Central Michigan University, in cooperation with Gen Con, bring you a brand new course on designing card games, instructed by Damon Stone, the game designer behind games like Android: Netrunner and Call of Cthulhu LCG.
Once again, Damon has the pleasure of teaching a course as part of the Gen Con–Central Michigan University Certificate in Applied Game Design program. This course is titled, It’s All in the Cards: Designing Card and Card Driven Games.
As the title of this post states, we’ll be looking into how to maximize design space with these types of games. This means taking a closer look at what we believe a card is, what it can be, what it can represent in a game, and paying special attention to what makes a card a unique component.
Believed to be over a millennia old, cards have been central to gaming in classic games of chance, mass market games, and hobby entertainment games. As such it’s easy to think the design space is well trod and there are only variations in mechanics left. But, with complex card games like Magic the Gathering, Android Netrunner, Dominion, A Few Acres of Snow, and the just announced DC Forever show, even after a thousand years new ideas can re-imagine and transform the space.
For those currently designing a card or card driven game, or designers who wish to have a well-rounded understanding of tabletop game design, this course will go in depth on how to take a theme or subject and translate the idea into a game system using one or multiple card-based mechanics. Some of the most important things designers need to know that we’ll cover in the course are seeking and leaning into innovative ideas, manipulating probability, and crafting a meaningful and challenging narrative experience.
Innovation for innovation’s sake is something as a designer Damon has always held a deep skepticism for. That said, many new designers fear trying something truly new or upon trying, and failing, becoming risk averse and avoid trying their hands at something new in the future. Finding ways to build a practice of innovation and how to recognize when mechanics are worth pursuing versus abandoning them rather than fall into the sink cost fallacy is important for designers at every point in their careers.
Math need not be scary or complicated, and in many instances of game design the need for exactness down to the thousandth decimal point is not going to alter the play experience from back of envelope math. Becoming familiar with hypergeometric distribution and other formulas need not be intimidating, and understanding how to adjust probabilities from reducing deck size to increasing instances of a card within a deck gives you a level of freedom in component choice.
Game mechanics serve a singular focus, creating an ideal experience for your players. Many designers forget this in their desire to simulate or abstract the theme of their game, or worse, create overly complex or simplistic systems with no regard to the theme at all creating a cognitive dissonance between action and representation. Keeping the player’s experience of the game central to all design and development decisions will make your game more engaging and more desirable to play, and the versatility that cards have in creating that experience is almost unmatched.
While Damon has designed and played a wide variety of games centered around different components and mechanisms, card and card driven games are far and away his favorite. We hope you’ll join him in a deep examination of what CMU can offer you as a designer.
It’s All in the Cards: Designing Card and Card-Driven Games
In this course, we’ll discuss different kinds of games that use cards, generally recognized industry terms and definitions, how to design, prototype, and test these games, recognized best practices and pitfalls to avoid. Students will work together to design, test, and develop a card game or will work on a card game they have that is currently in the early design stage.
- Course launches Monday, August 26, 2024.
- Course ends Monday, October 7, 2024.
- The course runs on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30 to 11:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) / 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time).
- This is a non-credit bearing course and certificate.
Industry Expert: Damon Stone, Game Designer (Android: Netrunner, Call of Cthulhu LCG)
Academic Expert: Andrew D. Devenney, Associate Director of CLGS, Co-owner and Publisher of Superhero Necromancer Press
Cost: $460
Sign up for this course today to design, test, and develop your own card game.