Blog Post 2: Gam Lab I

As a relatively basic form of entertainment, card games have penetrated into People’s Daily life. In the class of CS108, my team members and I have tried a card game called “I Doubt” (aka “Cheat” on BoardGameGeek) that I have never played before. It’s an easy game to play, but it doesn’t lack fun. Players need to finish their cards as early as possible in the game. This game requires luck and skill, which is the charm of card games. In this blog, I will record our play process and basic game mechanics.

1. Set-Up

We have five players as a group in this game. They are: P1 is Gyeong Heun Kim; P2 is Zay; P3 is Nick Burnam; P4 is Tony Xie; P5 is Sushil. A deck of playing cards excluding two jokers is shuffled and divided into 5 heaps and 10 cards per heap. In other words, each player will get 10 cards, and 2 cards will be idle.

2. Process

We go from Gyeong because he is player 1. Player 1 put an Ace into Discard and click the “+” button to tell other players 1(Ace) is placed. Then it’s Zay turn. She put a 2 card into the Discard. We put cards into Discard one by one in the following turns. By the way, players can put any number of a card (e.g. 3 cards of 4, or 6 cards of 10). What players claimed can be the truth or not and any player is able to doubt. Therefore, that’s why the game named “I Doubt” or “Cheat”.

Our game meets the first turning point when Gyeong(P1) claims he puts 2 6s into the Discard. Zay(P2) doubts the cards. All the cards put by P1 will be shown to all the players.

Obviously, P1 cheated. Then P1 has to take away all the cards in the Discard. The game still continues.

During the following game, there are many cheats and many doubts. I remember that I doubted Zay that she put the wrong number of card 9 in Discard, but the actual result when I check her card was not wrong. As a result, I took all the cards from the discard.

3. Result

Finally, P1 won the game by running out all of his cards in front of other players. The rest of the players have their rank with respect to the number of the card in his or her hand (the more cards you still holding, the lower score you will get).

Conclusion

After playing this game, I feel the charm of card games, and I had a good time with my team members. In 2020, COVID-19 has greatly reduced the number of interactive activities between friends, especially offline meet-ups such as parties or dinners have been forced to stop. Under these circumstances, various online entertainment can bring people happiness, reducing stress while also minimizing the risk of the epidemic. I personally recommend this kind of relaxing card game, because it is not only a way to relieve the pressure in my study life but also a shortcut to interact with friends.