A quick rundown of which games already use mechanics that emphasize thinking about values gave me the following list:

• Canasta/Rummy/Jolly

  Here, cards have different value to the players depending on which meld they are trying to complete.

• Settlers of Catan

  Even though all objectives of the game are out in the open, there is still a trading system that depends on players not fully knowing how resources will help the opponent. Relative worth of the resources changes from situation to situation.

Thinking of a game

We started by thinking up some ways to get people thinking about values. After a bit of brainstorming we had 4 main ideas:

• A game about the worth of your digital data (social media profiles, etc.)
• A game where one card (or cards in certain situations) has extreme value or wins the game
• A game about upcycling, increasing the value of things
• A game in which players negotiate values for cards, without knowing exactly which card they might end up with

The idea we finally went for was the most defined, with the least obvious problems.

Upcycling

This game went through a few phases. The idea started out as a kind of Quartet game, but we wanted to add an element of subjective value to the cards.

The final idea uses Canasta rules, but instead of melding cards based on suit and number, players ‘build’ objects by upcycling materials.

The Rules

There are two types of cards

• Materials

  These are the normal playing cards, belonging to one of four categories. They are combined to complete recipes.

• Recipes

  Recipes have a name and a list of ingredients. A player has one active recipe at a time and draws a new one once they complete it.

At the Start of the Game

Every player draws 4 part cards and 1 recipe card

Playing a Turn

At the start of a turn, the player draws a part card. They can now build recipes as long as they have the necessary parts. At the end of a turn, the player discards one part, putting it on top of the trashcan stack.

Building a Recipe

To build a recipe, the player needs to have all necessary parts in their hand. They build the object by discarding all the parts together with the recipe. Then, they draw a new recipe

Winning

To win a game, a player needs to have no parts in their hand at the end of the turn, before discarding the last part.

Further Tweaking

A few tweaks can be made to the rules. For example, there could be another win condition for having an empty hand after discarding a part at the end of the turn. The number of hand cards and the recipes would need to be tweaked to make the game balanced.

A major problem right now is that with big recipes and small hands, starting to build recipes is often dependent on getting the trashcan stack, wich slows the game down.

Media

Printable cards are available as pdf download here: Recipes, Parts