Important Announcement

I recently stumbled across a card game known as "James Bond" (rules are here: https://www.pagat.com/commerce/jamesbond.html). TL;DR: both players have six piles of four cards each and race to get all of them to be 4-of-a-kind by swapping out cards with the four face up cards in the middle.

Two things about this game: 1) It is strikingly similar to my own, and 2) it is much more enjoyable to play.

"James Bond" has everything my game doesn't and in fact provides a very similar user experience to the one I had envisioned when starting this project. Finally, I have found the shoulders of another game designer on which I can stand to improve my own game. Now, with a clear goal in mind, I can start making real improvements. My goal is to make TJoC more strategic than James Bond--requiring a fast mental processing time and quick reactions--without sacrificing one bit of the chaos that makes James Bond so engaging. 

I also discovered a secret to making a good speed game. It needs not just speed but scramble.

There's a difference. In the game of spoons, you know the time when everyone is just passing cards along as quickly as they can to try and get four of a kind? That is speed. While it helps, by itself it cannot complete a good speed game. You know the rush you get when someone eventually grabs a spoon and the tabletop turns into a battlefield? That is scramble, and it is the key to making a real-time speed game that keeps players coming back for more. 

Whether it's spoons, James Bond, speed chess, or TJoC, a good speed-based game needs an element of scramble. I will try to make TJoC mix strategy and scramble smoothly into a coherent experience that necessitates quick thinking.

It's time for another experimental snapshot.

-slvrfshston