Playing Card Puzzles

[TonyLB]

Okay, I'm looking to make a puzzle that is played out with playing cards, during the course of a game.  So this is not a directly competitive "You both play cards, high card wins" conflict-resolution scheme, but rather a "You've got a situation that starts off (a) random and (b) not fully known and you use a sequence of moves to try to transition it to a state where it is ordered and fully known."

Example:  Solitaire.  It uses two techniques ("A card can go on top of the card one higher than it, of a different color", and "Cards may stack up on the aces one after the other, in the same suit") and makes a fairly nice puzzle.

My problem is:  I'm stumped on other ways that cards can be structured relative to each other.  I don't particularly want to remake solitaire.  So, a little brainstorming would be a great help to me:  How else can cards relate to each other?  What kind of "moves" can be used to change a structure of cards?  What kind of end-game ordering is interesting to shoot for?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  What about making hands like poker or Mahjong? Or playing off of someone else's play like Hearts or Gin? Points/progress mechanic like Mille Bournes? Move/countermove mechanic like a CCG?
  Is the puzzle supposed to represent plot advancement or? I might be able to make a more concrete suggestion, if I knew what the mechanic was supposed to represent/be driven by.

[TonyLB]

I'm just trying to brainstorm the kind of things you can use.  The details of what it's all supposed to represent are sufficiently elaborate that I wouldn't feel nice dumping them on anyone.

How would you recommend using "hands", for instance, to work inside of a puzzle that's supposed to move toward solution?  Options:  Getting a hand lets you remove those cards as a group, leaving you one step closer to a "no cards left" victory condition.  Or getting a hand lets you move those cards somewhere else, where they serve some other purpose in the puzzle.  Or ... I can use more options.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Deduction games are a classic use of game cards. Have one or more cards set aside, and have the puzzler reveal other cards or their qualities (rank, suite) according to given rules, slowly figuring out which card or cards have the be the ones set aside. The game is solved whe the puzzler has deducted the correct card.

[David Artman]

How else can cards relate to each other?

Positional
Adjacency, either orthogonally or diagonally.
Stacking, either revealing cards beneath or not.
Structural relationships, like forming a tent with two cards on edge or a box with five or six cards.
Face down or face up.
Oriented toward or away from a given perspective, or turned to the right or left of that perspective (ex: N, S, E, W facing in bridge).

Intrinsic to Cards
Same suit, or opposition of suits versus another card or set of cards.
Less than, equal to, or greater than another card or set of cards.

What kind of "moves" can be used to change a structure of cards?

Adjust any of the above Positional relationships by sliding, flipping, or "stepping" from adjacent region (card location) to another adjacent region.
As above, but with whole rows, columns, or stacks of cards.
Propping up with edge of another card.
Using a card to flip another card (like the opposite of Tiddly Winks).
Fanning with a card to blow a draft onto another card structure.

What kind of end-game ordering is interesting to shoot for?

All of a kind: suit or value.
Straight of any "interesting" length (greater than three or four in a row).
Tallest stack or structure.
Fewest or most or none or all cards in a particular orientation relative to a particular perspective.
Fewest or most or none or all cards left in possession by a particular individual.

...Fun little brainshower. I work a lot on Looney labs Icehouse pyramid games, and we designers spend a LOT of our time thinking about pyramid relationships and game mechanic/technique combinations/synergies. In fact, were you to ask the same questions about hollow Icehouse pyramids, the reply would have at least two orders of magnitude more possible relationships (being three-dimensional and stackable as trees or nests).

HTH;
David

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Maybe that's how it works. All of the hands are three card hands. and there are three hands that the players build together. They can split them like in Otherkind. Offense, Defense and Advancement, each turn each player plays one card towards one of the three final hands. If they can't play a card, they discard and draw another. When all three hands are full, the outcome of the mystery is solved in favor of one player or another based on the outcome.

[Callan S.]

Hi Tony,

How would you recommend using "hands", for instance, to work inside of a puzzle that's supposed to move toward solution?  Options:  Getting a hand lets you remove those cards as a group, leaving you one step closer to a "no cards left" victory condition.

Possibly this will just be tangental, but your phrase 'as a group' stands out. I've been looking at the five man dungeon run in a certain mmorpg, and how the puzzle of the dungeon isn't that hard to do. Really it's just a matter of a group working in harmony. Since the puzzle isn't that hard to do, the real feature is working in harmony with other people to finish the puzzle. And you don't seem to be interested in a hard puzzle yourself, or competition, just one with an interesting end-game.

I'm working on that in a small computer program at the moment - but it's a bit of a different design direction from making a puzzle.