Desert Salad

I want to create a game which you could play in the plane. I think the game should meet the following conditions:

    • Take little space: you don’t have much space in the plane, only tiny tray deck.

    • Should be for 2 people and only 2 (I don’t think that I am ready to start making solo games, however I did make solo adventure games in the past).

    • Game should be interesting enough to play for an hour or so. 

In this game we are making fruit salad, we are throwing five types of fruit, but you can’t throw the same fruit twice. 

Players count: 2

Inventory:

Cards – 35 total: 4 fruit cards – 5, 3 fruit cards – 10, 2 fruit cards – 10, 1 fruit cards – 10. 

Preparation for the game. Shuffle the card deck, take the top card, this will be the start card. Divide the rest of the cards into two equal parts (17 cards each). Give a part of the deck to each player. Each player takes fives cards. The one who sits closer to the window starts.

Playing the game. The player has to play the card that doesn’t have any fruits that are present on the top playground deck. For example the top card has orange and pineapple, so the player can place banana card, or he can place banana and watermelon card or he can place banana, watermelon and raspberry card. 

If player can’t play a card, then he has to take the whole playground deck and put it bellow his own deck of cards. Other player can play any card, because the playground is clear.

If player can play a card, then he takes as many cards from his own deck as the difference from his and top playground card. Example nr1, the top card has two fruits and player places also two fruit card, so he doesn’t take any new cards. Example nr2, player placed one fruit card, and the top card is with four fruit in that case player takes 3 cards into his hand. In vice versa situation player would take also 3 cards. 

However at any time in the game player can’t have more than 5 cards in his hand, if he has more he has to decide which cards to put at the bottom of his deck. For example, player played one card from his hand, then took new 3 cards, so in total he has 7 cards. He has to get rid off two cards, he can get rid off any cards from his hand, it doesn’t need to be the new cards.

End of the game and victory. The game ends when one of the players gets rid of all the cards, and he is declared a winner. Alternatively game could end when the plane starts to land, in that case player with fewer cards is declared a winner. 

Design decisions. There is nothing original about this game. As you get only top cards from the deck there is quit a lot of luck. Did I succeed at my goals? Yes, I think so, but personally I would like to have game with more strategy and less luck, so I’ll keep trying with other ideas. 

Art. I think, the following style would fit game perfectly:

I took pictures from unsplash: 

    • Banana Photo by Faris Mohammed on Unsplash

    • Orange Photo by Vino Li on Unsplash

    • Watermelon Photo by Floh Maier on Unsplash

    • Pineapple Photo by Miguel Andrade on Unsplash

    • Raspberry Photo by Zach Inglis on Unsplash

I am very happy about orange picture, I am not so happy with the rest of them. I couldn’t find the ones which fit my vision. Also, two reds: raspberry and watermelon, look very similar, I’ll probably need to change watermelon to kiwi. 

Would you like to playtest it? PDF file with game cards. The example art would be to expensive to print, so I made simpler, not so pretty art for playtesting (similar to royal ball). Any feedback is welcome.