Game guides, the science of play, and stories behind traditional card games from 15+ countries. New posts most weeks.
A game that can end before you've made a single decision isn't a game. Here's exactly how my Minesweeper avoids that, and the harder question I still haven't answered.
Read more →I wrote the engines for all five of these games, and the thing that surprised me wasn't that they play differently. It's how measurably differently they play, from the very first card.
Read more →Canasta is my favourite card game of the lot, and for years I had no idea it was Uruguayan. My best score is 7350. I would genuinely enjoy hearing somebody took it down.
Read more →I had never heard of Cuarenta until I went looking for card games country by country. Then one of its capture rules cost me two days, because I was sure my own engine was broken.
Read more →Klaverjas has a rule called Roem that rewards you for holding specific card combinations in tricks. It's the most satisfying scoring bonus I've coded.
Read more →600 million people play Dou Di Zhu. That's more than Poker, more than Bridge, more than any card game you've heard of. And most of the West has never heard of it.
Read more →I discovered Euchre while researching North American card games for Cliko. An entire region's identity tied to one card game — I had to build it.
Read more →I found Schnapsen while researching European card games. The marriage mechanic — a King-Queen pair for bonus points — is the most elegant thing in any card game I've built.
Read more →If Briscola is Italy's strategic game, Scopa is its loud one. Fast rounds, table-slapping sweeps, and scoring rules that reward greed.
Read more →I found Briscola in the same research rabbit hole that led me to Basra. The Mediterranean card game tradition runs deep.
Read more →I found Basra because Spider Solitaire got boring. I didn't expect a card game from Beirut to ruin my sleep schedule.
Read more →Building 8 regional card games taught me that every border crossing changes one rule. One rule is enough to create a different game.
Read more →I've built 15+ grid puzzles. The ones that succeed all share three properties. The ones that fail are missing at least one.
Read more →I've built games for six different deck types. The 52-card French deck won the world, but the story of why is stranger than you'd expect.
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