Pit is a competitive, fast-paced game created by an American games company called Parker Brothers in 1904 and was developed by Edgar Cayce. The target audience is ages 6+ and the game supports 3 to 8 players. It is a card game designed to simulate open outcry bidding for commodities. Our team’s concept is called Sabotage & Spice, and is a card game in which players try to create recipes and sabotage one another by trading cards.
I argue that at a high level, both games facilitate fellowship and competition as their main aesthetics. The premise of the games differ, but are both modeled after fast-paced and stressful environments – a market and a kitchen. In both games, cards have food on them and players must acquire a winning hand to end the game – by either closing the market in Pit or creating the optimal recipe in Sabotage & Spice. Both use multilateral competition, as players are competing against each other to create the best hand first.
The mechanics and dynamics that arise to create these aesthetics differ immensely.
In Pit, the deck comes with seven suits (e.g. wheat, barley, oats) and the number of suits used depends on the number of players. For instance, with four players, four suits are picked and all nine of each suit are shuffled and divided evenly among the players. This means that players need the resources in other players’ hands to win, forcing them to work together by trading. When the market opens (gameplay starts), players yell the number of cards they want to trade (“trade 3 or trade 2”) and can trade with each other as desired. Players must trade one commodity at a time, meaning if they are “trading 3” they must trade three of the same suit. Players must be honest and cannot deviate from trading the same suit. The required honesty, open trading, and need for other players’ cards create a dynamic in which players are willing and eager to trade with one another.
This causes extremely loud, fast, and social gameplay and the strong fellowship aesthetic. It is worth noting that the objectives and procedures for this game are extremely simple, yet players experience frustration and excitement during gameplay; the design of the game takes advantage of the fact that with less room to strategize and think, rounds are quick and engaging (one of our rounds took only 1 minute). Specifically, I noticed that my only decisions regarding my strategy were which suit to trade, how many cards to yell for, and who to trade with (this only matters if you have been trading the same suit back and forth with someone).
While players in Pit are constantly yelling and accepting trades with one another, creating a chaotic social environment, players in Sabotage & Spice either draw and discard cards or civilly (usually) trade cards during market rounds. This is the result of differing rules and procedures. In Sabotage and Spice, players each take one turn in which they can either draw or discard an ingredient. This round creates a dynamic in which players observe each other’s discards to try and figure out which recipe they are going for. In this part of the game, players have more resources and strategies to choose from, and gameplay is therefore more strategic and slow than in Pit.
Unlike Pit, players do not have to participate in the trading to complete their recipe; they may be able to complete the recipe using the draw deck alone. Players are not required to be honest with one another in their trades. This creates a dynamic in which players are hesitant to trade and have little incentive to help each other out. Our team is brainstorming ways to fix this issue, as we want our game to force players to interact with each other.
To conclude, Pit’s formal elements include simple objectives and procedures, honest rules, and limited resources and strategies. Players are forced to work together because they need the cards in each other’s hands to win, and players race against each other to acquire a complete hand first. These mechanics and dynamics facilitate fellowship and competition as aesthetics. Sabotage & Spice’s formal elements are more complicated: objectives are to complete their recipe first and create the highest scoring hand; procedures include normal rounds and marketrounds; resources include the discard pile, event cards, and the draw pile. Players are able – but not forced – to work together, and must be aware of what recipes other players are going for, the point system, and who is honest or dishonest in their trades. These mechanics and dynamics facilitate fellowship and competition as aesthetics, though fellowship could be further emphasized by forcing players to participate in trades.
