Previous entries in the series here.

Name: Partnership

Problem: You have a game concept that benefits from coordination between two people being part of the challenge. Alternatively, you have a two-player game that doesn’t translate well into a larger number of players, but you’d like it to be playable as a group activity. (In this case, playing with six can sometimes work as well.)

Discussion: The two different kinds of games listed in the Problem description are actually pretty easy to distinguish. Call it Type 1 if the game would be significantly different if one player played both parts, and Type 2 if this is not the case. As the shining example of Epic Duels demonstrates, Type 2 is not worse!

Examples:

• Bridge, a Type 1 partnership game. Clearly there is a large amount of coordination required to make the bidding work well. Even once the play starts, the defenders benefit by playing as a partnership; sending each other signals by card choice, playing to maximize the use of the cards partner likely has based on his bidding and play, etc.
• Sequence, a Type 2 partnership game.  The game works fine with two people. With four separate players, the board would be far too cluttered to make any progress. In two partnerships, the game is basically the same as two-handed; you don’t know what half your cards are, but that information wouldn’t really help anyway.
• Pinochle, a Type 1 partnership game. Although the bidding isn’t as intricate as Bridge, having the cards separated is very important. First, it keeps you from knowing exactly what melds are available to your team. Second, during the play, you have to try to picture what your partner has or might have and adjust your own play accordingly to make the best use of partner’s cards.
• Epic Duels, a Type 2 partnership game. Reader Alatar reminded me about this game recently, and I should probably devote a full article to it at some point; because as a Star Wars licensed game, it’s way more fun than it has any right to be. For the purposes of this discussion: The game is reasonably light, and you’re able to table-talk enough with your partners that being separate people really doesn’t harm your ability to coordinate strategy at all. But the ability to trash-talk people, play in a social environment, and share the inevitable stories (Jango Fett killed three Jedi!) with more people makes the game much better with four people than two..

Related Patterns: There’s a pattern that might be called Cutthroat that turns a four-player game into a three-player game. The idea is that one player becomes the “declarer” (maybe by choosing a trump suit, getting to pick up extra cards, or whatever) and the other two players are temporarily united in a partnership against that player. Success is mixed; it works just fine for Pinochle but falls flat for Euchre.