Ell Game Design Winner 2022
One of my first (and best) memories of tabletop gaming is when my older brother handed me a pack of standard playing cards and explained to me that this single deck of cards could be used to play hundreds of different games. Young Debra thought that this was magic; older Debra thought that it was way better than carrying around a separate box for every game. Even today, whenever I find a set of cards, dice or rules that could be used to play many games, I think about my brother and those early days of gaming.
When Stuff By Bez created the Ell Deck (the game formerly known as W++), the concept was that the cards weren’t a single game, they were a tool to play games, and even to create games. Bez Day (August 1st, Bez Shahriari’s birthday) exists to encourage and celebrate creativity. People all over the world submit new games using the Ell Deck, and after testing from the Stuff by Bez team, the best game is crowned Game of the Year and is added to the Stuff by Bez website.
The winner of the 2022 Game Design contest is Biddabbell by Alex Cannon and Xate. The most interesting part of this game is the fact that it isn’t a word game at all. The main focus of the game is set collection, using the card suits as well as the numbers in the corner of each card. The game is for 2-4 players, although it is best for 4. A four player game uses the entire deck, and the fewer players there are, the more “suits” are removed from the game. Initial setup has all the cards dealt evenly among all players, and then the players themselves choose the four card Market that will be used throughout the game. Each player also chooses two cards to place on the table in front of them. These cards are intended to start the Sets that players will try to grow during the game. But where does the Bidding come from? Players bid using the cards in their hands to determine who gets to choose first from the Market. Each player puts down a card on each turn, and whoever is closer to the start of the alphabet goes first. Each player takes a card for their sets, and then their bid card replaces the card they took. Play continues until everyone puts down their last bid card and takes their last Market card. The last 4 Market cards left on the table are set aside and then scoring begins.
The original scoring system set up by Alex Cannon was quite complex, but the post game test version is easy to understand. First you count the number of cards in each of your suit sets. You only score your largest and second largest sets. For the largest set, you get two points per card; for your second set, you get one point per card. After the sets are scored, the players compete to determine who has the most of each number. For each number 1 through 5, the player who has the most cards gets three points. If there is a tie, no one gets any points. After adding the Set score and Numbers score together, the highest score wins. In case of a tie, the winner would be whoever has the most fives (or fours, threes, etc if ties continue).
This game is fairly easy to both teach and play; it’s straightforward, while still having a decent amount of strategy involved. But there were a few issues that made it less than perfect. I received the rules for Biddabbell as a PDF download that was definitely rough around the edges. There is a missing image that was replaced by a very vague description. “Three Player game in progress. Four cards in the middle, some sets around. A card at a jaunty angle above each set of sets. Some face down fanned ‘cards in hand’.” There’s also a notation that just says “Insert origin story here”. Normally, I would consider these complaints to be rather trivial, except for the fact that the game was submitted into the contest in August of 2020, and the revised rules were written down by Bez in December of 2020. There should have been plenty of time to clean up the PDF file since then. During our test games, there were a few things that were not explained in the rules, including whether or not you could choose a card that didn’t match your initial Set cards (you can), and what happens if there is a tie for largest or second largest Set (we just used two Sets and ignored the third).
Despite these minor issues, my friend and I both enjoyed playing this game. It was a great way to prove that the Ell deck doesn’t have to be limited to just “word games”. It would make an ideal “while we are waiting” activity, since it takes up very little space to play. It could be used to teach children pattern recognition, counting, and the alphabet; but is still enjoyable by adults as a set collection strategy game. All in all, this would be a very good excuse to dig out your Ell Deck and try it again.
