Card Game? I've Got a World to Save! | Semi-Ramblomatic

[@Fifthranger]

I vividly remember in the Witcher 3 one of the NPCs says before a big operation "well we got like 4 hours until this actually goes down. Wanna play Gwent to pass the time?" All I could think is how it made complete sense that you'd need some way to kill time before shit goes down.

[@superbodaciousflibbertigib8139]

Spoiler warning: it was when Geralt Priscilla and Zoltan were going to ambush a convoy to rescue Dandelion. I agree it did make sense in context, but as someone who never played Gwent in the Witcher 3 I found it kind of silly when I saw Geralt turn down Zoltan’s offer and then they all just had to sit there not saying a word for four hours.

[@gerardotejada2531]

There never be another Witcher 3.

[@Frostystuff224]

@@superbodaciousflibbertigib8139 I mean Geralt turning down a fun little game is pretty in character too

[@benedictrogers1478]

I think there's a meaningful difference between such a pastime existing and it being playable. In fact it not being playable can at times feel even more realistic, I know that my PC and crew in Shadowrun have hobbies to pass the time, but I don't need to gameify my troll mage curling up in a corner to read a book of magical theory. The end result can be the implicit existence of a lot more options than when every city has to feature 3d4 Yu-Gi-Oh champions for you to defeat.

[@yokothespacewhale]

Comments like this remind me there are adults who played more games than lived life. Astounding indeed.

[@joshuahijs]

yahtzee: “fantasy characters playing games about dragons is like us playing games about accountants” yahtzee two minutes later: standing next to real-world games about property development, settler colonialism, military strategy and healthcare research

[@Kelohmello]

Also we play baseball games, and trade basketball cards with real players on them. We very much do do these things, Yahtzee.

[@Dracinard]

Especially as dragons and magic would be less the equivalent of accounting, and more the equivalent of armies and wars. A.k.a. arguably the second most popular genre of games in our world, and a foundational part of more of modern gaming than you might think.

[@mrshmuga9]

And it’s not just stuff like Monopoly, there’s an entire genre called “worker placement” games about managing people and building up resources. Usually some sort of farm or vineyard so not something the average person is doing (anymore), but it’s not fantastical.

[@josh8215]

One of the most popular games on KZbin right now is about owning and managing a grocery store.

[@universe1879]

There’s literally excel games and excel esports people will play anything they can invest attention into

[@Randallsilver]

You'd think a guy named "Yahtzee" would love every opportunity to play a board game, even in other games.

[@Shell-iq6cx]

​@@FrankDux-uo7ig Yes

[@typemasters2871]

“When a dragons and wizards card game exists diegetic inside a world which dragons and wizards are real” “it to be the equivalent of us in the real world playing a board game about a team of accountants competing to land the big contract before tax season” I mean, Monopoly exists doesn’t it? Not to mention the Game of Life being a thing also.

[@soundrogue4472]

Good point

[@Daniel-qt5ib]

Also I imagine a card game about wizards and dragons might still be popular (in a world where both exist) among people who are just living their lives and have no intention of becoming a wizard or slaying a dragon.

[@rainbowkrampus]

Lmao, tru, like 90% of euro board games are about real life events/places/communities. Hell, we've even got board games about concepts like evolution.

[@overlord7310]

Or playing cards with kings and queens on them, pretty sure they're real

[@adamloga3788]

@@Daniel-qt5ib Kinda like how so many people like modern military shooters IRL. Or play games like House Flipper or Power Wash Simulator.

[@herohades2230]

One of my favorite memories of AC Black Flag involved the diegetic board games it had. I had just won a ton of cargo from a massive battle with a man o war, but a storm brewed on the horizon. I stopped at a port to sell of what I could and realized I had all the materials needed for an upgrade, with the exception of the money needed. I was still about a thousand short on cash, but the port had a board game, that one where you move pieces towards enemy pieces to defeat them. I figured I could just play a game while the storm passed, get the money I needed and get the upgrade. An hour later I had lost three matches and was down most of the money I gained from selling off the cargo. Which I feel is pretty representative of Kenway as a character; doing crazy things that could define a career, but pissing it all away out of sheer short-sightedness.

[@ShadowOfCicero]

I've never played Black Flag, but I have played Fanarona before. I remember losing... a lot.

[@hoodiesticks]

Generally speaking, if there's something Yahtzee hates but the general gaming public likes, it's probably because Yahtzee has a game journalist's schedule and can't stop to smell the roses.

[@ShadowOfCicero]

I never finished Rogue Galaxy, but I spent multiple hours in the clunky Factory mode. Something that clunky has no right to be that compelling. (And no, the mobile game Bleentoro does not scratch that same itch, at least for me.)

[@cattysplat]

With how little games journalists talk about sandbox and community based experiences, there's a massive dissonance between them. The disposable narrative movie game treadmill never ends because the industry must be fed.

[@benburke3015]

6:42 Yahtzee showed a shocking amount of restraint by not making a masturbation joke with that "game devs need something to do with their hands" comment.

[@gus.smedstad]

That wasn't a masturbation joke?

[@kounurasaka5590]

"Never understood how the card game in Final Fantasy 9 worked either" That's the neat part, no one did.

[@Sotanaht01]

Not understanding the card game is probably THE reason I never played FF9 past the intro. It gets introduced, I get frustrated because I don't know what I'm doing, and then I quit playing the game entirely. Not that I have any problem with these minigames existing, usually I actually like them. If the game introduced the card game much much later when I was already invested in the main game's plot and gameplay I'd probably have stuck with it. But it's already extremely hard to start a JRPG, hitting an incomprehensible wall right at the beginning is enough to turn me off entirely.

[@Zorgdub]

I absolutely loved the Triple Triad in FF8 so I was stoked when I got my first playing cards in FF9. My disappointment as I failed to understand anything about the mini-game was crushing.

