smosa/adam
/blog
/reflecting-on-making-games
/
The Infinite Message Board

# reflecting-on-making-games

By amigo-malignancy01 on January 24, 2026
0 subscribers + Subscribe

I've been reflecting on how to make simple games. Card games mostly. It's just something I enjoy and it occupies my time, especially when I need to get off my phone at night and invite sleep to come. Thinking through this is entertaining for me and if nothing else it eventually works well as a sleep aid.

It has helped to actually play others' games to get inspiration. I come away from the ones I like thinking, just what was it that made me enjoy it so much? That is, I want to understand at an algebraic level, with all the thematics stripped away just what caused enjoyment.

### "The Game"

]]

]]

One of the things I noticed with a game aptly named "The Game" is a kind of structure where there's almost nothing game-like about it at all except when you add one little twist.

1. A simple, straightforward process that results in winning.
2. Mixing, just adding some randomness to going through that straightforward process.
3. Twist, a simple maneuver, rule, exception or some extra detail that transforms it into an actual game.

In the case of "The Game" as it is actually called, it would consist of holding a deck of cards numbered 1-99 and laying them down on a table in sequential order, at which point you win. That is, if you only do #1.

Applying number two, you shuffle the deck. Now if you climb up to 99 before getting rid of the cards in your hands, you lose. Then another #2 comes in—You play collaboratively with friends, each of whom has only some of the cards in their hands as the turns progress. And for extra detail, there are four piles on which this sequential game play takes place. Now it's just the same thing as #1 but some randomness has been added in.

So it still has the "bingo" effect where as soon as the game pieces are dealt, the game basically just plays itself through the required movements of each player. For my money, this is not a game yet.

]]

Then comes #3: Players are allowed to go backwards in sequence only if it's in increments of 10. They can avoid a pile whose latest card is 87 getting closer to 99 by putting down a 77, or both a 77 and a 67 if they have both cards.

### Can you make a new game using this template?

I don't want to say there is a formula to make a game. I think it's an entirely creative exercise that may involve predefined mechanics and formulas to make parts of it work. But since this is my blog, I just wanted to play with the concept if only to amuse myself. So let's try making a game by following this template:

1. Simple process.
2. Add variance.
3. Create a twist.

We won't even name our game yet or describe what it's about, because well, we don't know. The idea is to follow this template to let a game emerge.

#### Simple process

This is easy. Describe something you do that is boring and just leads you directly into winning.

A player has some pennies. They start with one penny on the table, then they add a penny onthe left until they have no more pennies. Then they win.

I had to fight the urge to add interesting elements to it at this point. This should be so simple it's boring and we give ourselves the permission to make it interesting later.

The other reason I think this is useful is you eventually need to describe a finished game to someone from the start. When it has a backbone of utter simplicity, it allows you to create something complex and fun but can be progressively elaborated in its explanation.

#### Add variance

Let's say there are two players. They sit across from each other. Their job is to do the same thing as the other player, but they add on to the central penny on their left side. In other words, pennies get added to both sides and each player owns one of the sides.

I think it would also de-boring this if a player can move up denominations. Once they have a certain denomination value of pennies on either side, they can replace it with that denomination and from then on, only use that denomination. So if the player has

    [1¢][1¢][1¢][1¢][1¢][CENTRAL PENNY][1¢][1¢][1¢]

They can pick up their coins and make it

    [5¢][CENTRAL PENNY][1¢][1¢][1¢]

Then on subsequent movies they just use nickels.

    [5¢][5¢][CENTRAL PENNY][1¢][1¢][1¢]

For fun, let's also replace the central penny with "the prize." Both players choose a fun prize to be won that is the central element. Beer, gift card, a peanut, the fun is you decide.

    [5¢][5¢][PRIZE][1¢][1¢][1¢]

I think we have a trend here we we can now say the prize is worth $1.00 and the first person to raise that amount gets the prize. So the winning move looks like this (on the left side).

    [25¢][25¢][25¢][25¢][PRIZE]...

Due to a small math quirk, we'll say that you need

- 5 pennies to get to a nickel (5 moves)
- 1 nickel and 2 dimes to get a quarter (3 moves)
- 4 quarters to get a dollar. (3 moves)

Otherwise, once you got to "dime," you'd have to collect 5 to jump to two quarters. So there is a minimum of 11 moves to win.

So that's a rule

You may not convert your first nickel to a dime but you may convert two dimes and a nickel into a quarter.

Now we can isolate another rule:

Your playable denomination is always your outermost one.

If you're thinking my count is off on how many moves each step is, carefully play it out keeping in mind you get to use a different denomination as you go.

