Mongoose
Table of Contents
1 Overview
A tricky little game, built around a nifty simultaneous turn mechanism that makes sure that almost every move has unintended consequences. There are usually lots of false opportunities, and some good chances for misdirection.
2 Setup
2 players, and a standard 52-card deck. Aces are high.
Each player is dealt a hand of 5 cards. Another 12 cards go face up into the pool. The pool is best arranged by suit and then rank; this will make things easier later. Each player will also need a spot in front of them for their collection, which starts off empty, and will have up to 7 cards later.
+----------------------+
| Collection |
+----------------------+
+--------------------------+
+ Pool +
+--------------------------+
| 2D/4D/5D/6D 5S/9S |
| 4C/KC 4H/5H/TH/KH |
+--------------------------+
+----------------------+
| Collection |
+----------------------+
3 Goals
The goal is to try and build a collection that has cards matched by rank (pairs, three of a kind, and four of a kind). From best to worst, the possible collections are:
- Four and three.
5C/5D/5H/5S QC/QD/QH
- Four and a pair.
7C/7D/7H/7S 2C/2H TS
- Four of a kind.
QC/QD/QH/QS KC TC 8D
- Three and three.
QD/QH/QS 8C/8H/8S AD
- Three and two pairs.
8D/8H/8S KD/KS 6C/6D
- Three and a pair.
8C/8D/8H 7D/7S KC JC
- Two pairs.
TD/TH 6C/6H QC 3S 2C
- One pair.
7C/7S AS KH QS 9S 8D
- No matches.
AS KC QC JD 9D 8H 4S
Rank is used only as a tiebreaker. You look only at the rank for the largest match (e.g., three sevens and two twos beats three fives and two kings). If both players have two pairs, look at the highest for each player first, and look at the lower only if still tied (e.g., kings and twos beats queens and jacks).
4 Playing a Turn
Players both take a turn at the same time, and each turn you will play one card from your hand. Play them face down, then both turn your cards over simultaneously.
Depending on which cards you and your opponent played, you will capture some cards from the pool into your collection.
4.1 Capturing
The card played from your hand is always captured, no matter what.
The lowest rank card of the same suit from the pool (if any) is pulled to you, and the lowest card of the other suit of the same color is pushed to your opponent. For example, if you play hearts, the lowest rank heart in the pool is pulled to you, and the lowest rank diamond is pushed.
If cards are pulled or pushed in two directions at once, then nothing happens. So if you and your opponent both play the same suit, you will not capture anything from the pool. And only the lowest card of a suit can ever be captured. So if, for example, you play hearts and your opponent plays diamonds, you get the lowest heart, not the lowest two hearts.
4.1.1 Examples
- Both play hearts: nothing is captured from the pool.
+----------------------+ +----------------------+ | Collection | QH | QH | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ + Pool + + Pool + +--------------------------+ ----> +--------------------------+ | 2D/4D/5D/6D 5S/9S | | 2D/4D/5D/6D 5S/9S | | 4C/KC 4H/5H/TH/KH | | 4C/KC 4H/5H/TH/KH | +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ +----------------------+ +----------------------+ 2H | Collection | | 2H | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ - You play hearts and your opponent plays spades: You get the lowest
heart and club, and your opponent gets the lowest spade and diamond.
+----------------------+ +----------------------+ | Collection | AS | 2D 5S AS | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ + Pool + + Pool + +--------------------------+ ----> +--------------------------+ | 2D/4D/5D/6D 5S/9S | | 4D/5D/6D 9S | | 4C/KC 4H/5H/TH/KH | | KC 5H/TH/KH | +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ +----------------------+ +----------------------+ 2H | Collection | | 2H 4H 4C | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ - You play hearts and your opponent plays spades, but the pool is
empty of hearts and diamonds: You get the lowest club, and your
opponent gets the lowest spade.
+----------------------+ +----------------------+ | Collection | AS | 2S AS | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ + Pool + + Pool + +--------------------------+ ----> +--------------------------+ | 2S/5S/9S/JS | | 5S/9S/JS | | 2C/4C/JC/KC | | 4C/JC/KC | +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ +----------------------+ +----------------------+ 2H | Collection | | 2H 2C | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ - You play hearts and your opponent plays diamonds: You get the lowest
heart, and your opponent gets the lowest diamond.
+----------------------+ +----------------------+ | Collection | 3D | 2D 3D | +----------------------+ +----------------------+ +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ + Pool + + Pool + +--------------------------+ ----> +--------------------------+ | 2D/4D/5D/6D 5S/9S | | 4D/5D/6D 5S/9S | | 4C/KC 4H/5H/TH/KH | | 4C/KC 5H/TH/KH | +--------------------------+ +--------------------------+ +----------------------+ +----------------------+ 2H | Collection | | 2H 4H | +----------------------+ +----------------------+
4.2 Cleanup and Refilling
Anything captured (including the card you played from your hand) can go in your collection, but you can have at most 7 cards. If you have more, discard some now. You can discard either old cards or new cards, or some of each.
After both players have discarded extra cards, the hands and the pool are refilled. Deal out one new card (face down) to each player's hand, and three cards face up into the pool. It's a good idea to keep the pool arranged by suit and rank as new cards go into it.
5 Endgame
After 6 turns, the deck is exhausted, and you are in the endgame. Turns are played as before, except that neither the pool nor your hands are refilled at the end of a turn. The game can continue up to 5 more turns, until every card in your hand is played out.
Either player can decide to forfeit the game at any point during the endgame. Since no new cards are coming into your hand or the pool, you may be able to see that it is no longer possible to assemble a better collection than your opponent. Feel free to play it all the way out, if you like: it's annoying, but allowed.
6 Comments
Currently playtested only a little bit, but seems to be reasonably working, and actually pretty fun to play. I haven't worked with it enough to figure out if there's a lot of deep strategy to it, and I'm not sure exactly where the balance between luck and skill is. In every game I've run through so far, the loser could have won with one or two different choices, so that's a good sign.
It's possible, if you're lucky, to get a really good set of cards in your hand, and just march through the game ignoring your opponent and the pool. I don't like that, but I think it's pretty rare.
There's more shuffling around are rearranging of cards each turn than I want; it makes things kind of slow and clunky. So far, this hasn't been too much of an issue, since we've played turns carefully, with lots of second-guessing before making a move. Might be annoying if things get faster.
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