XCJ Card Game

The Chinese (and eventually international) experience of making Hackerspace projects as a card game to be enjoyed during the holidays.

Game parts

• List of rules
• Two die
• Special game deck of cards (without or with expansion packs)
• "Fake" money (poker tokens, monopoly money or even real money...)
• Piece of paper and pen to keep track of scoring and taught skills

Game Start

• Everyone starts with a preset budget
• Players start with no skills and no cards

Game Goals

• Get a project schematics
• Learn the skills
• Get the components and software
• Build, Program and Test
  • Each project is worth a certain number of points awarded to the player

First one to reach a pre-set number of points wins!

Game mechanics

Turns

• Every turn, each player picks a card from the pile
  • If it is a skill, the player can elect to pay the workshop fee (if any) and put the card in front of himself, face up
    • A player can never lose a skill
    • A player may teach it to others
  • If it is a part, the player can elect to purchase the part. If not, the card is put in the discard pile.
    • Component prices are determined by the roll of two dices (2 to 12 credits)
    • If both dices have equal values, the player pays but receives a broken part
• Once the deck of card has been fully played, the discard pile is remixed and used as the deck of cards
• Before picking a card, the player may elect to:
  • Use any special card
  • Get rewarded for points for completing a project
  • Sell or buy skills with other players
    • When a player teach another player the skill, a note is written down on the note paper granting the skill

Game cards

• The back of the cards must have the same graphic (the XCJ logo)
• The face of all cards must include the description in at least English, with a possibility of Chinese

Project schematics

• How to make the project
  • List of parts
  • List of tools
  • List of required skills
  • First project can be a Roboracer as a sample
    • More projects can be added in expansion packs
  • Players can elect to study projects list before playing to "plan ahead"
• Player must have the project schematic in-hands to complete project

Components cards

• Gives you the opportunity to buy the parts you need of a particular type
• Mechanics:
  • Wheels
  • Servo motors
  • Stepper motors
  • Frame
• Electronics
  • Resistors
  • Wires
  • Transistors
  • Leds
  • Push buttons
  • Distance sensor
  • Batteries
  • Motor drive
  • Microcontroller
• Software
  • Servo control library
  • Motor control library
  • Stepper motor library
  • Distance sensor library

Skills

• Soldering
• Ability to use multimeter
• Ability to use oscilloscope
• Shop Tools:
  • Milling
  • Drilling
  • Lathing
  • Digital logic
• Programming:
  • Programming AI
  • Programming motor control

Special cards

Penalties

• Mean lady that always sells too high
  • Pay double the roll of the dice for your next purchase
• "The components have to be delivered from Shenzhen"
  • Skip a turn
• "lost it" 
  • Lose one component (or your choice) to the discard pile

Bonuses

• "Nice guy/gal"
  • Force a trade with another player
• "Borrowing"
  • Take a component of your choice from another player
• TaoBao: the Chinese ecommerce market
  • Order anything from Taobao at half price (but wait one turn for delivery)

Making money in the game

• Writing articles
  • Share one skill to all players for a pre-set price
• Selling parts or teaching skills to other players
  • can occur at any time

Hackerspace community cards

Special Hackerspace card to get some help (example: XinCheJian)

• Buy at XinCheJian: any component, not broken, faster - a bit more expensive!
• Community help: special community member that can be used once anytime
  • David: get any unused community member on the table
  • TheNelson: get a complete motor control subsystem
  • Ricky: complete any project without schematics
  • Min Lin: next component purchase at half price
  • Michael: builds you mechanical parts at half the price
  • Edward: free useless machine
  • QiChen: gain all skills to build the quadcopter
  • Paul: get any software you want
  • Lio: substitute any part of the same type for another
  • Clemence: get any project schematic on the table
  • Rockets: pick any part from the discard pile

Benefits

• Fun!
• Promotion of hackerspaces
• Good promotional or fund raising gift
• Learn the Chinese/English terminology while building simple circuits.
• Collaboration with other hackerspaces (expansion packs that can be mixed in)
• Explains the process of building projects
• Localized cards to each different hackerspaces surrounding providing socio-cultural insights