Well, I thought I was nearly there. The rules were nearly place, play-testing was going smoothly, and then; classic; I’ve stumbled into an issue that’s going to set me back a bit. Turns out, Nobles & Glory suffers from one of my biggest pet peeves in card games: constant shuffling.
I discovered this issue during some recent play-testing sessions. Because each player’s draw pile in Nobles & Glory is quite small, you often find yourself needing to reshuffle the discard pile back into the draw deck frequently. This isn’t just annoying because of wear and tear on unsleeved cards; though that’s definitely part of it. It’s also annoying because shuffling takes time, slows down the game, and let’s be honest: some people aren’t great at shuffling, or might be tempted to fake-shuffle to gain an advantage.
I encountered this frustration before in a game called Flamme Rouge, where the constant shuffling drove me crazy. And here I was, unintentionally building the exact same irritation into my own game!
My first instinct was to simplify the process: when your draw pile runs out, just flip the discard pile over and slide it straight back as your new draw pile; no shuffle. But, Doing that would inadvertently turn Nobles & Glory into a “perfect information” game, which definitely doesn’t fit the cloak-and-dagger vibe I’ve worked so hard to create. Players could perfectly time actions to steal or interfere with their opponent’s draws, removing the mystery and unpredictability I wanted.
So here’s my solution: keep the discard pile face-down. When you run out of cards, simply slide the face-down discard pile over to become your new draw pile, without shuffling. This method retains the essential mystery, adds some really interesting strategic wrinkles (like potentially drawing the exact card you just discarded), and reduces downtime significantly.
However, this elegant fix also means I’ll have to carefully review the entire rulebook again. Some existing actions, particularly those allowing players to fish specific cards out of the opponent’s discard pile, suddenly become extremely powerful; They’ll need adjustments to keep everything balanced and fair.
In other words, there goes my weekend.
But honestly, I’m glad I caught this now rather than later. These little hiccups are part of the process, and as annoying as they can be, they’re also what makes game design endlessly interesting and rewarding.
– Jonathan
