Munchkin: The Card Game

“Kill the monsters. Steal the treasure. Stab your buddy.”

These three tenets, emblazoned on the box to the dedicated card game Munchkin, is a fairly accurate assessment of what you can expect when your group of 3-6 players sits down to play a game. Munchkin is essentially a dungeon crawling style role-playing game, just without the pencils and paper, heavy rulebooks, and role-playing. Much of the seriousness is removed as well, since nearly every card is dripping in satire lampooning traditional D&D styled games. Humor which is only built upon with cards brilliantly illustrated by John Kovalic, best known for his Dork Tower comic series.

So if you take all that boring stuff out of a role-playing game, what does that leave, you ask? Namely a faster paced game filled with monsters, loot and experience levels. In a race to be the first player to reach level 10, you and your friends will find yourselves teaming up to take down bigger monsters, all the while screwing each other over on a regular basis. The comical nature of the game helps in defusing resentment when a player starts to feel picked on, but the right crowd could still find themselves in heated debates over the occasionally ambiguously worded card. Don’t take it too seriously though. Munchkin publisher Steve Jackson Games certainly doesn’t, with rules like, “Any disputes in the rules should be settled by loud arguments with the owner of the game having the last word” and cards like Cheat that let you break established rules and equip items that you normally wouldn’t be able to.

The game is played with two different types of cards, door cards and treasure cards. All players start as a level 1 human with ‘no class (heh heh)’ with two of each type of card in your hand. A player’s turn begins by entering a new room in the dungeon by ‘kicking down the door’ (by drawing a door card face up). Door cards often consist of curses/traps, monsters, or cards that modify the player’s class or race. If the player isn’t forced into battle by drawing a monster face up, they can go ‘looking for trouble’ and choose to fight a monster by playing one from their hand. There’s a wide array of monsters, ranging from a level 1 Potted Plant to a level 20 Plutonium Dragon. Be careful not to bite off more than you can chew, though. Opposing players can make your fight tougher by playing cards on your monster that gives it bonuses such as Enraged or Intelligent, increasing its fighting power.

Defeating a monster in combat will net you an experience level and some treasure. Treasure cards are usually items that modify your combat rating such as the Mace of Sharpness or the Big Rock or special cards like Bribe The GM With Food, which allows you to immediately go up one level. If you’re unable to defeat the monster, you’ll have to roll the die to run away. Fail to escape and you are forced to face the Bad Stuff, consequences of your defeat that are unique to each monster. Lose a fight to a level 10 Floating Nose and you might only lose a level. Go up against a level 18 Bullrog and fail and you might get killed, forcing you to start back at level 1 and draw a new hand of cards. If you’re in a tight spot, you can try to convince someone at the table to help you in battle, adding their battle rating to yours, but they’re not likely to help you out for free, and you might need to watch your back.

The game is published by Steve Jackson Games, a company that has created and published a myriad of card, board and role-playing games for over 30 years, including Car Wars, Chez Geek, and GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System). Since its original publication in 2001, Munchkin is far and away one of SJ Games’ best sellers. No wonder, since it’s such a fun and amusing game, and good for small to medium groups. In addition to multiple expansions, there have also been several spin-offs such as Munchkin Conan, Munchkin Zombies, western-themed The Good, The Bad and the Munchkin, and the upcoming Munchkin Apocalypse. Several Munchkin titles are available at your local Slackers today, and according to SJ Games, all spin-offs and expansions a

How to Create Your Own Card Game

Card games have been popular since the beginning of time, it seems. You can look back to the furthest point of human history and you will find a game that people have been playing.

In those days, the cards will have been hand made and the prints would have been hand drawn. A lot of work went into the design of the cards and they were not mass-produced. People probably had to go to a public house to play their card games because they could not afford to have their own deck of cards.

Nowadays, cards are more affordable and people have their own decks. They play their card games in their own home and some people organize special nights, where people go to their house to play the game and drink, and be merry. Card games are extremely social.

Everyone knows these games. Even if someone only knows how to play one card game, they can still learn more. There are books on games and websites, which will show, people the ins and outs of the rules.

Card games are extremely popular. Even with the introduction of modern technology, the popularity of card games has not waned. Some websites will have digital versions of the games, but people will still buy the physical packs of cards. This is the case with Top Trumps; Magic the Gathering cards and even regular playing cards.

Business Idea

Therefore, making your own card game seems to be one of the best business ideas because it has proven that the interest in the games do not wane, even when times change.

