SWORDS OF INTUITION

Download Print-and-Play Files:

Itch.io

|

Glorious Trainwrecks

You and your opponent flip over the top card of your respective draw pile simultaneously. Each card has a sword on it. Both swords are pointing at you. Darn! That means your opponent gets to take all of the cards that were flipped over. On the next turn, you flip over your cards. Their sword is pointing at you again. But! You have revealed a card called an "OVERRIDE" card, with an arrow pointing at your opponent, and the text on the card states whoever your card is pointing at has to turn the card that they revealed around 180 degrees. Your opponent turns the card. Their sword is pointing at them now. You win this turn!

Swords of Intuition is the card game War made more fun by having the player's actions potentially affect the outcome of a turn. No longer are both participants idly flipping cards over and hoping their their card has the higher value. Hope is still involved, of course, but now losing a turn actually feels like something you could have changed instead of something that simply happened to you. Before you flip your card over, you have to decide which way you will flip it over based on how you think the card is currently oriented on top of your draw pile. If you flip it over horizontally, it will be facing the same direction as it was on top of your draw pile, but if you flip it over vertically it will be facing the opposite direction. Hence the name, Swords of Intuition (which is actually an incredibly hard word to type).

I was inspired to make this game when I watched my nephew playing War and he was becoming both bored and frustrated with it. Initially the game design I came up with still involved comparing the higher number with the lower number, a la classic War, but included special cards with specific conditions that mixed things up. One of them was a card with an arrow on it; if it was pointing at the opponent it was considered the higher value, but if it was pointing at the player it was considered the lower value card. If both players revealed a card like this, and they were both pointing in opposite directions, it would trigger a war. That entire concept was way more interesting to me than simply continuing to compare higher and lower numbers, so I decided to base the game around it.

There are 8 "Override" cards which change the way a turn is played. The "turn the card 180 degrees" card mentioned in the first paragraph is one of them. The others are a surprise! Well, a surprise until you open the .pdf, and print it, and cut the cards out.

All in all I think Swords of Intuition is a pretty neat spin on the standard War formula. I also think that with some tweaking it could make for a fun combat resolution mechanic in a tabletop game. Maybe a Swords of Intuition 2 will be released someday...