[@kartikayysola]

Yeah I just kinda brute forced my way through it til the game allowed me to go on lmfao

[@Peksisarvinen]

I do. It's not very complicated, just very RNG based. But they definitely didn't do a good job at explaining it in game though. There are good guides online in case anyone wants to understand it better.

[@IzunaSlap]

And then you get to the Treno tournament in Disc 3 where playing it becomes mandatory...

[@Jim_Owen]

Monopoly is the real world example of wizards playing a wizards and dragons game in a world of wizards and dragons

[@josejulio888]

I don't know. I think i have the same odds of building an hotel as seeing a dragon

[@Jim_Owen]

@josejulio888 well you're clearly not a wizard then (wizards in this example being Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Larry Fink, etc).

[@enkiduthewildman]

There's a board game called _The Game of Life_ about graduating school, getting a job, getting married, and having kids. That exists.

[@Jim_Owen]

@enkiduthewildman oh snap I forgot about that one! Played it as a wee lad and yeah that's a spot on example.

[@Awaruko]

@@Jim_Owen 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

[@Brainwav]

Given the wide variety of card/board games out there, there probably *is* a card game about accounting.

[@Captain.Mystic]

Monopoly technically.

[@punkinpiez]

@@Brainwav yeah, I'd play an accounting themed board game. Finding all the little scoring tricks to maximize your points aka your tax refund.

[@katethegoat7507]

We have several videogames about accounting so

[@BurningTNT]

I mean ticket to ride is about building train networks and I wouldn’t cal that much less mundane than accounting Plus we have plenty of historical themed video games and board games (see: dynasty warriors is kinda founded on telling the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms over and over again, John Company is a recent (rerelease) board game about running the East India Company and being the most mean spirited profit driven bastard you can

[@peterclarke7240]

There's a boardgames called "ledger mania." I shit you not 🤣

[@Gboy86ify]

0:45 there are a LOT of board games like that. Monopoly and Life being the two off the top of my head.

[@eragon78]

half of all European sim board games lol

[@mikeymike1792]

Machine Strike in Horizon: Forbidden West is a prime example of this. Aloy doesn't have time to stay around for anything. She's constantly talking about how she's in a rush. But she will play a crappy cross between chess and Warhammer 40k.

[@reydecangrejos7087]

Yeah that threw me off too - i love the horizon games, but it's clear they've cribbed a lot from the witcher, and machine strike was an example where they copied someone else's homework when it didn't fit what they were trying to do

[@piyam5000]

I don't think I played one proper game of it.

[@darkkit1994]

@@mikeymike1792 I thought the same thing! I also feel the stakes of the game's main plot made the side quest collectables dissonant. I told my wife "there are so many timelines where the world dies because Aloy fell off a cliff trying to get a cup"

[@eoinPalmer]

I played four or five matches to get the Platinum Trophy but that’s it. The rules were just so complicated that I can’t imagine it actually being very popular in real life

[@hefoxed]

@@darkkit1994 I feel like this happens with a lot of games, particular these large open worlds like botw/totk aso. I'm enjoying dave the diver atm -- the way they pace things makes it core to partake in side quests.

[@evrfreez]

The first modern (like, late 1800s) board games were about life, and the church, and then business stuff. People totally make games about world experiences, in fact those came first, so it's 100% normal that the people in Witcher 3 would have a game about real-world happenings. The game devs knew what they were doing.

[@zymosan99]

Game of the Goose haunts us all

[@tioseba7]

And the first game ever (the royal game of Ur) is a simple racing game

[@kevingriffith6011]

I mean, having the in-universe card game being something your party plays at camp while they chat over beers would probably be a pretty great way to build characters and let you get to know your party members a little better. Of course you'd have to find a way to fill it with actual dialogue or else you'd run out of things to say pretty quick. Just like a real friend group, I guess.

[@Vanity0666]

Thats what Final Fantasy 15 did

[@Texelion]

If they added that into BG3 you can be sure it would be strip poker. Followed by a gand bang with everyone drunk.

[@distractedFreek]

Red dead redemption 2 did that. You could play dominoes or five finger fillet with random people from your camp.

[@GamerTowerDX]

The kids yearn for Poker Night at the Inventory

[@BAMFshee]

One of the best uses of these side games that I can think of was during the Tyranny of King Washington DLC for Assassin's Creed 3, where you get roped into playing a game of checkers at a pub with an enemy soldier (who doesn't know who you are). The soldier, trying to start up a casual conversation, reveals to the player character that the meeting that the PC's allies were last seen headed to was a trap and that they were all massacred. The player character rage quits the game and beats the soldier senseless with the board. It's a hilarious (tragic, but hilarious) scene, but it's also a great way to use one of these "side-games" as a way to organically progress the plot.

[@stevenclubb7718]

We live in a world where Fantasy Sports exists, so pointless past times based on normal shit would also exist in a fantasy world.

[@BobbyHopp]

I think its absolutely hilarious and amazing how cloud accidentally stumbles into another world threatening entity by playing cards within his main quest to stop a world threatening entity. I also dont mind queens blood because considering Clouds true personality he absolutely would get hooked on shit like card games. I'm surprised how much I ended up enjoying the side mode and even did most of the optional challenges for it too.

[@rleeton1]

*SPOILERS* . . . . but.... I think the Blood Queen is meant to be direct reference to Jenova. You can also see the symbol of the Emerald Witch card in a mural inside the Temple of the Ancients

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

@@rleeton1 Hide your spoilers correctly. Add four blank lines to put the spoilery content below the read more break. . . . . Like this.

[@rleeton1]

@@imveryangryitsnotbutter done :)

[@BobbyHopp]

@@SuccubiPie yeah Clouds a loser dork he's just like me he would love Yugioh

[@corylong5808]

0:44 You just described Monopoly, the best selling board game of all time sans chess.

