September 18th, 2024

The memory of a card game from my childhood led to a fixation which ended in the creation of a card game.

Why I designed a card game

I've been obsessed with playing cards for a while now. It may be because I come from a Latin country, where we play with Spanish-suited cards. Or it may be because I have a bit of OCD and hyperfixate on things. Who knows? 😝

While thinking about the different suits that are used throughout the world, like French, Spanish/Italian (or “Latin”), German, Swiss or the Tarot pattern, I started to play with the idea of creating new suits, or even custom decks specifically for a determined game.

This idea made me pay attention to existing custom decks, like the one used for “Uno”, or the one used for a particular card game that I used to play as a kid: Mille Bornes. Reminiscing on this game ignited in me the impulse to design a card game of my own, based on that game. It was a funny little challenge, and I decided to give it a go. Hyperfixation, Go!

The inspiration

I have fond memories of playing Mille Bornes as a kid, but somehow I must've suppressed the most annoying parts of my childhood, because I completely forgot about how slow and boring the game can be sometimes. You can spend several turns waiting for that solution card needed to put you on the move again, while you see the rest of the players rack up kilometres (or miles) effortlessly. You just need to read the comments on Board Game Geek to realise that the game has its flaws, and that it causes a better impression on you as a child than it does as an adult.

Also, cars as a theme was probably a novel idea when the original game (Touring) was created in 1906, and a logical and popular idea during the Postwar Economic Boom, when the super popular French version was released (1954), at a time when car ownership grew exponentially and cars became a symbol for postwar wealth. But if I wanted to make a card game inspired by it in this day and age, I clearly had to change the theme for something more modern. And address the flawed mechanics, to try to create a more dynamic game, with a broader appeal.

The idea

In the end, I wanted to create a family game, easy to understand, and funny to play. As I'm a big fan of Science Fiction, I decided that I would give the game a space setting, replacing the kilometres/miles with parsecs. In my idea, instead of players being drivers driving cars, racing to reach 1000km (or miles), they'll be the captain of a space rocket, racing to reach a distant colony far away in the galaxy.

I had the firm idea that I would get rid of Mille Bornes' “Safeties”, as I saw way too many criticism to them, and decided to introduce new mechanics, in the form of Events and Achievements, to spice up the game.

Also, while I may create a point system in the future for those people that like playing to reach points, the main end goal would be to reach 3 destinations, as for comments I've read on BGG, most people (including me) never keep track of points. In my opinion, this was only introduced to make Mille Bornes similar to Canasta, in an effort to make it more familiar to potential customer at the time.

In general, I wanted to create a game that's a bit more chaotic and dynamic than Mille Bornes, as that game tends to be dull, with players losign turns waiting for the needed card to solve their problems: this game should just be a fun game to play at a family gathering, with players of all ages involved, and with as few boring moments as possible.

The thing is that “Take that!” mechanics can make the game unappealing to die-hard board game enthusiasts (see what I did there?), that's why I also incorporated a change in the attacks to other players that may (possibly) mitigate them or even give a little advantage to the victim if they're prepared for it, in the form of Minor Incidents. Added to the rest of the changes, the game deviated noticeably from a "Take That!"", and works a little more strategically (with a bit of chaos).

Development

The first thing, as I mentioned, was to get rid of the Safeties. From what I can recall, and from many criticisms I've seen online, these are way too powerful, specially the “Right of Way/Emergency Vehicle” card, that acts as a sort of “win the game” card. Off with it! This, in essence, turned the game back to what Touring was, as the Safeties (and the “Coup Fourré” associated with them) is what differenced Mille Bornes from its predecessor. Those cards were omitted unceremoniously.

I wanted to add some sort of random events that could give the game some emotion (you know how your heart beats faster when you encounter something unexpected?), so to that end I introduced the Events, that you can encounter randomly during the game. They can be positive or negative, and there's also one based on the roll of a die. You never know what's going to happen when you get one of these, and I think that's a really neat feature.

Since you need to reach the exact distance to the destination, with the unpredictability of the events, it's possible to overshoot the desired distance, so I had to introduce a couple wild cards, to allow people to reach the destination in that event. These are called Achievements in the game, and can be really helpful, so you want to keep them handy.

And in contrast to the other games, the distance you need to reach is not a fixed amount. I created 18 destination cards, with the name of 18 of the 88 official constellations, and these can be shuffled to make the distance variable from round to round. It also allows players to adjust the length of the game by removing a predetermined set of cards.

Creating the cards

In total, I ended up needing to design 136 cards. So here you have the designs I came up with:

Distance

These are the cards to record the distance.

Hazards

These are the problems players play on each other to hinder the advance of their opponents.

Solutions

These are the solutions to the hazards. Gravity Assist solves both Off Course and Deceleration.

Events

These are events that can have a positive or negative impact on a player's game. The cards are marked on the back, as they need to be played immediatly upon getting them. For the Wormhole you need to roll a die.

Achievements

Achievements are wild cards used to compensate for the negative effect of Events or to help players win a round.

Destinations

These cards are the objectives for the rounds, and are designed to enable dynamic rounds with different durations, instead of always having to reach a predefined distance.

Card backs

Different back were needed for different groups of cards. From left to right: normal cards, Events, Destinations and Instructions.

Ordering a deck

With the cards designed and ready to print, I ordered a test deck from makeplayingcards.com. The size used was “Bridge” cards (57x89mm), and the card stock was S30 (Standard Smooth) with MPC game card finish. The cards took 3 days to be manufactured, and 10 days of shipping from Hong Kong to Spain. Everything was pretty smooth, without incidents, and the quality of the cards turned out to be excellent.

Playtesting

I finally was able to play a game with my son. During this game I detected a typo in a card (in the Spanish version) that has since been corrected. We also discussed about the rules. One of the rules needed clarification, and the change has since been introduced in the rulebook. We also talked about an idea for a mechanic (Minor Incidents), and decided to incorporate it, as it seems it may add an interesting twist to the game.

The Events were a hit: they really added emotion to the game. And the Achievements worked exactly as designed. In fact, my son won the game using one of the Achievement cards. We really had fun playing the game!

What's next?

The next steps are to play test it with 4 players (we'll be doing this soon) and to finish the box (of which I already have the cover and title logo) and rules sheet designs. After that, a small batch of games will be produced, and the idea is to go to a few events that allow prototypes to be played, to keep testing the game, and refining the rules if necessary. And when the final rules are set, the game will be officially finished. I may create a 1 player option (solitaire-style) and may add a points based option. I don't have any specific plans for it after that, other than keep playing it.

But I have follow up games waiting after this one. In fact, I'm planning to create a trilogy of games, so I won't get bored. I had a lot of fun creating this game, and it opened the world of board and card game design to me. I intend to keep learning, designing and playing. Stay tuned!