Decktet Games and Tools

The Decktet is an alternative deck of cards created by P.D. Magnus and released under a CC license.

Online Games

I’ve implemented or updated a few solitaire games for the Decktet:

• Adaman, an update to the JavaScript implementation for Adaman by Felbrigg Herriot. Adaman is a unique solitaire game of controlling the Decktet personality cards by P.D. Magnus.
• Cascades, a solitaire card game for the Decktet by Joe Conard.
• Myrmex, my implementation of Greg James' Decktet version of the classic solitaire game Spider; all of his variants are supported.
• Aucteraden, a Decktet solitaire game by Jack Neal, includes a scoresheet, rules, and the game, including some variants invented, accidentally and otherwise, at BoardGameGeek. (The scoresheet doesn’t work in some older browsers, but the game itself does.)
• 6x10 includes and embiggens 3x10, a Decktet solitaire game by Russ. Various other variants are included, but none of them are quite as challenging as the original non-Decktet game 5x15.

I only dimly recall my reasons for updating Adaman; I think they were mainly stylistic. Myrmex I wanted to be able play without breaking out my double Decktet deck. Cascades was a little experiment with a lightweight JavaScript framework called mithril. Aucteraden was easy to play but hard to score. 3x10 was too easy to win, but so far I’ve failed to find a satisfying variant.

Rules and Tools

I’ve put together some rules summaries, scoresheets, and/or rollers for existing Decktet games:

• Aucteraden includes a scoresheet and rules summary.

• Dectana Deciphered includes a player aid similar to the official one, but with more pretty pictures.

• Magnate Roller is a tool I made to replace my missing D&D dice when playing the two-player Decktet game Magnate; it interprets resource and taxation results for you, shows the roll outcomes, and includes a rules summary.

• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a rules summary.

My Games

I’ve half-designed a few games for the Decktet based on other games, mostly as an intellectual exercise. They have not yet been fully playtested.

6x10

My 6x10 is an embiggened variant of Russ’s 3x10, a Gaps-like solitaire game inspired by Friedemann Friese’s game 5x15.

Buttle

Buttle is a two-player game based on the traditional(ish) card game Cuttle, inspired by a previous reimplementation of it for the Decktet by Oshojabe at Reddit.

The Badger on the Borderland

The Badger on the Borderland is based on The Fox in the Forest, a two-player trick taking game which you can also play with traditional playing cards.

Darcana

Darcana is a reimplementation of Dectana with more Gnostica, less Zarcana, and a solo/automata mode. It’s still under development, though it’s been zombie-playtested more than anything else on this list.

Deck Town

Deck Town is based on Zark City, a Zarcana for the rest of us by Andrew Looney. I devised it in order to work my way up to actually playing Dectana (after having merely deciphered it).

Jacynth City

Jacynth City is also based on Zark City, a Zarcana for the rest of us by Andrew Looney, as well on as the Decktet classic Jacynth by P.D. Magnus, I devised it after a discussion on my geeklist of Zarcana-type games.

Personimo

I’m also working on a game of my own for the Decktet. Personimo is a badgerized version of the popular board game Kingdomino. There is no implementation so far, only rules.

Sapphire Towers

Sapphire Towers is a variant of Steven Grady’s Belém, an adaptation of Sea(haven) Towers to the Decktet. Sapphire Towers uses the full expanded Myrmex deck, 9 columns, and 2 cells.