[@MrCDM6]

Chess being a streamlined and simplified way to represent war, another thing people do very much do.

[@TheGahta]

Plus it being freely reproduceable makes it hard to track vs monopoly which can only be sold by a single source

[@lelanternoscope3691]

I never played Caravan in Fallout New vegas but it's a good exemple of worldbuilding. Because it's post-apocalyspe, it's a game popular by roving merchants on their long road that is played with several incomplete decks. it's also shunned in Casinos due to the low stakes bets.

[@vivusthevivusthing6182]

You can bet more in a game of caravan with the right person than some of the casino's jackpot limits. The reason the casions don't have it is the same as why casinos don't have a lot of games, it's skill based and they can't get a house edge that means it'd actually make them money.

[@lelanternoscope3691]

@@vivusthevivusthing6182 I know you can reap off millions out of No-bark., I was talking in lore terms.

[@benwasserman8223]

Honestly, I loved the Queen's Blood interactions in FF7 Rebirth. If only because it allowed me to see how Yu-Gi-Oh anime level seriously people took the damn game as a part of their identity. Complete with Heart of the Cards-style monologues.

[@Vanity0666]

In FF8 you literally turn the soul of monsters into cards and can refine them into magic so it would track for FF7 monster cards to also be compressed monster souls

[@Tzen03]

I liked that part of it, but I found QB to be just annoying and a chore to have to do, like a lot of the "mini games" Rebirth made you do.

[@nirast2561]

As someone who actually plays card games, there's a few reasons why people like them: - The art on the card is very pretty and we like to look at it (movies exists, doesn't mean paintings aren't a thing anymore). - They're miniature strategy games where you build resources over time and must adapt to what your opponent is doing and what the cards you randomly draw are. * Unless you're playing Yu-Gi-Oh, in which case the fun comes from performing overly-complicated combos while preventing your opponent from doing the same. - Monkey brain likes opening packs and looking at shiny cardboard. - In the case of online card games, they offer a competitive ranked environment without having to worry about being part of a team. - In the case of paper card games, they're a community activity (Magic the Gathering's most popular format is Commander, a 1v1v1v1 mode what you play casually with friends).

[@Feeble_cursed_one]

Screw the rules I have money

[@MrShukaku1991]

part of the reasons digital card games are a thing too is because one, it lets you find opponents easily, and two, you can incorporate mechanics you can't do in IRL card games. For example, Hearthstone's discover and card generation, or just general "Random" aspects.

[@ZoruaHunter]

Monkey brain likes seeing what you draw every turn

[@jmurray1110]

What are you saying apolosa bow if the goddess and dimension shifter aren’t the peak of all fake design that transaction rolebacj is inherently limited your trap design and that maxx C is cancer Ludicrous utterly ludicrous

[@tripodranger7873]

I think Yahtzee's point is less about gameplay and more about presentation (when it comes to non-diagetic card games). For instance, in strategy video games, units aren't depicted as little plastic figures/tokens on a paper/plastic board, they're depicted as the actual entities they're supposed to be, on representations of actual terrain. Similarly, D&D adaptations like BG3 don't depict the characters as little static tokens on a grid-based drawing of a dungeon map, they're just the actual characters in an actual dungeon. But a lot of games that adapt card game mechanics still just make digital versions of traditional paper cards. And with some games that makes sense, like with how Balatro is all about putting a twist on poker, so of course it's going to have actual cards based on the traditional deck of playing cards. But, if a full on MtG video game were made (and not just a digital version of the card game like exists now), where you're an actual wizard summoning actual creatures to do battle for you, I wouldn't expect that to be represented with paper cards, I would expect to see my wizard summoning creatures and harvesting mana from the land like the card game is meant to abstractly depict, even if the gameplay mechanics are the exact same as the card game.

[@ToyKeeper]

Also, the entire chocobo breeding thing in Final Fantasy 7. Cloud is like, "I know the planet is dying and I'm its last hope, but if you'll excuse me, I've retired to focus on making birds f$&k".

[@GenesisAkaG]

Original FF7 in general felt like a big collection of minigames at times. The stuff in the gold saucer, the snowboarding, bike combat at the end of disc 1, the tower defense of fort condor and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting atm.

[@iantaakalla8180]

A submarine video game, a slapping minigame, a CPR breathing minigame, a “join the march at the correct time” minigame, and a military performance minigame are some missed stuff.

[@blue-eyesdepresseddragon3753]

@@GenesisAkaG FFVII is really weird in having a phenomenal core game it REALLY tries to minigame away. Though hop on the bike chase scene cause at the very least, it's not like you're ignoring Sephiroth to go gambling for three days lmao.

[@KingOfElectricNinjas]

Feels like it's a particular thing in JRPGs specifically, a lot of them have particularly broad varieties of minigames that are often mandatory to progress at some point and/or have incredibly powerful rewards.

[@nathank2289]

​@GenesisAkaG If you didn't know: FF7 was made by team groups who were allowed to just through stuff at the wall and it was all glued together at the end. The original game was made with Seven different game engines (one for each major minigame)

[@NotSoMelancholy]

2 other tangentially related things that irk me, Games the open up with a bunch of side content (typically when the final quest/mission is a fade to black) right in the middle of an important story beat. Or games that have a lot of side content that you can lock yourself out of because in order to not spoil themselves they won’t tell you you’re about to make an area inaccessible or “Talk to John Patate” actually means “The bad guys hired some geographers because they’re about to show up mid way and wipe the area off the map”

[@88Opportunist]

This was far more of a problem in the disc-based days. Take a giant game like Fantasy across 3 or 4 discs and there will always be a point where as you move across discs the old content becomes inaccessible because it quite literally can't be there any more.

