Reiver Games - prototypes

As I mentioned in my last post, All For One is being sent to Reiver Games for review. Jackson Pope over there read the rules and thought it sounded interesting enough to try out at least.

On his blog, Jackson said "I now need something to slot in early next year (potentially a UK Games Expo release), something cheap to make (like a card game) is the order of the day." So I emailed him with a description of Ariel's card game: Love Means Nothing. I sent him a paragraph I wrote for my KublaCon report describing the game, which Ariel liked so much it's now the intro paragraph in the rulebook:

In Love Means Nothing you have a hand of cards, each one depicting 2 parts of a tennis court. One half can be used for defense, returning a ball that comes your way. The other half can be used for offense, sending a shot across the net. You never use both halves of the card at once, it's either one or the other. A turn consists of first playing a card to cover the shot your opponent played, then playing another card to dictate which of the 6 zones you'll hit the ball to. Finally you play a preparation card, indicating which zones you're prepared to cover. The preparation card can be used to cover a shot if the appropriate zone is highlighted. Otherwise you must cover the shot with a card from your hand, in which case the preparation card becomes the attack. So by playing cards that your opponent cannot cover with their preparation card you maintain control of the match because you'll see where the next attack will come and will be able to prepare for that. Of course if a player cannot cover a shot at all, then the point is lost. There are also combinations of cards which create a special shot. Special shots, if not covered with the proper type of card, leave a player off balance... they will only draw 1 card at the end of the turn instead of the usual 2. this will leave them with fewer options and less likely to cover shots.

Jackson said the game sounded interesting, so I sent him the latest copy of the rules which I got from Ariel today. I just received an email from Jackson requesting a prototype of LMN too!

While I hope he likes and decides to publish All For One, I think the chances are better that he'll want to publish Love Means Nothing, as it fits his plan of a cheap-to-produce game. Hopefully he'll go with both - but I'd be pretty happy and excited if he goes with either one. I'm a big cheerleader for Love Means Nothing, even if I didn't have as much to do with it as I did All For One.