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
Update 10/07/2023: Well, the first review went up awhile back now; you can read my thoughts on it here. TL;DR is that I'm generally happy and in agreement with it. I'm still waiting on another review, but Ive already started improving the game based on this feedback. Namely, I've included downloadable rules on the shop page that are more legible than the novelty retro text of the rule booklet. I still have more plans for my little game and I hope to have more news soon!
- Original Post -
Jewel Thief is an asymmetrical, competitive card-matching game I designed with help from a relative (TheAfterGloe; he makes music! Check him out, please). It is my precious child and will be receiving two reviews in the future and I am soooo nervous and excited and anxious and-
Anyway, the game works similar to the memory match games you may have played as a kid (or maybe you still do, if so that’s cool, maybe you’ll like this then) except while one player matches cards, another player (the titular Jewel Thief) periodically removes cards from the board. There’s also three other rule variations that mix up the gameplay substantially, but I won’t get into that right now.
The game is available for purchase, and while I’d love for you to buy my game, you should probably wait for the reviews to come out. It might suck!
BUT, if you’d like to try the game it’s possible to play with a standard 52-card deck and I’ve included the rules on how to do that below.
The other three rule variations could also probably be played with a standard deck, I just need to write rules for that. I may update this post in the future with those variations. Until then:
