Devlog 4 - Making Bo -Taoshi Into a Card Game

CMI 3377 » Devlog
248 days ago by RGHilliard
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This week I chose to research the game bo-taoshi. Bo-taoshi (meaning 'pole fight')  is a japanese game that is often compared to Capture the Flag. 300 people are split into two teams of 150 that are then split again into defenders and attackers (75 each). The defenders are tasked with protecting a 4-meter-tall pole that they must hold up and keep the attackers from the other team from pulling it down. The poles are placed in a 27-meter-diameter circle that acts as a 'contact zone'. Players cannot attack each other outside of that circle or it's counted as a foul. The game is won when the attackers are able to get the opposing team's pole down to a 30-degree angle. One thing that I found interesting is that this game is played annually at the National Defense Academy of Japan on the anniversary of the academy. The academy has four battalions that play against each other in a tournament and the winners are awarded with a trophy during a ceremony.

 It made me think about what  Bennet Foddy said in Making it Matter: Lessons from Real Sports. At around 12:50 in the video, he discusses how real-world sports raise the stakes by not offering do-overs and having a sense of occasion. He also speaks about sports being a form of performance at 5:30. By making the annual playing of this game open to the public to watch (in several videos you can see a crowd watching the events), the National Defense Academy has shifted what could have been a regular training exercise to an important event that has raised stakes. 

Bo-Taoshi Set Up

Bo-Taoshi is set up with each player getting 4 cards, a 'pole', and a way to keep track of their 'pole's' health.
My group decided to adapt bo-taoshi into a card game. We were interested in the offensive and defensive roles built into the original game and we wanted to focus on that aspect. We used uno cards and different colors to represent different roles. Red is used to attack, blue to defend, green sets up a barrier, and yellow is a buff on any other type of card. The numbers on the cards represent the people playing in the original game. Each pole starts with 10 health and the goal is the attack your opponent's pole while protecting your own. Each player starts with 4 cards and the 2 players roll dice to determine who will go first. The player with the higher number gets to choose if they will start or if they will defer the first move to their opponent. On the first turn of the first player, they are not allowed to attack. Each turn, players can play one red, green, and yellow card. Blue cards are played when a player is attacked and a player can play as many as they want. If the total of the defensive cards has a higher number than the attack card, the attack is blocked and no damage is taken. If the attack is higher, you subtract the defense from the attack and that number is the amount of damage taken. Poles may also be protected by green cards. The green cards create a barrier that absorbs the damage instead of the pole taking it.  Skips and reverse cards can be used to half a barrier. Wild cards can be used by discarding a card. The number on the discarded card is taken by the wild card and the player gets to choose the color. 

While my group was playing, I thought of what Bennet Foddy said at 13:20 of Making it Matter: Lessons from Real Sports. Part of the fun of the game was how competitive we got and the rivalry we felt with each other. Trying to psych each other out and celebrating when we won (and rubbing it in each other's faces a little) made the experience feel more important than it would if we just played the game silently.

CMI 3377

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StatusIn development
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AuthorRGHilliard

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