What do we think about game mechanics?

[opelmanz]

I've played this game a few times and I'm curious what others think about game mechanics. There are two specifically that I find a bit annoying, though I won't go so far as to say they are "broken".

1) The "give up" mechanic if you don't have the correct colors. The 5 cards on the different dragon colors come up completely randomly, therefore despite efforts to attempt to strategically force your opponent to take cards you want them to have (or don't want to have yourself), there is still a good chance you are forced to "give up" because you don't have the correct color and/or you ran out of face down cards.

2) The "instant win" mechanic. If you control all 5 dragon color areas you instantly win, even if all the cards are not played. I think this mechanic is sort of contrary to the competing mechanic of "play cards to fill all colors". For example, if I can force my opponent to take a 8/9 in a certain color where they only have two cards, they might be leading the color at any given moment but in theory if I could force them to play that color (ie they ran out of face down cards) it might cause them to play a high value card that causes their dragons to "revolt" because they are 2x as powerful as my side to prevent "giving up" if that is their only color matched card they can play.

I wonder if people have strong opinions either way about these and other observations of the game.

[vetowings]

I don't have an issue with either mechanic. They prevent players from going all in on a specific strategy and force players to be adaptable.

[95chins]

1) What without the alternative be? I think unlimited face down cards would be bad, because it would be too easy to have low totals in every column. If not unlimited face down cards, I'm not sure what else would make sense as a mechanism for that situation. The game needs a way to sometimes force you to play cards you'd rather not play. The threat of instant loss is an effective way to do that. Trying to put your opponent in that situation is an interesting part of the game.

For what it's worth, that loss condition has come up in a small minority of my games. If it's happening to you a lot, you might be using your three alotted face down cards too early.

2) Without this mechanism, there would be no downside to trying to "lose" every column by enough that you then win it at the end of the game. The instant loss condition means you have to compete for the higher total in at least one of the columns.


Overall, I've been really enjoying this game. Navigating the tension between the different ways to win/lose is really interesting. I like that face down cards can either be an intentional 0, or a way to get a higher total by surprise. Bluffing about which one you're doing is a delicious mind game.

One thing I find fascinating is that it's often possible to know every card in your opponent's hand by the latter half of the game. That makes it more possible to deliberately play for the "give up" loss condition, so it feels earned, rather than just bad luck for your opponent. However, I could also see it being kind of weird that both players potentially know their opponent's entire hand. Face down cards muddy it a little bit, but you can still know the full set of cards they could possibly still have in hand. Maybe more mind games there? I'm not yet at the level where I can pay full attention to remembering my opponent's hand *and* keep track of everything they know about mine.