Bullets and Bombs Solitaire
A downloadable game
The Objective
Make at least three “natural” bundles of seven or more cards of the same rank, and as many “wild” bundles of 7 or more cards of the same rank as possible, with as few left- over cards as you can. A “natural” group consists of only cards of the same rank plus any number of red 3’s (Three of Hearts or Three of Diamonds, the “silver bullets”). A “wild” group has at least three cards of the same rank or red 3’s, plus no more than four wild cards (2’s and Jokers, red 3’s don’t count as “wild").
The Setup
Take two decks of cards with Jokers included, or a specially-marked canasta deck, and shuffle the cards together. Deal off a starting hand of 11 cards.
The Play
Draw two “choice” cards, choose to keep one and discard the other. If you draw a red 3 you immediately add it to your hand and draw a replacement choice card. If you draw a black 3 (a “bad bomb”), immediately discard it along with one card from your largest group of cards which is not a finished group of seven (six Kings, for example), and then draw a replacement choice card. If you draw two cards of the same rank, you must still discard one of the two cards.
The Score
Once you've gone through the whole deck, make as many bundles of seven as you can. If you fail to make at least three “natural” bundles (same rank plus red 3’s), you lose. If you win, your score is the number of bundles you made, minus any cards still in your hand that are not in a group of three or more cards. For example, if you make 7 bundles, but still have in your hand a group of three Queens and a single 5, your final score would be 7 - 1 = 6. A score of 4 or less is bad, 5-6 is good, 7+ is great!
Download
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Development log
- Old Game, New Name!48 days ago
Comments
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interested to try this, thanks! I would suggest to clarify that bundles must be disjoint, i.e. can't reuse wild and joker cards (right?)
also, people would have questions like, what if the rank I have most of is 3s and they're all red? do I need to discard one of them if I get a bad bomb?
I see you have some coding background so my advice, really to all board/card-game designers, is to code up a minimal implementation to help you express and then write the rules as unambiguously as possible.
Thanks for the clarifying questions!
Yes, bundles need to stand on their own, so a 2 or joker or red 3 used in one bundle cannot also be used in another bundle.
Because red 3’s don’t have a “rank” unto themselves apart from being in a bundle, you wouldn’t have to discard one if you got a bad bomb. When I play, I have a separate pile for all of my wilds, and wait to add them to my bundles at the very end. You could choose to add your wilds to a bundle at any time though, or even move from one bundle to another, as long as again you only use each wild once.