This game was made in 24 hours during the Monthly 24 Hour Design Challenge in April 2023 on BGG. Below is an excerpt from the journal and notes during the creation of the game.

23/04/2023 - 18:48

I would say it is time to start putting the game on paper! The basic idea is to make a Rummy-style card game, but very much themed around Unix terminal commands. The game will consist of a custom deck with cards of different types: commands, strings, options, files, folders and so on. As is often the case with games of this type, each card will have assigned a score, and at the end of the game, the player with the most points wins. The gameplay will depend a lot on the combinations each player can create with their cards. These days I have been thinking a lot about the name, and given the theme (running commands on the terminal) and the game mechanics (Rummy) I decided to call the game "Run Me", trying to combine these two elements.

23/04/2023 - 23:21

First deck of cards finally ready: 18 command cards (with repetitions), 9 file cards, 4 directory cards, 3 string (pattern) cards, 16 option cards, 4 special cards. Although they were not in the initial plans, I decided to add 4 special cards to increase interaction between players by going to remove opponent's cards. First test completed, unfortunately the game is still not fully convincing to me. The cards are very themed, having 12 of them in my hand is complicated, understanding how they can be matched with each other is a bit overwhelming for players playing for the first time or unfamiliar with the terminal controls. Certainly the game flow needs to be revised. Currently, each turn the player draws a card, chooses whether to create a combination with the cards in his hand (putting it down when he thinks it is complete), and discards a card at the end of the turn. It all seemed too mechanical. The distribution of cards should probably be revised as well, the division between folders and files is too small, better to keep just the files. Same with strings, three cards out of the whole deck is too few, maybe better to remove them.

24/04/2023 - 10:18

The second iteration brought substantial changes. The night brought wise ideas. The biggest one is definitely the ability to combine commands with each other and not just with options and files. This possibility allows players to decide how to play their cards. The scores of each individual card were also revised, but given the results of the test game I would say that we are still far from a sensible balance. The current distribution of cards is better than before, but there is still the "I pass cards around until I draw the one I'm looking for" factor. In this round players started with 10 cards in hand, but it still turns out to be a lot. Special cards were never used, so the powers of the cards need to be revised to make them more interesting.

24/04/2023 - 12:43

This new version has a much better feel to it. The new game flow has made everything more streamlined. At the moment each player starts with only 5 cards, and this makes everything more fluid, having fewer possibilities in hand the turns are faster and the game is more interesting. The way the cards are played has been revised by taking up an idea that was initially discarded: the commands now can be built in multiple turns and not necessarily in hand before being played. This allows more interaction between players, as one player knows the strategy that the opponent is implementing. I have also started sketching a game cover and have also created a WIP thread dedicated to the game.

24/04/2023 - 13:31

Since time is running out (creating the final materials and writing the rulebook takes some time), I would say that this is the last round of testing, the result at the moment is quite satisfactory. I am noticing that the real challenge is the playtesting and balancing part of the game. For now the game has been around 15 to 20 minutes with 2 players and with close scores at the end.. but of course you can't judge it with only a few plays.

24/04/2023 - 18:10

The rulebook and materials are finally ready. The initial idea was also to have a Dark Themed version (Matrix or Dracula styles) but unfortunately I didn't make it in time. I'm curious now to see your feedback on this.. Let me know