Matching card game mechanics ideas

[Matt Stow]

I’ve had another early idea for a card game where players have a hand of “solution” cards and have to play them to solve a particular “goal” card, for example, say the goal is Not Left, Not Down, and so a player can play Up or Right and new goal(s) would then be revealed.

At first I was hoping for a fast, Dobble-type feel, but in Dobble, the goal card is the last one played, whereas the goals here would be from a separate deck, so someone would have to reveal the next goal, so I can’t see how that would work.

My current thinking is that 2 or 3 goal cards are revealed each turn, and players race to be the first to solve a particular one, with points awarded for how quick you are essentially.

I’m not sure what the winning condition is yet either. Is it the first one to get rid of their cards triggers the end (although that could become trickier as the game goes on), is it when there are no more solution cards in the deck?

I’ve also thought that it potentially could be cooperative, with players un-spokenly trying to get through the deck(s).

Anyway, I thought I’d share this early idea in case some of you have other good suggestions that I may be able to learn from or adopt.

[Arthur Wohlwill]

There is a game called Something different https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143869/something-different

in which there are always 3 cards being displayed. Many of these cards have rules such as “can play a blue card” or “can not play a diamond card”. If you can play a card, you play one on top of one of the 3 played cards so as to eliminate that rule and put in a new one. The goal is to get rid of all of your cards. Maybe there is something here you could use.

[Matt Stow]

It’s quite hard to find much info on that game. Even the Kickstarter showed no gameplay 😢 It looks it follows the Dobble approach where the new card leads the goal.

But because you linked to BGG, I realise I should look through all 292 games in the Matching mechanic 😅 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/3007/matching/linkeditems/boardgamemechanic

[Roger Meloche]

You may want to check out the game Red 7 It has a similar mechanism. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161417/red7

[Matt Stow]

It’s not quite what I was thinking, but it looks like an interesting little game nonetheless. Thanks for the tip!