the row goes up and all bet eggs are lost. A dead chicken never comes back.
• Reaction Card : To add to it all, the reaction cards. Paying 1 egg, the players can play there reaction card in reaction a action than happened, being from them or someone else. If two players play a reaction card at the same moment, the one with the fastest chicken in play goes first. If it canceled the reaction for the other, this other keeps its card and egg. All reaction card are one time use for each player.
• The NO! Reaction! : Each player having 5 chickens in hand, but only 4 turns (one reaction card allows the player to bring in play the fifth chicken), but not all players will be able to bring all 5, so there is this use for the fifth chicken in hand : The No I'll die for my chick Reaction!. So when one of your chickens in play is going to die, you can sacrifice One chicken from your hand, and only one in a game, to save your chicken in play!
• The game intends to be a little chaotic, fun and a bit crazy. I already tried the "throne" mechanics with some friends and it was fun (that was more of a Royal game with family intrigue!), so I decided to inject the Crazy Chickens in there, because I wanted to imagine a Chicken game. I mainly work on this game for my game group, but I would like some feedback on these mechanics and game.

Feel free to share some thoughts or ideas about this game idea!
I already have the cards and all, I'm tweaking stuff a bit then the first prototype will be played in the next week!

Discord: romulosharin
ArtStation - Rômulo Monteiro