Lesson 11-1-11

Today, we used a deck of cards to make a game. We kept the mechanics the same; one person puts down a card and so does the next person, so on and so forth. We all made up rules and a scoring system, and the person whose rules we were playing was the dealer and called out each person’s score when they put a card down. As there were six of us, we needed to play through six games. Although, this was a game in itself; as we had to deduce what the rules were and try to win with the acquired knowledge. We used basic maths skills and applied card logic to work out the rules, paying close attention to the score when a card was put down and what was before it, trying to work out how a point was scored, what the card was in relation to the one before it that awarded the player with a point. Also, seeing how the score changed when a King, Queen and Jack was put down uncovered some rules too. The aces usually had a special rule, for example, one rule was that when a player placed an ace, they would get all the points from the previous player, leaving them with zero.

As we played through the games, we each had sheets out where we would write down our points after the dealer recited them according to their rules. We made note of what was before the card we just put down and its suit/colour. We analysed other people’s points too, after a while, we all knew what some of the rules were and exploited these. This was almost like a learning curve. At the beginning, we were unsure, playing with no particular strategy, just figuring out what leaves us with more points or devoid of them. Later, as we learned some of the rules, we played with strategies, tactics even, for example saving the aces, in the previously mentioned example, until a player before you accumulated a big score which you could take by slamming an ace onto the pile.

Some of the games rules were easy to decipher, logical steps we all concluded while playing, like placing a card of the same number gave you a point or lost you a point. Another example includes the Jack, Queen or King doubling points, and adding up the cards number to the previous one, making that the score.

Although, there were lots of inventive rules which were harder to infer, one rule awarded the player a point if a card of consecutive numbers was put down. So placing a 5 of hearts on top of a 4 of clubs would give the player a point. However, putting a 5 of diamonds on top of a 6 of hearts would award the player 2 points, so there were two rules concerning the colour of the cards; same colour gave you more points. Another rule which was difficult to understand when first encountered was that whenever a player put a 7 of clubs down, they would lose 5 points. The other players decided to risk putting down their 7 of whatever suite to see if that was included in the rule.

The task was useful because there were controlled variables, like the games mechanics, so we would be focusing on the rules and not the other factors of the game. Also it was familiar in some shape or form because we’d all played cards before. Another reason for using a deck of cards was that they convey lots of information in the form of icons such as numbers, colours, suits and images of royal figures, we could use these to make our rules, specifying them to certain icons, red means this, hearts means that, hearts plus red equals this etc. The task allowed us to see how a player will feel when playing a game, our game, for the first time, barely knowing the rules, jumping straight in and figuring it out as they play.