Deeds & Dates 

BY: PARKER CRANDELL, MCKENNA FLANAGAN (Artist) , ELEaNOR Yang, RIlee Horowitz

Created In: Intermediate Game DEsign Fall 2018

Personal Significance & Description

Even before these groups were assembled, we wanted to make a game about dating. It seemed like a fun, uplifting premise and a departure from the creature combat and economic warfare most card games are built around. Fusing a customizable card game and a dating simulator felt like a very nice fit. A lot of Otome games or stuff like Monster Prom are very stat heavy, complicated games that require careful planning and varying strategies. So we took the core loops of those games and spun it in to a more deliberate deck builder. The daily routine of a Dating Sim becomes the buying phase and the dates are where you cash in on the properly specialized deck tailored to your partners preferences.

You are an adventurer in a fantasy land, tired of all the danger and excitement and just looking for a real human connection. You’re spending your days working hard, trying to better yourself, and spending your nights meeting new people around town, making connections, and hopefully finding love. We had a clear goal in mind when making this game. We wanted to be as inclusive and as respectful as possible not only to all genders and sexualities but to all forms of relationships, platonic, sexual, romantic, etc. The game is meant to celebrate these things. Unfortunately, we had to scope down the amount of characters we had in the game and the system that contextualized the players relationships with said characters. But, I think those values are still present in the systems we've made so that it feels like the game embraces whatever choices the players seek to make.

RUles

Setup:

• Deeds and Dates is a 4-player game. There are 4 classes that players can choose from, which are Palladin, Bard, Rouge, and Fighter . Each class has its unique starting deck of nine cards.

• Randomly draw 3 partner cards and place them in the middle. Each partner card comes with a special deck of date cards. Place the date card deck next to its corresponding partner card.

• The shop deck contains 108 cards in total. Place the shop deck on one side of the table and put eight cards on the table face up.

Turn Structure:

• Players decide their order of playing at the beginning of the game.

• Draw a hand of three cards before the start of your turn.

• Each player’s turn is split into two sequential phases:

  • The Buying Phase: where you can buy cards in the shop and place them in your card pool.

    • You can buy only 1 card per turn unless you play cards that give you additional buys.

    • The currency used in the buying phase is “Boost”, represented by the small icons at the top-left corner of each card.

    • There are 4 different types of Boost in the game: Heroism, Panache, Guile, and Basic. Heroism, Panache, and Guile can be used as Basic when needed, but Basic cannot be used as any other types.

    • There are also WildCards that can be used as any type.

    • The icon at the top left corner is the Boost this card gives you when you play it in buying phase. The icon at the lower right corner represents the price of this card in the shop.

    • Some cards have multiple prices. Some prices are more efficient than others, but you can buy these cards with any one of the listed prices.

    • To buy a card from the shop, you have to play cards that have Boosts no less than the required cost of that card. For cards that have special effect, you can still use it for purchase after you activate the effect.

    • The card you purchased goes directly to your pool* (See “Rebuild phase” below), and a new card from the shop deck will fill the empty spot. The cards you have played to buy this card is considered as “used” and go into your discard pile.

    • Once a card is bought it is replaced with another card drawn from the shop deck

    • If no one is able to buy from the shop you may swap out all eight cards in the shop  so long as all players agree

• The Dating Phase: where you can attempt to date a partner in order to obtain victory points.

  • Only date cards that are on the top of the date cards deck are available for players to attempt. These cards remain at the top of the deck until someone successfully completes that date, or the date is cycled.

  • Combos raise the amount of dating power you would have otherwise gotten from the cards you played.

  • A single card can not be used for multiple combos but multiple combos can be composed in a single turn.

  • In the dating phase, all cards produce 1 dating power, unless the card indicates otherwise, or is used in a combo.

  • Each partner has 3 generic combos listed on their character sheet that can be used in every date with that character. Each date also has a special combo for that date only on the date card.

  • To complete a date, you need to play cards that give you dating powers no less than the difficulties of the date. The date can only be successful or unsuccessful. If you do not have enough dating power for any date, you skip the dating phase. No dating power can be carried over for next turn.

  • You can only complete 1 date per turn.

  • Once a player successfully completes a date, they may take that date card and place it in front of them. The difficulty of the date becomes their Victory Points, and the combo on the date can be used by that player indefinitely.

  • If no one can date from any date deck, you may reshuffle any number of those decks so long as all the players agree

• The buying phase always happens before the dating phase. When you decide that you do not want to buy anything more, you end your buying phase and start your dating phase automatically.

• Each card has a different effect according to what phase it is

  • The top effect (denoted by the two swords ) is always for the buying phase

  • The bottom effect (denoted by the rose) is always for the dating phase

• For each turn, you use the same hand for the buying phase and the dating phase. However, the cards that are used during the buying phase will go directly to your discard pile, and will not be used again for the dating phase.

• At the end of your turn discard the remaining cards in your hand and draw a new hand of three. If your deck is or ever was empty by the end of your turn enter the rebuild phase.

Rebuild Phase:

• During the rebuild phase, you can swap up to 2 cards from your current deck with cards from your pool. As mentioned earlier, your pool is where you stock all the cards you purchased from the shop.

• You may swap more cards if you have played cards that allow you to do so in your previous turn. However, this effect is not permanent. For your next rebuild phase, you can still only swap 2 cards unless you played special cards again.

• After you rebuild your deck, you start a new turn with the buying phase.

• After you swap out cards shuffle your deck and place it down as a draw pile

Winning Condition:

• The first player to hit 35 victory points wins the game!

  • As mentioned before victory points are the total dating power of the cards you receive upon succeeding on a date.