Hi GEMS community! I've seen a lot of posts here about board games. I've also seen a lot of posts about making crafts. For my post I'm going to write about the top 3 games that I made at home.
In board gaming, there is a genera of games called "Print and Play" (PnP). People design games and upload the files for people to print and play at home for free. I've printed a lot of this type of game, and these three are my favorite.
Orchard
Orchard is a 1-player game with 9 cards and 14 colored dice (or markers like I've made).
Orchard has only 9 cards with different arrangements of colored trees on both sides of the cards. The object of the game is to get the highest score.
To get points, you must match the colored trees and put them on top of each other. 2 trees in a stack is 1 point, 3 trees is 3 points, and 4 trees is 6 points.
If you place trees that are not the same color on top of each other, you get -3 points and you can no longer put trees there.
After you have played all 9 cards, you add up your score.
What I love about this game is how fast it is to play. It's very easy to learn, but it really makes you think a lot.
The files for printing Orchard can be found here. I used the "low-ink" version. I think it's easier to see the trees on this version.
Seasons of Rice
Seasons of Rice is a fun 2-player game with 18 cards.
All of the cards in Seasons of Rice have a map on one side, and an "elder" on the other side. At the beginning of the game, both players draw 2 cards and choose 1 as their elder.
The elder card is used to keep track of your score. It also gives a unique bonus for scoring points.
During the game, players take turns choosing cards from the middle area and placing them into their map. You get points by making "paddies" (enclosed areas) and you gain extra points if there are people, houses, or buffalo inside the paddies.
This is a very nice looking game that doesn't have too many rules and is quick to play. The files to print this game can be found here.
Tussie Mussie
Tussie Mussie is a very pretty game for 2-4 players. It is also a game with only 18 cards.
Tussie Mussie has 18 cards with a different flower on each card. Every flower has a different way of making points. The way this game is played is you draw 2 cards and look at them. Then you offer the two cards to your neighbor with one card face up, and one card face down.
Your neighbor chooses if they want the card that they can see, or the card that they cannot see. They take one card and put it in their bouquet, and you take the other card for your bouquet. It's a bluffing game because maybe you want them to take the face-up card, or maybe you want them to take the face-down card. You can't control what your neighbor does.
This keeps happening around the table until everyone has 4 cards in their bouquet. Then you add up your score based on what flowers you have.
The cards that were face-down when you received them are still considered face-down for scoring purposes. Hearts count as 1 point automatically. The hand above is worth 7 points (the Hyacinth counts as face-down because I received it face-down, it does not score +3 points because the Camellia has a heart).
I love this game because it looks so good and it plays very quickly. I've made several copies of this game and given them to friends and family as gifts.
The files for this game can be found here.
Those are my 3 favorite Print and Play games. I hope you enjoyed learning about them. I wish I had photos of making the game, but I made them a long time ago. And they are just cards that I printed and cut out. Making the games is not very interesting.