Was bored, designed card game.

Whenever I get bored, I try to do some sort of mental exercise.

Today was one of these days. I spent about 45 minutes waiting for a bus, and during that time I went back to a certain problem I wanted to solve: making a card game which can be played with nothing but the regular 52 playing cards and lasts a very long time, meaning that a single game can take several hours. Games like poker do not count, because playing poker usually requires some other material: chips, real money or something to keep score.

I couldn't solve that problem, but I did end up with a game I think is neat. Give it a shot some time, and tell me how you feel about it.

Card Duel

Needs:

2 players, 1 deck of playing cards

Setup:

Take a regular deck of 52 cards (no jokers), shuffle it and deal each player 26 cards, face down. These 26 cards are the player's card pool. From this card pool, each player must construct a hand and a deck.

To construct a hand, take a number of cards from your card pool whose values total 30 or less. The value of a card is its number. Fives are worth five points each, Eights are worth 8 points each. Tens, Jacks, Queens and Kings are worth ten points each. Aces are worth 11 points each. This point value also determines the card's strength during gameplay.

The cards you do not select for your hand become your deck. Shuffle your deck and place it face down in front of you before starting.

Note that although hand construction should be done in secret, your opponent is always allowed to know how many cards are in your hand while playing.

Play

Once both players have constructed their hand, the dealer starts playing on Offense, and the other player is on Defense. The offensive player must play a card, choosing either a card from his hand or playing the top card of his deck. The played card is placed on the table face up and the defensive player must then respond with another card. He can either use a card from his hand or take the top card of his deck. This is known as an Exchange.

If the defender's card's value is greater than or equal to the attacker's, the attack is stopped and the roles are now exchanged - the defender is now on offense.

If the defender's card's value is less than the attacker's, the attack succeeds and the defender takes damage. To deal damage, the attacker must once again choose to use either a card in his hand or use the top card of his deck. This damage card is then placed in front of the damaged player - it indicates how much damage the player has taken. When the total damage reaches 22, the damaged player dies and loses the game. The damage value is the card's point value (Five = 5, Jack/Queen/King = 10, Ace = 11, etc).

Once the exchange ends, either because the defender deflected the attack and became the attacker or because the defender took damage, both exchange cards are placed into their owner's respective discard pile and a new exchange begins.

Miscellaneous rules

If a player runs out of cards in his hand, he can only play using the top of his deck.

If a player runs out of cards in his deck, he may choose to either play a card in his hand or to shuffle his discard pile into a new deck and use the top card of that deck.

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Those are the rules - they're probably not very well balanced, considering I haven't played this game at all. Give it a shot, maybe you can try altering the hand point and player life values a bit.

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Example game:

Players A and B are playing a card duel.

A is the dealer and deals each player 26 cards.

A examines his 26 cards and selects the following hand:

2, 2, Ace, 8, 7

Other possible hands A could have taken:

Ace, Ace

King, King, Queen

2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5

The last choice is interesting: A can choose to remove all the poor cards from his card pool and rely on his deck to produce nothing but good cards. This strategy can be viable depending on the card pool you receive.

A, having selected his hand, takes a few moments to note how many of each card his deck holds - this will allow him to make educated guesses during gameplay by noting which cards are left in his deck.

The game starts: A, being the dealer, starts on offense. He chooses to save his high value cards for damaging the opponent and goes for the top of his deck, revealing a 6. B responds with a 6 from his hand and becomes the attacker.

B attacks with an 8 from his hand. A must then either waste one of his high cards blocking, or hope to get a good draw. Since A knows that his card pool holds a good amount of Ten cards, he goes for his deck and gets a ten.

A then attacks with his deck again - getting a ten once more. B frowns, takes a look at his hand and eventually goes for his deck - drawing a 2. A promptly takes an ace from his hand and assigns it to his opponent as damage, leaving him at a precarious 11 life.

"Let me guess, you have another ace in your hand."

A says nothing, instead continuing his attack with another card from his deck - a 7. B knows that drawing anything less than a 7 could be fatal.

B mentally counts the cards left in his deck - he gives himself a 60% chance of drawing a 7 or better. He considers the option for a few moments, and finally declares:

"This game sucks, let's go play some Demon's Souls instead."