In February 2024 I decided to make a card game. No, it wasn’t a lifelong ambition.
I was doing what I usually do in the morning: surf the web. There are a couple of websites I like to hit up first thing. One of those websites is CNBC. My professional background is in corporate finance; I read CNBC because it covers financial news and it’s free. One aspect I like about CNBC is their "Make It" section. It focuses on success stories of regular, everyday people who succeed in business. From someone starting a business from scratch to someone describing how they mastered their niche, many of these stories strike a chord with me because I want to relate to them. Who wouldn’t?!
In any case, I came across a story about an entrepreneur who made a card game. After reading the article, I was intrigued. Truth be told, I was more annoyed than intrigued (more on that later). The intriguing part was seeing that a card game could make so much money selling on Amazon. This person was doing great. I wondered though, did they embellish in the story to make themselves more successful than reality? Nope, they didn’t. Their product was crushing it on Amazon. I was both shocked and amazed. How can a card game be so popular yet something I had never heard of? Eventually, I learned that card games (and board games for that matter) have a very large, dedicated audience. Now I get it.
I Like Playing Games
After reading about that person's journey, I started to think of my own hypothetical journey and how I’d go about things if it were me making a card game. It also annoyed me. The more I learned about this person’s game, the more I got the idea that it wasn’t truly a card game in the traditional sense. It is a game and it is printed on cards, but does that make it a card game? I tend to think of card games like Uno or Monopoly Deal, so it annoyed me that this card game wasn’t like these games conceptually.
Here’s the thing, I’ve always liked playing games. Board games, card games, computer games, video games, all the games. I just want to play a fun and engaging game.
Coincidentally, my wife had just bought another card game she learned about called Taco, Cat, Goat Cheese, Pizza. She thought it’d be great to play with our six-year-old daughter. The game was a fun, although a bit simplistic for my taste. I had never heard of this game before, but having recently read about the story on CNBC, I wondered how well this game did on Amazon. They too were doing phenomenally.
It Got Me Seriously Thinking About Making a Card Game Myself
From all these events, it got me seriously thinking about making a card game myself. Some of the motivation was financially driven. A "If they could do it, so can I" sort of mindset. The other part of it was the excitement of a new challenge. Many thoughts continued to emanate, but one thing was certain: At no point was I going to settle for an “ I can’t do it” retreat. I was going to make a card game. Thus, the journey began.
Creating a Game Using Game Elements I Enjoy
"This shouldn't be too hard", I thought. Man, was I wrong. But I’ll get to that later.
No doubt my past enjoyment of games came into play. The two games that do come to mind that helped influence 3, 2 1 Piñata! are Monopoly Deal and Mario Party.
The first game, Monopoly Deal (not an affiliate link), is a great card game you should play if you haven't already. It's not like playing the actual board game Monopoly. It simply has Monopoly elements in the game, and to win, you have to earn three monopolies. I like how this game is designed, both gameplay-wise and illustratively. I also like how it plays quickly, but once you're done with a game, you immediately want to start playing again. You also feel like you have agency in the game. While all good games possess an element of luck that you cannot control (which is great in my opinion), you can strategize and increase your chances of winning. Overall: you get to play the game > the game just plays you (i.e. Candyland and Chutes and Ladders).
The second game, called Mario Party, is a fun series on Nintendo. For those unfamiliar, Mario Party is almost exactly like playing an actual board game. Within the game itself, there are also mini-games which are essentially very quick to play games. For me, there is a specific mini-game called Honeycomb Havoc. The way this mini-game works is you control a single dice block that has only the numbers 1 or 2 on all faces. You win this mini-game by eliminating all other players. Players take turns collecting fruit on a conveyor belt, but you’ll want to avoid collecting honeycombs. The placement of these items on the belt is predetermined by the computer, but you can easily see what order the fruits (good) vs. honeycombs (bad) are. You simply select what number you want to roll (1 or 2) to have that many items from the conveyor belt come to you. The number of fruit you collect doesn’t matter. All you want to do is avoid the honeycomb as it comes down the conveyor belt.
I liked this type of gameplay because what it's really doing is seeing if you can avoid the honeycombs yourself, but arrange it so your opponents get the honeycombs instead, particularly in a way that they get the honeycomb no matter what they do. In reality, Honeycomb Havoc is a basic game. Conceptually, I really like it.
