Cuttle – a MTG like game using a standard 52 card deck
45 comments
·January 10, 2025netbioserror
For anyone who wants a more complex game proximate to this design, there's a small production called Reinforcements (https://reinforcementscg.myshopify.com/). Non-collectible, single box.
You play a hand of up to 5 cards each turn: Adding cards to (concealed) stacked ranks of defending troops, attacking an opponent's ranks, using a card's ability. The suits have different defensive properties when arranged in a rank, and combine in interesting ways; there are also "ultimate" powers players can grab from the center by forming their ranks with particular arrangements of suits, which act as turtle-busters.
Highly recommended, quite fun, probably plays best 1v1. Definitely a lot of small rules to absorb, so it's a more complex beast. But nowhere close to the complexity of Magic.
imzadi
If co-op games are more your speed, check out Regicide.
stevage
Thank you!! This looks awesome. Cannot wait to try.
7thaccount
I'd never heard of reinforcements, but it looks awesome. Definitely will purchase.
phasE89
I'd never heard of astroturfing, but it looks intruguing. Definitely suspicious.
rpdillon
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing...If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
Bootvis
They have 300 times and 1000 times the reputation you have. Maybe dail down the paranoia.
specproc
Back in the day, me and a buddy wanted to play Magic -- mainly to troll our friends -- but didn't have cards to hand.
We took a pair of normal card decks, mapped some basic decks to the cards, and we did play. Good times.
7thaccount
*I recently stumbled upon this, but haven't had the time to play yet. It seems like it would be fun.
I've recently started learning card games that use a standard deck of playing cards and have been pleased with many of them. The advantage over trading card games is that it is MUCH cheaper and takes up a lot less space and it doesn't feel like I'm chasing an impossible goal.
mikepurvis
I tried to embark on this a few years ago, thinking particularly for cases where space is at a premium (airports) or I don't want to worry about wrecking/losing game components (camping, the beach).
Overall I didn't find a lot that I liked, particularly in the two-player space. Everything seemed to be either Rummy-family games around set collecting, or trick-taking games that might as well have been Hearts or Euchre.
All that to say, if you've got a few favourites, please recommend!
hahamrfunnyguy
A number of years ago I was at a friend's house and he wanted to play Uno but he couldn't be cause his dog got into the deck and many of the cards were damaged.
I noticed he had a couple of packs of playing cards on his coffee table and upon closer inspection, I realized that each card in Uno maps to a card in 52 card deck. A standard Uno deck has 108 cards, which is a standard 52-card deck plus the jokers.
So we played Uno with his two decks of playing cards.
popcar2
My friend, you just rediscovered Crazy Eights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eights
madcaptenor
In fact, Uno exists because one family liked playing Crazy Eights but got tired arguing about the rules, so they started writing the rules on the cards and eventually made new cards: https://www.museumofplay.org/toys/uno/
InsideOutSanta
That's interesting. I always assumed that UNO was a branded version of a very similar game we used to play as kids with a regular deck of cards (e.g. 7 is draw 2, Jack allows you to pick a color). The game is called Tschau Sepp and very commonly played in Switzerland. I just assumed other countries had their own version of it, and that UNO derived from it.
n_plus_1_acc
Called mau mau in germany
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hinkley
There’s a local pub by my old house that has a considerable collection of board games so we got to sample a lot that we or friends didn’t already own. It always amuses me when I figure out that a board or card game was obviously prototyped on a standard card deck. It didn’t happen a lot but it did happen a few times.
Four kinds of cards in 1-2 stacks? 10-13 cards of each kind? 2-4 special cards that are identical? Hmm, I wonder how this game was invented…
I do wish we would get back to games that were just played with a deck of cards though. More options for bored people at small gatherings.
tweetle_beetle
There are quite a few made in niche communities but often not very discoverable, as they aren't commercially viable and marketed. One notable exception is The Emissary[1] which had a successful retail release as For Northwood![2]. Kni54ts[3] is often held up as another very good example of the genre, making very creative use of the deck, but you can find many more browsing through the links.
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DB2YF46s0oVFUSIpR9vxoGIbhpT... [2] https://www.sideroomgames.com/product/for-northwood/ [3] https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2946002/wip-kni54ts-a-solo-...
freddie_mercury
There are tons of them, mostly thanks to a renaissance in Japan starting maybe a decade ago but spreading elsewhere.
Taylor's Trick Taking Table is a YouTube channel dedicated to them. The Portland Game Collective's Discord channel is the de facto English language home to the movement.
Most of them are very small scale and artisanal but a few bigger publishers have also started doing more of them in the past year.
The Tokyo Game Market has literally hundreds of new ones released every year but most don't have English and can only be bought in Japan.
A few smaller companies like Tricky Imports and Newmill Games are importing them, though.
butlike
Couldn't you just translate the rules to a standard playing deck? Seems like a PITA, but if you dont want to go through that effort, the ruleset inventor should get compensated for their effort...
aloisdg
Like Coup or The Crew
ajot
This reminds me of Duel [0], which also intended to be an MTG-like with a 52 card deck.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100107192618/http://airship.ho...
nvarsj
This is fascinating. It seems obvious that this game was the direct inspiration for MtG, as Richard Garfield was a huge card game fanatic, and the number of unique effects it has in common (wraths, bounce, etc.) that are so iconic in MtG.
freddie_mercury
Richard Garfield had never heard of Cuttle until fairly recently
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/17cb47k/cuttle_...
Magic's direct inspiration was Cosmic Encounter.
nvarsj
Interesting, there must be some cross overs going on back in the 70s. The mechanics are so similar to mtg.
m463
what a great website.
I was recently taught a card game, and when I searched for it I could not find it anywhere. Now I can probably find it.
antasvara
For those that are interested, there's an online version available: https://www.cuttle.cards/signup
erganemic
I wish I knew more interesting games that could be played with a standard deck. My wife and I travel a lot and there's something I find deeply appealing about being able to walk into any gas station, corner shop, or airport store anywhere in the world and come out with a dependency-free way of entertaining yourself (or even making friends!), and I feel like I don't know enough games that take advantage of that.
That being said, I do have a few standbys:
Bullshit's a favorite for semi-large groups: https://www.pagat.com/beating/cheat.html
Egyptian Ratscrew is my pick for 3-5 players (although I'd caution it against playing it in quiet public spaces): https://waste.org/~oliviax/cards/ratscrew.html
Lastly, Duel 52 is a recent favorite for just my wife and I to play, and very much in the vein of Cuttle: http://juddmadden.com/duel52/
Agree2468
My Ukrainian roommate taught me Durak, it's a good complement to ERS if the people you're with aren't as slap-happy as that game require.
pessimizer
Just a note for people who are fascinated by the idea of sometimes skipping proprietary games that require specialized, expensive, and often irreplaceable equipment: Other than pagat, and David Parlett's page (https://www.parlettgames.uk/), we can observe that the master has already given us two gifts.
New Tactical Games with Dice and Cards and Dice Games Properly Explained by Reiner Knizia
Two of the books I'd take to prison.
hahamrfunnyguy
I am having some friends over next week for dinner and we'll probably play some games afterwards. There are a ton of other games listed on the site and I am sure there are some fun ones here!
I'm a huge fan of card games that can be played with a regular deck of cards, and I play Cuttle with my kids somewhat regularly. It's a fast-paced game, but you do have to get over the initial learning curve of the effects. I find just printing out a piece of paper with a quick reference on it helps.
As others have alluded to in the thread, teaching people the rules is a barrier. As I looked around for a professionally printed game, I found a game that was very much like Magic the Gathering, but also just a single box of cards called Mindbug.
https://mindbug.me/
Turns out it was designed by some folks that brought Richard Garfield in near the end of its design and he ended up having some say in the final product. I've played it a couple of times and each game is only played with a random subset of the cards, so the combinatorics create a lot of replay value.