[@FoolishSamuraiWarrior]

Save the world? I have a cardgame to play!

[@Gryphonamx]

I'm one of those that do love the game-within-a-game. Wheels in Sea of Stars, Tetra Master in FF9, Gwent in Witcher 3, Blitzball in FF10, Monster Arena in Dragon Quest 8, so on. I can understand why people might skip these all together, but they can be fun side things to do that likely still give something else to the main game. I'll never hate added content to games I already enjoy. (Having them really fit the narrative like TM in FF9 or Blitzball in FF10 -does- definitely help!)

[@Hypeimmune]

What's your opinion on Blitzball... in FFX-2?

[@Gryphonamx]

@@Hypeimmune For the life of me, I don't remember it. I need to go back and play that again.

[@maggie6152]

I love blitzball solely for the fact that it was a massive story element that created some super cool world building. A religion and world-wide culture developing off of old sports ball game is a super cool concept that takes the community building effect of sports and dials it up to 10.

[@jamestheboss1883]

I find it fun to imagine some ominous possessed king, slumped over his towering throne waiting for the hero of the hour to strole in and challenge him to the exciting boss fight. Then suddenly he here's his guards shout "YAHTZEE!" Excitedly he kicks the door open, sword drawn and and speech in the other hand only to look down at his guards sat on the floor.... throwing dice with a confused look on there face. Grumply he slumps back into his thrownroom, upset his guards were excited about the game. Not warning him that "the funny guy that makes up swear words on the Internet" has arrived for the boss fight

[@FairlySadPanda]

I'm surprised no mention of the Zachtronics solitaire series; literally a set of single-player diagetic card games inside of larger games that exist to drag the player away from the big hard puzzles for a bit and allow them to unwind, and as a way of easing in and out of play sessions of what can be quite mentally draining games.

[@haunter6682]

In every Zachtronics game, I always end up completing about 2/3 of the game, then when the levels become large and complicated and taxing for my mind, I slowly begin procrastinating in the solitaire instead. Then, tired of the solitaire, I turn off the game. And later I just look at the game's desktop shortcut and realize I don't wanna even launch it. Every single time. Every single Zachtronics game. Even Eliza because it paints such a depressing picture I don't even want to know how it ends.

[@cattysplat]

@@haunter6682 Might as well just use a guide. I am far too dumb to solve these programming like puzzles myself. But I absolutely love the theme, setting and storytelling.

[@floataway3]

Caravan in New Vegas made sense. These traders roaming the Mojave had nothing to do, so they would sit and play a card game. It added it to the world even if the rules don't make a lick of sense. And they don't mind asking you for a game because there is no life or death apocalypse coming. You are trying to find the guy who shot you, and eventually getting wrapped up in a power struggle for control of the strip. To Trader Joe, that doesn't really mean anything. To Geralt, who outright says he doesn't have time to learn the rules, he actually doesn't.

[@Stunade_]

us in the real world playing a board game about a team of accountants trying to land the big contract? Yhatz, that’s Monopoly.

[@adrianpadin1840]

Cloud's hair represented as pineapple slices is just *chef's kiss*

[@bilbo1778]

I think the appeal of card games in video game format is that it evokes in-person interaction with other humans with tangible playing cards; for those of us introverts that lost touch with our friends it's fun to imagine reenacting board game night circa a random Friday in 1996. There's just something appealing about distilling a game into a physical board and tokens; I also like when strategy games evoke a board game aesthetic such as Victoria 3 where it's fun to imagine all the complex systems playing out before your eyes are powered by gears and automata on a 10 ft x 10 ft elevated card table.

[@EranMadeMonsters]

For my experience, and Gen z nostalgia, my first experience of diegetic card games was in Skylanders Giants. The game was called Skystones, it's essentially tic-tac-toe where your O could kill your opponent's X. To win those matches, you would need to outnumber the opponents stones. The cards had teeth on one to four sides of the square stone, when you placed down the stone and that side had more teeth, those cards with less or no teeth could be converted. It was such a fun distraction from the approaching robot apocalypse brought by Kaos.

[@Nihzlet]

The whole “you must do this quest to save the world, it’s super urgent, but no take your time” bit irritates me in RPGs because it’s not just diagetic games that take away from this aspect, but side quests as well. I don’t have time to go do a heist with the thieves’ guild, find your six lost cats, and explore the sorrowful backstory of this one drunk at the bar, I have bigger things on my plate! Ruins my immersion when they pile that on too much.

[@Triforce_of_Doom]

hard disagree on the "Cloud wouldn't have any interest in it" part. A big part of his character is how he's a big dork underneath the moody facade & how practically everyone who meets him sees through it so him just being able to sit down as the "serious" player in a cast of basically Yu-Gi-Oh characters he can run into in the various towns has a lot of charm to it.

[@dippedfeathers]

My favorite implementation of this diegetic card game comes from Shovel Knight's fourth campaign, King of Cards. The plot mostly centers around a tournament of in-universe card game Joustus, but playing it is never required to beat the game, sans the tutorial, and the main character, King Knight, doesn't care about it. He finds it boring and would rather fight people. It makes for a nice subversion.

[@De-Nigma]

I was looking for if someone remembered that. It was my favourite example too, especially since people being weirdly into this new card game was the main running joke through that campaign. Like Black Knight summoning his noble pet battle rhino to act as a card table, that's a game that knows how to have fun with its concept.

[@thesacredbeast2000]

My biggest problem with card games being inserted into other games is that they catch my interest really easily and decades of seeing how far I can push minmaxing keeps resulting in me finding the one card or combo that wins everything all the time instantly and then dragging my bored ass through the whole side story hoping the final boss has a counter, before going back to sweeping through end game random encounters in one turn while gaining more mp than I spent on my attack.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Yeah, one important thing for encounter design generally is implementing resistances and immunities and even ways for some enemies to actively bemefit off of certain strategies. Make the player unable to rely too much on just one way to play by ensuring that each way of playing has a couple moments where it's worse that surrendering.

