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Kangaroo Court

  • Asymmetric Card Game

  • 2020

  • Gamemaker Studio 2

  • Team of 2

  • Designer, Developer

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  • 3rd place winner in TAGD Spring 2020 game jam.

  • Asymmetric card game where two players take the roles of either "Defense" and "Prosecution" with unique abilities and win conditions.

  • Some rules of the game, stylized as "Laws", can be changed midplay by either player.

  • Play at https://willfish-dev.itch.io/kangaroo-court

Overview

Kangaroo Court pitches a "Prosecution" player against a "Defense" player. Each player has their own conflicting win conditions and special ability. However, the core rules for each player are the same: on your turn, play one card to any spot in the sequence and win by getting five cards that match your win condition. The rules for what cards count towards a win are highly variable. "Laws" determine how cards are counted towards win conditions. Each player can change "Laws" with a play of card. 

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Ultimately the goal of the Kangaroo Court was to make a light and quick card game that lead to fun, dramatic, and unexpected outcomes while still being grounded in an emergent strategic system. I would say Kangaroo Court succeed towards that end. The sequence and various card effects allow for both strategy and surprise, and the win-con changing "Laws" allow for dramatic and swing-y turnarounds. The decision to let cards play for both value and ability was particularly impactful, as it gave weight to each decision and led to interesting trade-offs. However, balancing could have been improved, and the representational elements of the game, while present, are lacking.

Responsibilites

  • Designer

    • Mechanic/System Design

    • Balancing

    • Play Testing

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  • Developer

    • Game Mechanic Implementation

    • User Experience Implementation

    • Networking (Unfinished)

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  • Artist

    • Character Design

    • Some UI Elements

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  • Audio

    • SFX​

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Team

Timothy Yabuki

  • Composer

  • Codeveloper

  • Coartist

  • Codesigner

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Timothy and I shared a lot of duties on this project. Timothy has a good artistic sense in all aspects of games and is a great composer. He ended up focusing much more on the UI/UX side of the development and design.

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Postmortem

What went well

  • Mechanics design and play testing led to an emergent and unique game that fit our vision of a quick swing-y game of mind games and "big plays."

  • Tying card value and card abilities to a single action made decisions varied and lead to impactful trade-offs.

  • Attention to UI/UX helped to simplify a complex game and make it easy to understand quickly.

  • Visuals and sounds, especially the dynamic effects, greatly contributed to the polish and feel of the game.
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What went wrong

  • Balancing issues between the two asymmetric players led to one side (the Defense) being weaker.

  • Representational and thematic elements, while present, could have been improved.

  • The large amount of card effects caused confusion and obscured strategic thinking for newer players.

  • Inexperience with networking code led to a large amount of time being spent on a feature that was never implemented.

  • Poor management caused last minute crunch and some minor team conflict. The team conflict, fortunately, was resolved appropriately.

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What I would have done differently

  • Spend more time communicating and scheduling with team members.

  • With more time, would have spent more testing and balancing.

  • Given the defense a stronger ability, such as being able to draw two keep one.

© 2019 by William Fisher.

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