If you've played 3, 2, 1 Piñata! and are familiar with the above games, you may see some similarities. Of course, 3, 2, 1 Piñata! is definitely different than those games, but some of those gameplay elements are in there.
I Have a Rough Draft of This Game I Made
From the beginning, I had no idea what I was really doing. I was sort of making it up as I was going along. At first, I was more concerned about the strategic elements of the game. Is it compelling enough? Turns out, it was. The thing is, that’s not what made the game fun. It was only a small part of it.
In game testing, I noticed that all people really wanted to do was screw over their opponents. Whether it was stealing their candy cards or taking something from someone, that is what got all the laughs (and minor anguish from the person who the cards were played against).
While it’s easy enough to earn a candy card, sometimes it can take a while. The feeling you get when you see you have the right card to score a candy card feels great. Trust me, I see it all the time when people play. Yet, from all that work, someone else can come right along and steal that candy card with Piñata Power. Or, they can make you return it with Rotten Candy. More satisfyingly, you can block both of those cards with the Piñata Protection card.
However, the game plays out, it sort of comes down to “the heck with all of you, just stop taking my candy!”.
I knew I had something going. The game is starting to show signs of life, but it wasn’t quite there yet. The “flow” of the game was still off. I couldn’t quite figure out how to fix it until I got the help of a six-year-old.
The Help of a Six Year Old
Over the course of several weeks, I was play testing the game (again and again) with my six-year-old daughter. She was tired of playing it. But every once in a while, she'd say okay to playing it with me, and I’d test it out on her once more. The sticking point of the game was the "the count” mechanism. I couldn't get it to work. At this point, the count was more like a countdown timer. I was focused on having a type of countdown that starts at 10, and then seeing if players could strategically get it to exactly zero, which would result in that player scoring. It wasn't working, especially with my six-year-old.
Being six years old, our math skills are still in the developmental stage. We knew how to add and subtract, but it took a little while to think through the math process. 3 - 1 is one thing, but 10 - 3 is harder to do. The math eventually became overwhelming for her because it was just too much. Plus, the game didn't just subtract numbers; it also added them back to the "the countdown timer". This too was confusing for adults, but my six-year-old struggled more. I was trying to help her add and subtract, and it just wasn't happening. And then it hit me.
In the middle of our game, I modified the rules. I said, "Instead of a countdown from 10, let's start at 5. You can decide if you want to add to get to 10 or subtract to get it to zero. How does that sound?”
It was a mostly indifferent reaction from her, but we agreed to try it. It turns out, the game plays way better this way.
The Final Touches at RAGECon 2024
Development of the game took off from there. When I nailed down the game mechanics, it was only a matter of time to put all the final touches together. From the design and illustration of the game cards to finalizing the game rules, I had just about completed every hurdle I cam across. Except one…I didn’t have a good way to keep track of “the count”.
The only solution I could come up with was assigning an official “Count Master” in the game rules so that this person would always keep track of where the count is at. This wasn’t my preferred choice, but I couldn’t think of a better solution. And that’s where RAGECon helped.
At RAGECon (a.k.a. the Reno Area Gaming Convention), I demoed the game in front of complete strangers. People liked it and I received a lot of positive feedback. However, the same comment was repeated to me again and again and that was people are going to forget where the count is at. How are you going to fix that? Suggestions ranged from adding additional, physical pieces to computerized tokens to even changing the premise of the game (yeah, right). But, a very kind group of family members played my game and took it upon themselves to figure it out. They came up with a simple, yet effective mechanism which I incorporated into the game. I really appreciate their help. Moreover, every current and future player of 3, 2, 1 Piñata! appreciates it too.
The game was now fully complete.
The Exciting Journey That’s Just Getting Started
Many people have asked the story of how I came up with the card game 3, 2, 1 Piñata! This is a short and hopefully interesting story of just that. There’s a lot more between-the-lines sort of information I could tell, but don’t think it’s all that interesting to anyone other than myself.
If you made it this far in the story, I’ll share this fun tidbit with you. 3, 2, 1 Piñata! is actually the second idea I had for a card game, not the first. In trying to create a card game, I had various ideas I wanted to pursue. In the rough draft phase, I didn’t want to get stuck to a single idea in case it didn’t work out. Luckily, these other ideas I didn’t pursue are still worth pursuing. In fact, in 2025 I’d like to create another card game.
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If you would like to purchase a copy of 3, 2, 1 Piñata! you can buy it on this website or on Amazon.
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