[@catharticgemini]

Not to side line a pretty solid discussion, but have you played Balatro?

[@cloud3x3]

Has Yahtzee not discovered euro games yet? There's all manner of mundane, laborious, tasks that exist in board game form. That's already a thing we do in real life.

[@cattysplat]

Let alone Europe's obsession with simulator games. There is no grand story, just a struggle to survive then thrive.

[@argentoAFK47]

Not a card-game exactly, but I loved Coin Golf in Fable 1. Fits the "if it's a popular tavern game, it should be accessible" requirement. They'd play it on the very same tavern tables, the "board" is whatever assortment of mugs and bottles were in the table, and the objective is to slide and bounce a coin in between those obstacles to land it on a designated chalk circle. You could see yourself playing IRL if you were bored enough, no magical board set or prestige card deck needed.

[@Lyubimov89]

One thing I really hated about Pazaak in particular was the presentation. Star Wars has such a vivid setting, but all they could do is squares with numbers? Worse, in the original trilogy Chewbacca and C3PO played a chess-like game with holograms and all. Why did Pazaak have to look that abysmally boring?!

[@cattysplat]

Definitely feels last minute. But the simplicity aids in just being easily understood.

[@shadowknitter]

I really like Shovel Knight: King of Cards' Joustus, because it's simple to play and integral to the story, but still easily optional if you don't want to bother.

[@Some_Really_Random_Dude.]

A thing that always stuck with me to this day from Witcher 1 was dice poker. I recognize that as a game it probably isn't very good, as it eliminates that social deduction aspect from poker. But I had a lot of fun doing it and it seems easy enough to wrap your head around that a random peasant in the tavern would actually care to play it even while piss drunk.

[@Aichi1138]

The game you described in the opening is Monopoly

[@yunume]

2:22 A bit of nostalgia on my part when you brought up Red Dragon Inn... My first encounter with that name was a text-based game played on a local bulletin board system accessed via dial-up modem back in the late 80's/early 90's, i.e. before the Internet existed. I also remember doing a lot of freeform text roleplay in AOL chat rooms bearing the same name in the early-mid 90's. The BBS game was basically a text adventure to slay the dragon so you could have sex with the hottest woman in the land (was her name Violet?). Flatly gross in hindsight. The AOL chat was a wild west of earnest RPers trying to create communities and make connections with likeminded people, alongside amateur writers enacting their (often very sick) power fantasies in front of a crowd. There were attached forums for people interested in longform writing rather than chat, too. I have this hunch the card game was created by or inspired by folk who populated the AOL community decades ago.

[@enkiduthewildman]

I'm surprised in that whole intro yahtzee didn't make the connection to "dad games" genre. Sure playing a game about dragons and wizards in a world where dragons and wizards exist might be... not mundane but routine? maybe? But in a world where trucks and houses and power washers exist we have games about truck driving, power washing, house cleaning and repair, and even others. Heck, wasn't the "popular indie game" last year about unpacking boxes after a move? And yes actual soldiers in actual wars really did have cards or dice or something in their packs. Because it turns out that not every hour of every minute of every day on the front lines is spent in combat. There's a lot of "hurry up and wait" and so you _do_ play cards to pass the time.

[@ToxicAtom]

Man, it would be weird if in the time of kings, queens, pawns, and knights there was a board game about maneuvering your pawns and knights to protect the king wait a minute

[@Cyberian_Khatru]

“fantasy characters playing games about dragons is like us playing games about accountants” not accountants but platoons of soldiers and we do have that

[@bellarmire]

Diagetic minigames can be a great addition though. Like the hacking minigames in Alien: Isolation - desperately trying to get this little LED lined up properly while knowing you could get murdered during it definitely upped the tension. They weren't even particularly complicated, just well integrated.

[@tempest.2k]

i'm kind of impressed by how much research you didn't do

[@MarquisForneus]

This is quite like Cheese, the breathtaking a beautiful essay by G K Chesterton.

[@samuraispartan7000]

I don’t think card games with wizards and dragons would be anomalous in a world with actual wizards and actual dragons. Chess is arguably a simulation of a war between rival monarchies and it was immensely popular in time periods where warring kings, queens, bishops, and knights were fairly common place.

[@mrshmuga9]

Pretty sure there’s probably a game about farming with farm animals, similar to planting beans in Bean Bonanza, and opening a vineyard in Viticulture.

[@davidbarnes6672]

My issue with these types of mini-games within games is that I always come to the question, "Why did the developer feel the need to divest time and resources away from the main game into this smaller, infinitely less interesting, completely separate other game???"

[@simonhede4381]

For the most part i do agree with the points in this mini-essay, however I do think it's important for games to have built-in breaks. While I liked DOOM 2016 and Eternal, I found them exhausting to play because the whole game was essentially a single activity, and while it was fun and decently varied within itself with different weapons, enemies and level elements, it still wound up feeling very exhausting to play for more than a few hours because you only ever did the same thing. Compared to other games where you might spend an hour adventuring, then a few minutes putting away loot and resources, then a while fine-tuning a part of your gear, then a while building an extension to your base, then chasing down a thing for a quest, each element giving a break from the other is important. A minigame like Gwent or Queen's Blood can easily serve as one of these breaks/palate cleansers so that once you're done questing/fighting monsters/re-jigging material, you can have a quick mini-game for a reward before moving on to the next thing. It avoids the feeling of exhaustion that a very monotonous (even if good) gameplay loop can bring. I don't think simply taking a break from a game is really enough, because I think 99% of people are going to get exhausted from playing before they feel like they've stopped enjoying the game and paused it. I mean how many times have you been kind of sick of a level or boss-fight in a game and decided to tough it out for another 3-15 minutes just to get the level over with? Even in a turn-based game where it's perfectly possible to just leave it running and go for a walk, you don't do that do you?

