The evolution of Duel Poker

Duel Poker did not start out as a poker game at first, but it evolved into one. Below is the evolution of the game from early concept to playable game.

Early stages:

In the first iteration we wanted a game that had a combination of card play and grid movement.  Players started out with 5 cards in each hand and a token that they placed on the grid.  At first we used the simple rule of trying to knock off the other players token. This was achieved by landing in the same grid spot.

 The first set of rules stated that in order to move your player on the grid you needed a combination of numbers that match the desired grid location.  So if you wanted to move to spot 2-4 on the grid you needed a 2 and a 4 in your hand.   As we played through the rounds it became clear that it was a very boring game and it would take forever for us to find the combination to land on the opponent.  There was also the complication of who was going to go first.  The person going first had a distinct advantage and we quickly realized that player one could never lose.  We had to change the rules to include some sort of shift once players got close to each other, some sort of combat.  We decided to let face cards determine combat.  Essentially a game of war started once players got to within a set number of grid positions of each other.

The game needed a lot of work and movement was still very luck based and had not tactics at all.

Second Iteration:

On the second attempt I was paired up with another student who made the suggestion that we change the card-movement system.  Instead of playing two cards with the face value determining our new location, we used a system that dictated how far the player could move and in what direction.  The new rules stated: Moves are made by placing any number of cards face up to indicate a movement.  Odd numbers allow for movement in a diagonal direction and even in a north/south direction, the distance one can move is limited to the card number divided by 3.  So a 10 can move a player’s stack at most 3 spots and a 5 can move only 1 spot diagonally, and so on.  This made movement a lot more fun.  In our only play through it became clear that the movement was working but the combat system was not.  Combat was essentially a battle of who had the most face cards left in their hand, pretty boring. And since we only had one token, each the game was over right away.  Something needed to be changed for the game to be any fun at all.

Third Iteration:

When playing against my friend we came up with the idea to change the combat system to that of a modified version of Texas Holdem poker.  We also changed out the single token representing each player with a stack of quarters.  This would represent a “health bar” of sorts but could also represent real money if anyone actually wanted to gamble during this game.  When a player combat starts, the defending player can “fold” by giving one chip of their stack to their opponent, otherwise 1 round of betting takes place in which each player states the number of chips they are willing to risk.  If a player cannot match a bet then they must fold and lose one chip.  Three more cards are drawn from the deck and placed on the table, this is called a flop.  The player with the highest poker hand from cards that include his/her own hand and the flop wins. They then take the chips that were wagered from their opponent and add them to their own stack.

This made the game very fun to play.  I found that early in our play test of the new rules that if a player was moving towards another, this was a good indication that they had a good hand.  This created a hunt and chase effect.  But every time players discarded “move cards” they drew new cards to replenish their hand and in effect gave them a new set of potential poker hands  The strategy developed where my friend and I would move cautiously around until we both felt that we had a good hand.  On one attempt I decided to attack early with no real poker hand.  I used all my cards to land close to my opponent.  This was very risky because I had to draw 5 fresh cards and I had no clue if they would be good enough to win.  Turns out it was not that bad of a strategy because I won that hand.  But I got lucky by drawing a pair of queens.

Dutch Blitz

Ever played a card game called speed?  Imagine playing that game with up to 8 players at once.  That is what it's like to play Dutch Blitz.  You can play a version of the game with 4 decks of regular cards but to get the full enjoyment you really need to pick up an official set.  Each set comes with 4 decks, each deck has a different symbol and color on the back to differentiate from each other.

Each player has their own deck, if there are more than 4 players then players can team up in pairs until you have 8 total but each team is to have one deck. The point of Dutch Blitz is to be the first player/team to 75 points.  A player gets points by playing cards from their deck onto the dutch piles that will accumulate in the middle of the table.

