Developing a Drafting/Set Collecting Game

[Nicholas Ribera]

Hello Everyone! I’m working on a game called “Secret Admirers,” the theme of which involves decorating your shoebox to collect as many valentine’s day cards as possible in Elementary/primary school. The stickers are collected via drafting and the the cards you collect will involve set collection and points.

I’m thinking of adding a mechanic where before hand each player gets the names of three students that they have a crush on, so if they get a card from one of those students, it’s worth more. The game will come with 30 student cards, so that means there are over 4000 possible combinations of three of them. So do I want to make cards that they draw beforehand, each of which will have three random names on it, or is it okay to have them draw from the student cards before the classroom is laid out, then have them write the names down on their own supplied piece of paper (or do I now need to include a notebook in the box?).

On top of them, for randomness I plan on removing some students right before the classroom is set up. Would it really suck if the student you have a “crush” on doesn’t show up to class that day, so it’s not possible for you to collect a v-day card from them? I’m planning on removing three students to add to the randomness, so the chances of all three of your crushes not being in the game are 1 in 4000+, but you’ll still have the other set collection rules still allowing you to collect points.

If I have you draw your crushes after the students are removed from the classroom, it might make it easier to know who was removed, which I don’t want.

I fell like writing this out has just caused me to work through it. This is what I think I’ll do in set up:

Select your board, Shuffle the student deck, draw three, only one of which must have the same starting color as your board. Write them down, keep them secret, and return them to the deck, shuffle it, and pass the deck to the next player to do the same.

Thoughts?