[@kapsize_8251]

"Our game's so big it ate a whole other game for breakfast." - seems like the most plausible reason for those games inside games, specially for games published by AAA/AA

[@o_o2619]

I quite liked playing Farkle in Kingdom Come Deliverance. Pretty fun game of luck with tangible benefits but when it crops up you can just do another money making trick or steal the prize. Additionally they have loaded dice you can find and use to make your chances of winning better but you rarely need to seek them out as enemies often are just carrying them. It's simple and enjoyable but deep if you want to engage with it.

[@SpudNickleson-im7is]

I tend to really enjoy these. Got into Gwent, got into Queens Blood, enjoyed Wheels in Sea of Stars too (about the only thing I enjoyed in that game) I do think it gives the world some flavour. I get that it seems a bit out of character for Cloud but so does half the stuff that happens in FFVII and it tends to be brushed off with the other party members forcing him into it so I can go along with that. To me it's just adds a little bit to the world building and it gives you a change of pace too which is always welcome. I think I enjoy the deck building elements when the cards are all themed to the game too so they're characters and monsters you know and are familiar with out of that context, unlike an entire standalone card game. I never got into Gwent when it went standalone either because, in contrast to Yahtzee's point about games being social and it doesn't feel like that with NPCS, I think I enjoyed playing against NPCs with personalities I'd got to know in Witcher more than I enjoyed playing against random strangers on the internet.

[@margibso]

I found the mini games in the original FF7 to be an important part of Clouds character. Cloud *brood, angst*, Yuffie" hey Cloud do you want to race Chocobos and the go snow boarding?". Cloud " ... sure"

[@ShaunCloudSwain]

On one hand, I see your point Yahtzee; on the other hand, my chocomog card increases power per each other powered up allied card in play and I don't know where I would be without it.

[@0mni42]

I like the contrast between Cloud's tough guy exterior and how much he gets into stuff like card games (or dancing, or racing, or any number of other goofy things for that matter), because it reinforces the fact that he used to be a bit of a goofball, and the tough guy thing is a coping mechanism.

[@SeekerOfSand]

I loved Orlog in Valhalla. It was simple enough that you felt it it made sense it became this popular, and it was fun. It did feel like just a diversion from the main campaign to pass time/rest, instead of a new completely thing I have to learn mechanics about and keep track of. Also the soundtrack was on point. Beautiful.

[@mattwo7]

FF7 Rebirth's ingame card game is part of a long legacy of Final Fantasy doing this, such as FFVIII's Triple Triad, Tetra Master in FFIX and FFXIV bringing back Triple Triad. There's also FFX-2's Sphere Break which is not a card game but does involve a minigame which you collect coins to play it with so it's probably also worth mentioning.

[@mesektet5776]

I've got this image in my head or some time. A close up of Squall and Edea, squinting at each other, assuring each other it's their final battle, with Squall thanking Quistis for helping him get ready for this most dangerous of fights. Then panning out to reveal both of them holding cards, then Cid and Rinoa off in the distance looking at each other confused and sheepishly raising a hand and asking - "Um evil body possessing sorceress out to destroy linear time, is this really important?" and Squall, Edea and Quistis all simultaneous shouting " *YES!* "

[@Deraphim]

I want to see a game that offers the card game as an alternative to its combat. Cloud challenges Sephiroth to a card game and beats him so bad he gets banished to the shadow realm and the world is saved

[@Vanity0666]

Final Fantasy 8

[@OriginalElysian]

It's not exactly a card game, but Puzzle Quest is basically this.

[@mrdrprof8402]

One point I'll make: cards based on everyday life is a thing, we have baseball cards which used to be very big

[@angeldeb82]

Ah yes! I remember playing Triple Triad in FFVIII when I was a teen. You mentioned Blackjack in Leisure Suit Larry, but you didn't mention that "Softporn Adventure" (the proto-Leisure Suit Larry) also has Blackjack. Ah yes, and Pipe Dream and a similar version of Chinese Checkers. BTW, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War has Zork I, and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus has Wolfstone 3D (a parody of Wolfenstein 3D). So very nice!

[@kevinmilhim646]

The only card game within a video game that I ever got into is Joustus in Shovel Knight: King of Cards, and that's because it was half of the entire game. I mean the game was called King of Cards not King of Prancing Around Like a Total Ponce. Not to mention that Joustus was actually integrated into the plot, because King Knight believes that becoming the champion of Joustus will help him achieve his goal of becoming rich and famous.

[@yuumeko]

I gotta say. Sorry, I just gotta say it. Starstruck Vagabond would be PERFECT with a mini card game in it!!! I'd play just to see what Hole's losing dialogue is

[@Jeedan]

A gameplay idea that hit while watching- A game with a large gameplay map, with no fast travel, BUT playing the card mini game enables fast travel. That is to say picture if in RDR2s tedious coach journey cinematics (which I suspect were boring by design to discourage their use) you had the option to do a poker game thus skipping the cinematic, like one actually might do on an otherwise dull journey. I dont know where I'm going with this or if it even solves any real gameplay problem though.

[@MrSeropamine]

"Swindlestones" in Sorcery! is, to me, the best example of this sort of thing. Easy to learn, extremely thematic, has enough depth that mastery of it is satisfying... I just love Sorcery, any excuse to talk about it haha.

[@MrT3a]

"A game should be simple to be so widespread" Witcher 2 dice poker is the perfect representation of this. I can even play it with my 6yo. Granted, he's as good as he can reasonably be, but he grasped the concept pretty quickly.