Before each round, the players must setup their deck as fallows.  Three Post Piles, one Blitz pile, and a Wood pile.  There are no turns, and the round begins when the last rounds winner say go.  As the round begins any player/team can place a card in the middle by either starting a new dutch pile or playing onto an existing one.  Dutch piles must all fallow the same color and stack in order, so the bottom card must be a 1 and the next card that can be played on it is 2, then 3, and so on.  Players then flip 3 cards from the top of their wood pile and place them face up in a new pile.  Any card that is on the top of the post, blitz, or wood piles can be played into the middle on a dutch pile. But only 1 card at a time and 1 hand at a time.

Players can also stack on their own post piles to move cards off their blitz pile but must be done in a descending boy/girl order.  But be very careful here, if you try to get too cute by moving cards off your blitz pile in an attempt to blitz early then you may end up blocking a lot of valuable cards. During the round players can continue to flip 3 cards off their wood deck until it is gone.  once it is gone they must pick the deck up and start over.  They cannot shuffle the deck.

 When a player runs out of cards in their blitz pile then they yell "Blitz!!" and the round ends. all players then gather their cards from the middle dutch piles, and any cards found in these dutch piles count for 1 point while every card left in a players blitz pile will count as 2 points against them.

This point system has an interesting effect.  You can try to get as many cards onto dutch piles as you can or you can try to blitz early and end up with only a few points but giving your opponents all negative scores.

The game is played at a frantic pace and can often lead to accusations of cheating and arguments over who played a particular card first.

Once you master the card game you can try the Dutch Blitz sport.  It is the same game but played with giant sized cards that force players to run around while playing full contact Blitz!

A short history of my love and passion for video games.

Being a child of the 80's I feel that I was lucky enough to grow up in a generation that saw the maturation of the gaming industry.  I have seen video games go from something that only nerds play to an widely accepted form of entertainment for not just kids but adults too.

My First experience with video games was with the family Commodore 64.  We had to load games from large 5-1/4" floppy disks that contained such gems as Frogger and Dig Doug.  We had a very good collection and a pair of toy like red joystick controllers.

With two older siblings we often had to take turns playing or favorite games.  Eventually the Commodore died and we were left without a gaming device for a few years until a friend of my brother was able to give us his old Famicon.  Now this was an amazing system.  It was just like a Nintendo but the 3 cartridges we had contained about 30 games each.

This was our first gaming console and while it was not as new as the Super NES that just came out I was still happy to play games with such amazing graphics on my TV.  The first Mario game, specifically, had me and my brother hooked.  It had a unique game play that allowed you to play cooperatively or competitively in the same game mode.  I don't think it was an intended feature but my brother and I discovered how we could play against each other and have just as much fun.


Then when I was in 7th grade my parents decided to purchase a PC.  It was 1995 and we had a state of the art 486 DX clocked at 66 MHz with  4MB of ram.  But it was not until we expanded to 8 MB of ram that I was able to install Doom.  Doom changed everything.  It was by far the most realistic and scary video game every created.  It was way ahead of it's time not just in graphics but in game play as well.  But what really blew my mind was when my older brother invited a friend over with his computer. And after a day of running wires back and forth and messing around with drivers somehow we managed to connect the two games together.  And the magical moment when you realize that you are in a video game with someone else happened and it was all down hill from there.

From there, my obsession of first person shooters just grew and soon I was playing online against players from around the world.  This was many years before Xbox live or any other internet console service existed.  And it was the early years of pioneering online gaming that I grew attached to.  Having to go to a website and look up IPs so that you could enter them into the drop down console in Quake was the only way to get online at first.  Then websites like GameSpy started popping up and providing more robust connecting capabilities.  Once again, years before Steam existed.

I have collected my fair share of gaming consoles from the (Famicom, SNES, N64, PS1, PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360) but PC games will always be my first love.  There is something about PC gaming that I always enjoyed over the console experience. I love how PC is always on the cutting edge of gaming.  From the early days of internet gaming to the advent of VR, the PC has always been the platform to push games to no possibilities.  I know VR has been around for years but the Oculus Rift is the first VR experience that will take gaming into the next level.  And I am very excited to see what happens next.