Kingdom Realms (3-Lane Game Jam): details

In a recent post I mentioned three new game ideas. In this post I'll flesh out one of them...

3 Lane Game Jam - Kingdom Realms

Man, that title sounds like it was created by an AI ChatBot, doesn't it? 

Kingdom Realms was my submission to a little 2-week game jam. Here's the description of the jam criteria, though it was made clear they were more like suggestions:

Games where there are 3 areas in which you can play cards, and you have to "win" two of the areas in some sense. Of course, if your game needs 4 or 5 lanes, that's okay too, but try and keep the "win 2/3" (or 3/5) lanes idea in there somehow if you can. There's no limitation on the number of cards or other components

Taking inspiration from Animal Kingdoms and Rolling Realms, I made a game where you turn up 3 Realm cards, each with a rule governing play in that lane, and a win condition, governing who wins that lane. Then you deal some cards into a supply, and take turns drafting a card and placing it in one of the realms on your side. In the end, I added effects that occur upon playing the cards as well. Once you get through the deck, you check each Realm's win condition and see who wins 2 out of 3.

To be honest, I'm much less thrilled with this game than I have been with some of my other games, but it does seem to work alright. I generally think I'm not very into lane combat games, Riftforce being an exception.

Tabletop Simulator:

Here's the TTS workshop mod for the game, if anyone's interested in trying it out: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2890010667

Kingdom Realms (version submitted to 3-lane game jam) 

COMPONENTS:

30 playing cards (6 each of rank 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7)

14 Realm cards (see file)SETUP:

Shuffle Realm cards and deal 3 face up (creating 3 lanes)

Shuffle playing cards and deal out 5 face up

Randomly select a start player

ROUNDS OF PLAY:

1. Take turns drafting the face up cards, one at a time (you'll get 2 total each round), and assigning them to two DIFFERENT lanes

(If you have no legal play, add the drafted card to your hand for tiebreak)

2. Resolve the card's effect (see below)

3. When there is only 1 card left, the start player takes it and keeps it in hand (for tiebreak)

4. Deal out 5 more cards face up, start player changes hands

GAME END:

Once all cards have been played, the game is over

Resolve each Realm... Win 2 Realms to win the game

If there is a tie, the player with the highest total value of cards in hand is the winner

CARD EFFECTS:

• 3: You may play this card face down. If you do, turn another card here face down. Face down cards have value = 1
• 4: You may swap this card with the most recent card an opponent played here
• 5: You may re-play a card from here in a different realm (face-down cards stay face down and have no effect)
• 6: If possible, turn a face-down card here face up
• 7: No effect

And here are the current Realms:

You must play cards in ascending order - Most cards wins

You must play cards in descending order - Most cards wins

Alternate color (black/red), you may not play the same color as the last card played here by any player - Most cards wins

To paly a card here, you must turn one of your face-up cards in another realm face down (face down cards have value 1) - Most cards wins

You must play cards in ascending order - Largest total value wins

Only RED cards can be played here - Largest total value wins

Only BLACK cards can be played here - Largest total value wins

Only ODD cards can be played here - Largest total value wins

Only EVEN cards can be played here - Largest total value wins

Alternate color (black/red), you may not play the same color as the last card played here by any player  - Largest total value wins

Card effects do not trigger in this realm - Largest total value wins

Alternate color (black/red), you may not play the same color as the last card YOU played here - Largest total value wins

Alternate parity (odd/even), you may not play the same parity as the last card YOU played here - Largest total value wins

To paly a card here, you must turn one of your face-up cards in another realm face down (face down cards have value 1) - Largest total value wins

For each card you have here, add 1 to the value or number of cards in each other realm - Lowest total value wins

You must match either SUIT or VALUE of the last card played here by any player - Last player to play here wins