[@MrTheRandomBucket]

I feel like one example of a side card game that nails the idea of being simple enough that anyone could learn to play it is Joustus from the King of Cards DLC for Shovel Knight. It has a simple concept, and the focus on arrows instead of stats makes it easy to intuitively understand what each card can and can't do. Although additional abilities and special arrows are introduced later, each ability is simple in and of itself, with the complexity coming from how all these features fit together.

[@IronBabyFists]

Red Dead Redemption's "Liar's Dice" is the *only* one I've ever found that I liked. I liked it so much that I bought a bunch of dice and taught it to my friends in college. It's just the "how well can you lie, you think?" of poker, distilled into a fast, easy to learn, low stakes, bar table game. I dig it.

[@stevenglowacki8576]

Liar's Dice wasn't invented for the game though. While I haven't played RDR, a traditional game called "Liar's Dice" is pretty old.

[@Tickerbee]

My first thought on this subject is Joustus from Shovel Knight: King of Cards. It sort of has the opposite problem to the idea of detracting from the stakes, the plot nominally revolves around a card game sweeping the nation, but the card game itself is optional and King Knight is actually just trying to conquer the land by force, but nobody takes him seriously and just thinks he's really enthusiastic about card games.

[@BlizzardWolfPK]

I think one of my favorite card game in a game was in Pirates of the Caribbean Online. While yes the games were just Blackjack and Texas Hold'em, as a pirate you could cheat and swap your cards in your hand with your own stash of cards that you would build up as you played the main game. The enemies you killed sometimes would drop a playing card so by the time you're like lv 10 you've already got a good amount of cards to cheat with.

[@mrshmuga9]

Because it’s fun extra content that offers variety. Side quests in most big/open-world games are just battling under different contexts. Or “exploration” that’s just “unlock [ability] that requires little to no skill to use”. “If I’m tired I could just play something else” Sure, technically. But then you have to figure out what you want instead, if you have it, or if you want to buy it. It’s much harder to start something else than to continue, so having an optional pace breaker included is nice. And unlike “kill/collect # of things” it’s actually fun.

[@nuffens]

I think you brought a good point up by mentioning that most card games are kind of a social activity, and way to compete with someone you know, and will talk with. I don't give much of a shit about most NPCs with the same 5 lines, and so playing a game with them isn't the same fun. When I play risk part of the fun is watching someone I know as a real friend squirm and regret a bad move, or the of just being around them and then also engaging in a game at the same time.

[@justanothernerd6714]

Horizon: Forbidden West had one of these too, and it was called Machine Strike. It was essentially chess but where the pieces had different attack and defense stats, and the boards had different environments that would affect the pieces. The game never forces you to play as part of the main quest, and I went through my entire first playthrough without ever engaging with it, so I guess it's pretty harmless

[@britpoint7022]

I love this stuff. Like I don't disagree about Queen's Blood for example feeling forced in when you absolutely have more important world saving to be doing, but what's the point of saving a world filled with nothing but the core gameplay loop? What these games-within games help do, when done well, is help make the world feel alive so that you actually care about saving it in the first place. It's a chance to get insight into the lives of new characters who have no business being on the critical story path, and being able to engage with these stories with a different kind of gameplay different from the core loop helps the pacing of the game. I wouldn't call QB or Gwent a 'distraction' from the core gameplay loop, that makes it sound like their only purpose is to give you a rest from fighting monsters, where I think they are really doing much more than that.

[@VonBoche]

With Rebirth, that's how it came accros to me as well. It's not so much a game about saving the world, it's moreso about making the world feel like it's worth saving.

[@mrshmuga9]

I’m not sure what the rub is really. What’s wrong with variety? With AAA games at least, it isn’t actually taking development away from the main game. A separate team handles it. Most side quests are just battles under different contexts. Having a pace-breaker in-game is way more convenient than looking for something else because of the paradox of choice. And that’s assuming you currently have something you’d be fine playing instead. If you don’t, you then have to consider an even bigger pool, and how much you’re willing to spend.

[@ZeroDeMighty]

This reminds me of the side game that The World Ends With You had in its game, Tin Pin Slammer. It was a pastiche of popular toy games like Beyblade and Bakugan and I remember it being pretty fun (sadly I never had the chance to play against real people), but then as a post-game bonus they had a bonus campaign where Tin Pin became the center and written like an anime for said toy games It was awesome

[@clasmath]

in my free company in FF14 I'm jokingly referred to as the "Triple Triader" because that's my favorite part of the whole game. I can spend hours playing against npcs to gather cards and MGP and I converted our free company house's basement into a mini gold saucer. Some people just enjoy taking breaks from saving the world for a few minutes to do something inconsequential, and it's a form of no-stakes gambling that won't lead you to a crippling real life debt.

[@HazzardousEco]

4:42 Once again, Yatz's creativity at work; using 3 pineapple slices to imitate Cloud's spiky blonde hair lol

[@TheDoc73]

I love you Yahtzee, and in general I'm in agreement with you on these things, but you say some things in here that are just...wrong. I'm going to specifically look at your commentary about breaking up the gameplay loop here. While many minigames go WAY too far and are downright upsettingly present at all times in a game (make sure you challenge this guy to a card battle before escaping from the missile attack or you'll miss his sweet cards forever!) I think I speak for the majority of gamers when I say they can indeed provide a _welcome_ bit of distraction from the main game. It isn't that I want to put the game down, I just might be feeling like I need a little bit to de-stress, to take my mind off the frustration or the anxiety or just general mental fatigue that a good game _should_ evoke and enjoy that game in a completely different way for a bit. The problems for me only arise when the game either has no sense of time and place about these things (as you rightfully point out) or when they are so intrusive and ubiquitous that I feel like the game is trying to stop me noticing how utterly crap their game really is. Like when they couldn't piece together 10 hours of gameplay so they built in 15 hours of card battles figuring you'll play 5 of them, and you end up with 6 hours of total playtime.

