Self promo for my newest card game, Jewel Thief; but you can play it for free! First, though, let's cover the basics...
TL;DR - Its a 4+ player competetive card-matching game with four rule variants; buy it here or look for the orange text in this post to learn how to play it with a regular deck
"What is Jewel Thief?"
It's a card matching game with a villain; one player tries to match jewels in a 36 card grid while their opponent, the titular Jewel Thief, periodically steals cards from the board. You can check out its page on The Game Crafter for more information, but it'll spoil the rest of this post
"What makes it special?"
The game's turn structure would theorettically allow you, perhaps via some kind of infinite cloning machine, to play a round of Jewel Thief til the heat death of the universe. While I wouldnt recommend that, its lack of a player cap (and ease of set-up; seriously, all you do is put cards on a table) makes it a good party game choice.
But that's not all!
There are three extra rule variants that drastically alter the gameplay while keeping card matching and stealing as main mechanics. I believe the cards are versatile enough to allow for many custom games, too
"Okay, but why should I buy a silly game from some bug nerd?"
First off, ouch. Second off, that's the best part; you dont have to buy it to play it! Jewel Thief can be played with a standard 52 card deck. Here's how:
Step 1. Remove the 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Jokers
Step 2. Download the free rules from the shop page
Step 3. Play the game, matching cards based on their values. You'll need to designate a value as the Diamond jewel for game 4
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That's it for my little self-promo. If you dont buy the game, I hope you'll at least give it a try and consider supporting my future projects.
I also post art and photography, which you can find under the bugbeast art and bugbeast photos tags. I hope you check them out
Thank you for your time <3
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Edit (Mar. 25, 2024) : Thank you to everyone who liked and reblogged this; if you play the game I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments and/or reblogs (even if you hated it). Feel free to share any custom games or house rules you come up with, too. I'd love to try them!
Edit (Aug. 10, 2024) : Final edit most likely; gonna blaze this one more time for good luck then maybe start work on a postmortem for the project, maybe give a little backstory for anyone who cares. Life is a little rough right now, but fate willing, I'll be able to work on/post about my future projects, including the future of Jewel Thief itself
VOID_SHIFT is a solo deckbuilder where you build a space repair crew to complete a job with a time limit. Games take like 20-40 minutes. The physical edition contains the deck, five dice, and instructions in the lovely cassette-case package above. You can get it here!
You are the captain of a corporate-owned salvage and repair ship, sent to finish an assigned task. Assemble a deck to take on jobs like repa
Do you want more detail as to how it was made? Great! I just uploaded my 2nd devlog about it.
First post detailing the basics: https://binary-star-games.itch.io/void-shift/devlog/1104855/devlog-1-origin-format-structure-and-developing-the-basics
Second post getting into the weeds on job/deck design: https://binary-star-games.itch.io/void-shift/devlog/1122047/devlog-2-jobs-decks-and-difficulty
Also the digital version's got a bunch of community copies if that's your bag. (You know you want that cassette case with the cards though. Scroll up and look at that thing again.)
Assemble your deck and don't get fired.
And while you're on my store, I have a black friday sale going on! Everything else on there is 20% off.
Home of APOCALYPSE FRAME, Valiant Horizon, and more!
Oh and while we're at it: if the visuals of VOID_SHIFT appeal to you, please follow my prelaunch page for NULL_SPACE, its sister RPG coming zine month 2026:
“Hah, why do people spend years designing a card deck, I bet I can do it in a few weeks”
- famous last words
So
It all started after I randomly stumbled upon vintage Bumblebee card deck
✨A devious thought occurred it my mind ✨
What if
What if bumblebeedogs instead of card suits ☝️🐻❄️
One thing led to another
And
Ya know
Well
I propose you to lay back, relax, make yourself some honey coffee and take a trip down
🐝 non-canon HIVE card deck 🐝
❗️warning per usual: this is a fan project, I just like making thing look real >:)
Our first stop 💅
✦ Back of the card ✦
4 bumblebeedoggos
they found a ❗️flower biscuit❗️in a plant valley
Will they share their findings? Or will the great fight begin?
