Ofertu
Hot on the heels of Set 7, I ended up coming up with a very different game for We Heart Games’ Dice Deck.
The next game was designed around bidding - in fact, the name “Ofertu” is the Esperanto word for commanding someone to bid. The deck is split into the three suits/colors, and each suit serves a different purpose. Without getting too much into the rules (which are at the official Ofertu page), the first few plays felt alright but something was missing. We bid on red cards using the black and white cards from our individual decks.
At one point, the game went through a hand management iteration. The red cards that you won could be used in future bids. This felt closer, but ended up having a problem where it was better to keep them as points than it was to use them for bids.
The missing piece came in once Mike at We Heart Games playtested it. We had been talking about the “special sauce” for a few days, trying to figure out what the game needed in order to stand out. He suggested that, when you win a bid for a red card, it goes into your hand instead of a victory pile. Subsequent bids that involved that red card would then be used to actually get cards into your victory pile. At last, we had the “special sauce” we needed. The second layer of bidding added some much needed decision points. Now, it became much more of a mind game to figure out what your opponent might be bidding on, and whether they plan on taking them as points or as a future bid.
Overall I’m happy with how this game turned out! It was fun to develop. Even though the game was still decently fun at the start, it was cool to see it develop into something new that stands out more!
I want to thank my boyfriend Mitch McLaughlin for happily play testing it with me for a few weeks until it got sorted out.