Rollin' in the Deep

Those who follow me on twitter have probably noticed my recent comments about a quick card game. It came together awful quick! From start to finish on the cards and rules, it was about 3 hours. Of course this is a rough playtest copy and the art on the cards and stuff is not final.

I noticed after it was designed that I do not have a d8 in my possession at this moment. I'm in between moving houses and I tend to design with d6 in mind. This game is a bit of an anomaly in many regards. The fact that it uses a d8, it is the smallest game I've designed so far (32 cards and 1 center piece). The rules are barely over 1 page long, this includes a set up diagram.

The name comes from the song by Adele, Rolling in the Deep. I hear it on the radio about once a day while I'm flipping around looking for some decent music. The song struck me literal. What about a game about rolling dice underwater. Well, after a few days of rattling this around in my brain I came up with the idea of treasure hunting underwater. Each of the cards might or might not have treasure pictured. The ones that didn't had some sort of hazard. To make the game move along the center piece features an octopus who flails its tentacles around smashing cards. So we use the d8 to represent the tentacles. Each pile of cards goes in 1 of the spots.

The players are represented by colored pawns and they have assorted actions. Each player has the same actions. The game ends when the cards run out and the highest total of treasure is the winner. Simple, easy, and hopefully fun.

Playtest results will follow and if I feel its worth playing, I'll put some art on it and offer it up for download.