#### Add a twist

You might have noticed this isn't much of a game at all. If each person takes turns, the first person to go just…wins. That's okay. It satisfies the conditions so far. We aren't meant to have formed a game by step 2. As a quick review:

1. Simple process: About creating a basic backbone of what happens in the game, not even how the game works overall.
2. Add variance: Generate randomness and elements of fun.
3. Twist: Add a little something that actually makes it into a game rather than a randomized process.

For #2, we added a player, redefined our objective in a way that it feels more like a real world scenario, and we also de-boringed it a bit so you don't have to count pennies up to 100. There are a total of 11 moves to win.

That's actually a nice small number because we know something will happen at this final stage to increase that due to opposing forces of some kind.

The first thing I notice is missing here is some element of chaos, chance, or strategy. It's an entirely linear, deterministic process. This is not yet a game. So we need some element to come into play that adds unpredictability. This can come in the form of a randomness generator like a die or by pitting choices against the unpredictability of a predetermined randomness or the secret choices of the other player.

I don't know how this works yet, but there just has to be an element of stealing coins somewhere here. Especially given the stakes of a steal increase as the game progresses (say it's always the single outermost coin). But there's no mechanism behind that yet so we'll keep that on the backburner for now.

Without adding other game pieces, coin-flipping strikes me as the most obvious mechanism to add randomness, but I also want the player to have to face some choices and decision making, so what if we say:

At the end of each round, coin-flipping determines who can steal from whom. Either player is designated as the coin flipper and starts with flipping a quarter. If the quarter lands on heads, the player with a quarter as the outermost coin has to give it to the other player. If both players have a quarter as the outermost coin, they both lose their coin. If neither player has a quarter as the outermost coin, nothing happens. If the quarter lands on tails, they flip the next denomination, the dime, and the same rule applies with dimes and so on. If they flip tails on all four denominations, nothing happens.

And we need one other adjustment to get out of "bingo" territory where the game is self-playing.

Converting to denominations is optional but each player may only play the denomination of their outermost coin. Your highest denomination must always be placed at the end.

This leads to a strategy where you kind of want to avoid having quarters until the very end. I can see players racking up nickles only to convert them at the final winning move to avoid the probability curve that they are most likely to lose quarters. So we should also say

Only one denomination conversion per turn.

I should also note, you don't have to have four quarters to win the game. You need to have a dollar total. Interesting…

## Writing the game

At this point, there is enough here to make this game beta-testable. From experience, I can see finding edge cases or insights that only appear in the real context of game play, so let's distill our rules and play the game a bit.

#### Setup

- Two players sit across from each other.
- Place a chosen prize (e.g., peanut, gift card, a beer, whatever) at the center.
- A small supply of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

#### Objective

Be the first player to accumulate exactly $1.00 worth of coins placed sequentially on your side of the prize to claim it and win.

#### Gameplay

#### Turn Sequence

Players alternate turns. On your turn, you must:

1. Place Coins:
   Add one coin to your side of the prize to the left of any coins you've already set down. The coin you play must equal your outermost denomination. At the start of the game, your coin is the penny.
2. Optional Conversion (once per turn):
   After placing your coin, you may convert coins on your side into a higher denomination coin according to these rules:

- 5 pennies → 1 nickel
- 1 nickel + 2 dimes → 1 quarter (Note: You cannot use your first nickel to convert into a dime.)
- 4 quarters → $1.00 After converting, place the new denomination coin as your new outermost coin and return any converted coins to the bank.
- Throughout the game, your coins must be in ascending order from the prize outwards.
- Once each player has played a turn this completes the round

#### End of Round Steal

At the end of each round, a coin flip determines if any player can steal from another player. Only use coins from the bank and return them once this is complete.

1. The designated coin flipper starts by flipping a quarter:

- Heads: Do one of the following, then proceed to the next round.
  - If exactly one player has a quarter as their outermost coin, they must give that quarter to their opponent, who places it as their new outermost coin.
  - If both players have a quarter as the outermost coin, both lose their quarters back to their own supplies.
  - If neither player has a quarter as outermost coin, nothing happens.
- Tails: Flip a dime and follow the same rules as above for dimes.
- If tails again, flip a nickel, then finally a penny, following the same rules.
- If tails is flipped for all four coins (quarter, dime, nickel, penny), nothing happens that round.

## Final result

After lots of testing, I changed these rules quite a bit. Here is the final game: [[Dollar Prize]].

#### Comments (0) + Add

No comments yet.

+ Add Branch

Actions

- Ownership: shallow
  Upgrade to Community | Upgrade to Domain
  Support Smosa and claim ownership rights. Info: board-ownership
- Recompile Page
  Re-renders page from source
- Revert to previous version
  Restores content from previous update
- Subscribe
  Get notified of updates to this board in your daily email digest. If you are already subscribed, use this link again to unsubscribe.
- Flag this board
  Report violation of Terms of Service
- Mark NSFW
  Mark as 18+ content (Permanent)