8/15/2006
Start Player: a Kinda Collectible Card Game
How much valuable gaming time is lost by figuring out the start player to your next game? By our calculations, more than 3,000 games of Caylus, 23,500 games of Geschenkt and up to 1,800 games of Twilight Imperium, 3rd Edition could be played each year if gamers took less time choosing a start player.

Start Player solves this problem: Just turn over the first card and you’ll KNOW who the start player is. Maybe it’s as simple as the tallest player, or the player with the most buttons. It might be a little more challenging, like the player who owns the most games, or even the player who claims to have the lowest IQ. Regardless, you’ll know within seconds who will start your next game. There’s even a built-in tiebreaker system in the unlikely event of a tie. It’s the most comprehensive, foolproof system ever devised for determining who starts a game.

Each Start Player card is uniquely illustrated with characters from Board 2 Pieces, the boardgame comic strip from Start Player designer Ted Alspach.

Number of players: 2-infinity
Game length: less than 10 seconds
Difficulty: Ridiculously easy

It’s kinda collectible because there’s a very low competitive element to the game: yes, technically you can build a deck that’s in your favor, and collecting all the cards gives you more options to do so, but the true spirit of the game is much closer to a party game: it’s a great (though super-quick) way to start playing any game, that’s full of interaction and fun. While it might take less than 10 seconds to determine who starts, my experience so far is that players grab the deck and start going through it reading the comics and the categories to other people. And of course, at its heart, it’s mocking the whole CCG/TCG phenomena.

It’s really a gaming accessory, a dice tower/plastic sleeve/baggies/rubber-bands-on-the-box kind of thing.