Who knows 🤫
✦ Pip cards ✦
A bumblebeepuppy
Another one
And another one
And another one
And-
Each card suit is represented by a different bumblebeedog breed
To tell you honestly I’m still debating on how to name ‘em officially
heart (fluffy) puppy, diamond (very flüffy) puppy, club (flüffy max pro) puppy, spades (energetic flüffy) puppy
✦ the King card ✦
📣 the leader, the ruler, the Captain of cards 📣
Hehe I enjoyed designing the outfits so much >:D
Every card has a leitmotif going (medieval role, flower representing a suit and corresponding bumblebeedog)
Have fun spotting the patterns :D
✦ the Queen card ✦
📣 the keeper of the med bay, the healer, the fashion icon 📣
He’s slaying okay 💅/silly
At first wanted to give a special name only to a “Captain card”
realised ♦️Carmine of diamonds♦️ sounds epic and gives me an extra reason to give this card a additional colour leitmotif
Besides would sound awesome with a third C we have there
✦ the Jack card ✦
📣 the fighter, the knight, the metal defender of the honey kingdom📣
This guy has the purple/navy blue colour leitmotif (because I love leitmotifs 😌)
One of the reasons I was convinced to do other cards, was the notion “Colony can show each suit with his soundwave thingy”
Not sure what sound he makes in order to achieve that, but ey if it works it works
✦ the aroAce card ✦
📣 the scribe, the storyteller, the Narrator 📣
*loud cheering can be heard throughout the ship*
The was an unspoken battle for the Ace card, Narry won
(Captain totally let him win, because Narry threw a tantrum/silly)
Decided to go all out on the theming >:D
Hearts + Diamonds have a sunset aroace flag colour palette, to differentiate the dark suits, used an older version of the aroace flag for Cubs + Spades
✦ Jokers ✦
low key one of my favourite cards from the deck (I like shiny things)
Had a bunch of variations of the layout and couldn’t decide on the final 💥
I like both, you get 4 Jokers 💥💥
Some part of me wants to leave a lil bit of mystery and not explain every detail in the card design
Featuring @idunnowhattowriteheretbh @crimsomcrystal @masky-the-mask and CR0505
(hey 0505 I remember u asked about animals around the ship, here’s your new ship duty /silly)
So since canon characters of the HIVE represent standard figures in a card deck
I created a silly non-canon cards to the standard deck >:D
Action cards are meant to make you do a simple action in the middle of the card game
(I know it’s not a real card deck, but I had a funny image on unsuspecting players starting a game, getting a Bear card, confusingly pausing the game to go grocery shopping and watching someone devour a cinnamon bun)
(That would be 10/10 experience come on)
Also Beepups Uno reverse card
Because every card game should have an uno reverse card
Hehe loök at littol guys walking in circles ✨
Stargazer card would have an additional star shaped cards, that you can take an reveal the most ⭐️helpful and game changing⭐️ advice, stars know best after all ☝️
Oh and
If anyone of ya’ll has a Hivesona and would like an Action card design lemme know, the ask box is right there 🫵
Can’t promise to draw it right away (might need a lil break), but I think it could be a fun way to interact with the crew :D
(if u want a card, write the name of the card + action your card would have + ref if u have it/your sona changed)
Hope you enjoyed your non-canon card deck tour 🪄
See you somewhere around the orbit 👋🪐
*fancy small bear creatüre bow*
✦ Bonus content ✦
Ya made it onto the rambling territory™️
Prepare yourself /silly
The idea formed *looks at space clock* in March oh god time flies
The fan project was super fun to work on, I learned so many things ‼️
For ppl actually interested in the nitty-gritty of designing a deck of cards, I really recommend Ten Hun’s Vivid Kingdoms creation series, especially Episode 2, where they discuss small details about card design that made my art nerd brain go brrr /pos
And this video by arynlei, I legitimately love that card deck design is so aesthetically pleasing AAAAAA (they also have an incredible ongoing creation series of animated medieval cards *runs in circles*)
I kinda have a playing card obsession tbh, I had a Wallace and Gromit playing cards as a kid (that my mom bought me on some second hand sale) and absolutely adored them, they looked so fun and were a lil bigger then classic poker card size
Anyway 💥
I also saw a chance to make cool card visuals >:)
Hope u like those >:D
I wanted to draw the cards in a more experimental art style, but I feel like I defaulted to my normal boring ol’ style
The initial sketches captured this fun goofy feel more I think
Plus at the end there started to add too much details to the card designs, like those are most likely would not be functional you cannot see/read nothing the text is tiny lmao
In any case
I’m so glad I could finish this
Hope it was fun to read though, thank u for your time 👋❤️
For the last few years I've been working on a card game called Card Drives, and I just released the demo:
Cyberpunk Solitaire TTRPG
To quote my friend Hendrick, it's souls-like cyberpunk Balatro. It's my love letter to rogue-like deck builders. It's a game where your cyberdeck is a deck of playing cars that you cut, tear, mark up, and mix with Magic the Gathering or Pokemon cards to change it over time. A dozen hackers will handle this deck, fry their brains, and pass it on to someone else. The more you play, the more powerful your cyberdeck becomes.
I've made a deck full of 30 diamond suited cards and like 12 Aces. I've made a deck full of cards cut up to hell. I've flatlined at random network nodes, pushed my luck until I flatlined, and jacked out with a dozen bits of data I used to upgrade my deck.
Use cards from other card games as ICE. Get too much ICE in your hand, you flatline.
The demo is just 2 pages: the rules and the NUWESTPAC Seaboard demo network. The full game will have 5 networks, dozens of upgrades, and different ways to play, win, and lose.
It took me so long to refine the rules down to something that would put on one page, and even then I had to put the rules for flatlining and jacking out the edges of the network map.
I'm real proud of this one. I've put several hours into just playing the demo and I'm looking forward to seeing other folks' cyberdecks.
It's been in the making, but it's finally done! I have the full roster of Character Cards made for Season 1 that are now ready for deck-building and also plenty more
So here they are!
Akio - OC from Vermilion, or Vermilion200064 on Unvale
CD - OC from @cinemonster-3d
Pumpkin - OC from @nabitodexart
Dr. Raindrop - OC from @makithewizard
Steph Bigg - OC from sootmoons on Insta
[With all these made, I will be working on the mechanics and decks for each so I might take awhile to share more once again, BUT expect rules written out tommorow hopefully!]
I don't know if we've found enough cards for a full game yet… But we did find this old account about a school where they taught the game!
The first tale of Talismyth's is now available on the patreon, available for subscribers or as a one time purchase! A story about a student who loves playing a magical card game, we hope you'll think of this as just your first lesson at Castle Gutenberg!
