--- title: "Spelljack" subtitle: "Another blackjack revision" author: Seth publish_date: 2024-12-01 08:00 date: 2024-12-01 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: playing-cards-1600x800.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: gaming tag: [gaming, tools] --- I decided that during 2024, I'd make one game every month. I thought it appropriate to finish it off in the way it began. This month, I've created **Spelljack**, another extreme remix of Blackjack. One of my previous blackjack remixes had magic-like powers granted to players pretty much at random. You only got to cast a spell in [Magickjack](http://mixedsignals.ml/blog/games/game_blackjack-magic) when you drew the highest card value. When you cast the spell, its effect was determined randomly by a dice roll. A big part of a spellcasting game like **Magic: The Gathering** (MTG) or **Potion Explosion** is the decision process providing players with an illusion of control over their own fate. For **Spelljack**, I've decided to give players more control over their resources. Initially, I had the idea of a Blackjack-style game played with separate decks, which I hoped would mimic the deck building aspect of MTG. The problem with that idea is that the cards don't indicate what spell they enable. A cheat sheet could work, with maybe 26 different effects with a value and suit assigned to some number of spell effects, but that seems unwieldy for players. It's hard enough to sort through 52 cards, much less to cross-reference a spell chart at the same time. ## Spell list Instead of trying to recreate the complexity of **Magic: The Gathering** with a deck of playing cards, I decided that 9 effects was plenty, and theoretically memorable with enough repetition. * **Diamonds:** Tap or untap 1 card in your hand. A tapped card doesn't count toward your hand total. * **Clubs:** Take 1 card from your hand and add it to one opponent's hand. * **Hearts:** Swap any number of heart cards in your hand with an equal number of heart cards in 1 opponent's hand. * **Spades:** You may sacrifice (move to the bottom of your draw deck) this card to move 1 card from 1 opponent's hand to the bottom of their draw deck. * **Queen:** Off with their heads! Exile (place in a discard pile) 1 card from your own hand. * **King:** The Mad King! Exile (place in a discard pile) 1 card from an opponent's hand. * **Jack:** Swap all cards matching this card's colour with the same colour cards in 1 opponent's hand. * **Joker:** Look at the top X cards of your draw deck, where X is the number of active players in the game.. Place the cards anywhere back in the deck. * **Ace:** Add a +X counter to 1 opponent's hand, where X is the number of Aces in your current hand. Alternately, remove a counter from a card in your own hand. ## Gameplay Give 1 deck of standard playing cards to each player. Select 26 cards from your deck. This is your draw deck. On your turn, take a card from your draw deck. Immediately upon drawing a card, you can cast its associated spell. Once a card's spell is used, the card is "mundane" and is worth its value (face cards count as 10 points). The first player with a hand worth exactly 21 points (at the end of their turn) wins. ## End game Once any player's draw deck is depleted, the game is over. The player closest to 21 wins. ## Lessons Added spell options make for a more interesting game. Building your own deck is a great way to feel ownership of your gaming experience. Resource control is important, but also difficult to do simply. Limiting spells to trigger only when initially drawn is a simple way of limiting the player power, but it comes at the cost of some player agency.

Header photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash.