Castle (part 2)

I'm a game nerd. I took the time to make a pictorial documentary of a game of "Castle" that I played with myself. I made a few mistakes and the game was fairly boring, but flipping through the pictures ought to help people understand the game. It can be seen on Facebook here.

"Castle" had a fairly unusual origin. Last Tuesday morning I awoke from a dream. Here's that dream:
I was playing a card game like none I had never seen before. There were two people across the table teaching it to me. One was directly across from me and the other was to that person's right. I'm not sure who either of them were. On the table between us were 3 cards flipped face up and one pile facing down. There was an array of cards in front of me and in front of the person across the table. These were cards we had played earlier and were the whole point of the game.

It was my turn. I decided to pick up one of the face-up cards, an ace of clubs. My intent was to play it with a 2 and 3 (both red) that I had in my hand already. When I tried though, my opponent said that wasn't allowed. I began to understand why and tried to lay the ace with just my 2. Once again, my opponent told me that wasn't allowed. The person told me I could only lay the ace with another ace and pointed out something they had laid in front of them earlier. I was frustrated. We all agreed that drawing the ace of clubs was a pretty dumb choice.

So that was my dream. From it, I decided to create rules and make a game. "Castle" fell together quite quickly! I was hooked before I went to bed that night. I tweaked a few things over the next several days, but mostly it seemed to work well from the start. I simply pulled in aspects that I enjoy in games.

Here's what I like about it:
1. There's plenty of strategy and many tactics to mess around with. Every turn the player is faced with a lot of choices. There's a good bit of luck, but having 3 face-up cards helps bring more strategy to the drawing phase.
2. It requires a series of developments before you get to a successful result. The face value of the card matters, but cards can be given greater meaning. It becomes almost relational. (I especially appreciate my peasants!)
3. It's a 2 player game and quite frankly there aren't enough good 2 player games. Plus you don't need anything more than 2 decks of cards. I wish it could be played without needing so much space, but that couldn't be avoided.

If anyone else feels the need to create a game, here are two wishes: I wish there were more games that could be played while traveling, like while sitting in a car. And I wish there were games that could be more easily played over Skype.