[@jonathangibson9482]

Fair about not wanting card games in your save-the-world games. But also, digital card games can be super cool. You get to have card game mechanics with lots of cool effects and pretty art and music and stuff. They each have their place.

[@subtlewhatssubtle]

In my opinion, a game that did optional in-game mini board games well, was Mount and Blade Bannerlord. There are six different board games, but instead of being arbitrary, they are shown to be cultural pasttimes, each one correlating to a major cultural faction, which makes sense. Similar groups of people would probably play games as a shared experience and proliferate it in their territory. Also, they're based on real life board games with pre-existing rulesets so they don't feel forced and instead feel like glimpses into what the locals appreciate. Most notably the Kuzait's love for Puluc is telling of their 'ride the steppes and chase the wind' mentality, as their game is the only one with a discrete element of randomness in proceedings.

[@happymartin6778]

On the upside you get once in a while unique shit like Homefront 2 having the whole Timesplitters 2 in it. Or I guess RDR2 where it's pretty seamless opting in and out, and I like that as a relaxation between missions. There is nothing more satisfying than taking the train to St. Danis once you get some money and go on a shopping splurge to look sharp, get nice guns from the Chinese guy, and stopping by the saloon for a more higher stakes Texas Hold Em (also because they don't just bet their pocket lint like in Valentine)

[@LordSvzklx]

Surely a world in which dragons and magic do exist would be the perfect place for a game involving dragons and magic to exist; they'd probably see it as a perfectly sound strategy game as we do chess, just one where there's a lot more options for things like movement

[@basoon87]

Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor (i.e. one of the entries of the RPG series that the Heros of M&M games are based on) is the oldest game I can think of with a fully fleshed-out side card game you could play in taverns. It was called Arcomage and it simple, but it wasn't bad. In the original it was duel with a single shared deck where the goal was to build your tower to certain height (let's say, 100), or knock down your opponent's tower to 0. I ended up playing a fan made customizable version online for a while called MArcomage. Pretty much the same rules, but all new cards, reworked resource balance, and each player built their own deck tailored towards their specific strategy, rather than having a single shared deck. The entirety of your turn was just playing a single card (or multiple cards if any of them said "play again") for your turn and passing to your opponent, so it made for a great 'email' game where you could walk away in the middle of it and pick it up right where you left off whenever you had a second.

[@furyrageguy5728]

Yakuza games did it pretty well, all those side mini games are completely optional and even when the game forces you to play some of them it’s because some child wants a toy and Kiryu being the guy he is can’t let anyone down.

[@fudgeweasel]

Keystone from Fable II was always one of my favourite 'game-within-a-game's - and it worked well since Fable II was, at heart, a game about pissing about instead of doing the main quest.

[@Midnight-Starfish]

I don't mind mini games if they make sense to the setting. For instance, Red Dead Redemption. John Marston is a cowboy during the Old West. There's not a lot of stuff to do for recreation besides besides playing with cards, dice, or trying not to stab your finger with a knife. In Saints Row 1 and 2, you need to play mini games to be able to play missions and it's basically the main character helping shady people. These mini games work because it fits the setting.

[@PtolemyJones]

Mindless trivia, but in 1921, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote The Chessmen of Mars, and included int he index the rules for their variant of chess. I actually made the board but only ever played myself, no one else was interested. Still, that just might be the first example of such a thing?

[@phantomblack678]

Card games are a unique type of strategic itch that can’t really be scratched by other strategy oriented games. While sure, building a deck might be similar to choosing your units, the amount of cards that can go into any particular card game can give you a much wider variety of options and actually allow you to play the same game in completely different ways as opposed to mostly the same way just smarter in a typical strategy game. There’s also one very key advantage digital card games have over physical ones: physical card games are incredibly fucking expensive (have you seen the prices some Yu-Gi-Oh cards can go for?), and card video games allow people to have the experience of playing one of these games without having to shell out a fuckload of money to actually get the cards.

[@MilanousMedia]

3:39 you're basically describing my first trip to Disney World lol

[@xizar0rg]

And, ironically, the horse testicle game has card games within. Can get you red in the face, seeing these games begging for redemption after making you aware of horse testicles.

[@WardyLion]

And some bloody obnoxious challenges related to them

[@KingOfElectricNinjas]

To be fair a cowboy playing card games is very much on genre.

[@feeble_goblin3764]

BugFables did this the best. You got cards by inspecting enemies including bosses and if you where good at it it unlocks a secret part of the map that’s completely optional. Another cool thing about it is that its slightly difficult to find it in the first place

[@davidpaul1733]

"Lol, yeah imagine a game where you're a wealthy property developer and the way to win is to overcharge on rent" Ya, it's called monopoly Yahtzee

[@Leopoldshark]

Rex: I gotta reach Elysium Tora: Not before you grind Tiger, Tiger to upgrade Poppy, you won't

[@baileypalmer103]

I really loved how Shovel Knight: King of Cards made the card game part of the actual story.

[@jerrahaynes1564]

i understand your complaint about there being a whole chapter related to a queen's blood tournament in rebirth, but also it led to perhaps my favorite moment in that game, so those of us who liked the game got some *really* good content as a reward :D idk, that seems fair to me! not everybody loves fucking around in the cactuar dens until you hit some arbitrary limit, either.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

"It'd be like people making a board game about a bunch of accountants---" I'd argue it'd be more like making a tabletop RPG about modern day detectives solving a mystery, secret agents, or an Oceans 11 style heist. All "realistic," modern day scenarios, but they're still _exciting_ scenarios.

[@crazyMLC]

I've always thought it'd be funny if these diegetic minigames were alternate victory conditions, in the spirit of immersive sims. Having trouble clashing blades with the final boss? Break out your deck and send them to the shadow realm.