However, that is not to say that you can just release any old game and not put any effort into it. People aren’t stupid; they know when games have been shoddily thrown together.

If you are thinking about inventing your own card game, then you have to have a good idea and you have to put the effort into the design. Read on for some tips on how to do this.

1. Original Idea – First of all, you have to come up with an original idea. You must not copy someone else’s idea because you will be liable to legal action against you because they will have copyrighted their idea. So, when you come up with an original idea, you have to copyright yours as well. That way you can earn money from your game and you are protected from someone else stealing your idea.

2. Rules – Next, you need to think about what rules you want for your game. The trick is to have as many rules as you want, but to not make them too complicated. If the rules are complicated then people will not want to learn them, and then they won’t want to play the game. Your game has to be engaging and it has to be fun.

3. Design – The final process will be the design of the cards. You probably have an idea about how you want the cards to look. If you don’t, then look at some similar card games and then contact a designer. Describe the game to a designer and they might be able to come up with some good ideas for the game. If you want to employ a designer, you might be better using a company that will also print the cards out for you. That way you only have to pay one company and you can keep track of all the people that you have employed.

Different Card Games From Around the World

Playing with cards is a fun way to pass the time as well as have a good time with family and friends. Around the world there are many card games that could be complicated yet amusing to many people.

• Panjpar is a popular two player card game that was made in Afghanistan. The game uses standard cards (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and so forth) and each player is dealt with five cards. Whilst playing their hand, the player has to draw new cards from the undealt deck to remain with at least five cards in hand. The objective of the game is to collect a hand that can win after the deck runs out. Once the deck runs out, the player who manages to play their whole hand wins whilst the other player who remains with all cards is named the loser.

• Briscola is an Italian game that works with points. The cards used is a 40 deck set that uses coins, cups, swords and batons or clubs as suit symbols. If these cards are not available to you, a 52 card deck may be used but Jokers, Eights, Nines and Tens need to be removed in order to play properly. The game can be played with two to six players. Each player is given three cards and the rest of the cards are placed facing down on the table. The dealer then needs to take the seventh card and place it upright on the table. To win, a player or team needs to score at least 61 points.

• Kalooki is a popular type of rummy game from Jamaica. The game is played with three to six players using two decks of 52 card sets including four Jokers. The objective of the game is to go out by laying all cards down. The game works on points with the Joker being the highest scoring point. Whoever has the lowest scoring points wins the game.

• Sueca is a game played in Angola but comes from Portugal. The game uses four players that play in teams of two. The game uses 40 cards with Eights, Nines and Tens removed from standard card decks. Ranking from highest to lowest is Ace, Seven, King, Jack, Queen, Six, Five, Four, Three and Two being the lowest. The objective is to win tricks containing more than half of the card points which are 60 points. The first team to score four games wins the ultimate prize.

These are some fun and unusual card games to play if you want to pass the time. If you are thinking of getting a number of standard card decks, then you might want to consider visiting a cash and carry wholesale store. You could enjoy playing card games in coffee shops if you don’t feel like being at home.

J&E Cash ‘n Carry is one of South Africa’s biggest wholesalers in the following categories of products: Cosmetics, Groceries, Sweets, Personal Care, Household, Health, Beauty, Baby, Hardware, Electric & Stationery. We su

Free Card Games

Free card games are those card games which can be played on the Internet without having to pay a fee. These are contrasted with pay card games, in which you pay to play but run a chance of winning cash prizes, either large or small, depending on the game and site you choose to access. There are many card game freeware sites on the Internet where players can download and play free card games.

Sites like [http://geocities.com/thanoscardgames] and http://www.cardgames4free.com offer enhanced versions of the standard Klondike Solitaire, FreeCell Solitaire and Spider Solitaire games that come with extra features, such as the ability to save games during play as well as better graphics and sound. These sites also contain comprehensive information on many other popular card games such as Tripeaks Solitaire, Addition Solitaire,Texas Hold’em and Video Poker.

Free Games (www.free-games.au), a directory of free games on the Internet, also reviews and ranks free card games. Per their lists, here are the three most popular free card games in their directory. AS-Solitaire, a collection of 40 card games that uses more than 1000 different card sets in Photo Quality, is the top-ranked card game. Top 10 Solitaire is a combination game of the world’s 10 most popular solitaire card games, with a world wide online ranking system. Speed is a card game that uses a single deck of cards for the player to compete against the computer. The action is intense and needs split second timing. In Animated Rummy 2.0 the user plays rummy against animated computer characters.

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