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Description
A player is limited to playing a card or token that matches some feature on the card or the token played just prior. In some instances, several cards or tokens from previous plays will be visible and available to match against.
Discussion
The purest implementation of this mechanism, and the one that many players encounter very early in their lives, is in Crazy Eights and Uno. Play proceeds around a circle, and each player must play a card into the discard pile that matches either the value or color/suit of the card currently on top. Another example that may be familiar from childhood is Dominoes, in which players match numbers, rather than suits, and each tile features two values, one on each side, to facilitate matching. The simplicity of determining which plays are valid makes this an ideal mechanism for a lower-complexity game or for a subsystem in a high-complexity game. Games that feature matching as the core mechanism are often shedding games, where the objective is for a player to get rid of all their cards. The key design criterion that drives this mechanism, and makes it inter-esting, is to have multiple axes of matching or to make a single card have multiple matching opportunities. These axes can be thought of as tracks or paths that a player can use to play. Crazy Eights has two tracks—the suit track and the value track. The suit track is much larger—13 cards on 4 tracks, while the value track is the opposite—4 cards on 13 tracks. These
intersect to give players different paths to navigate through the hands to discard all cards. The designer needs to balance the number of crossing points at the different tracks and the size of each. Too many, and there will be little challenge in finding a match. Too few, and the game will lock, and many turns may be spent drawing cards or whatever the mechanism is to “unjam” the system. Matching can also be used as a subsystem or for bonuses on matches. Trick taking (CAR-01) is a matching mechanism, as players are restricted to following suit if possible. In Nightfall, cards have linking colors. Effect cards can be played in a chain, with each one linking to a color in the chain. After no more cards are added to the chain, the cards are resolved. Playing cards in chains is a key tactic in the game, as it allows for combo effects. This linking concept is used in the road game Geography, where players take turns naming a place, but it must begin with the last letter of the pre-vious player’s place. Players are not allowed to duplicate an answer already given, and the play continues until a player cannot come up with an answer. This game underscores the fundamental nature of this mechanism—restricting the domain of possible actions, hopefully to the one in which your opponent cannot. The game We the People uses matching as a combat resolution mechanism. At the start of each battle, players draw cards that show tactics. The attacker leads, and the defender must match the tactic played by the attacker or lose the battle. The defender may then attempt to seize the initiative and lead the next card, or else the attacker does. The definition of “matching” can also be extended to a category or rule, with interesting results. For example, in the difficult-to-internet-search-forgame The Game, players play cards to pile some of which must have higher cards played on them, and some of which require lower cards. The “match” space shrinks during the course of the round, giving a narrative arc. Many tile games, such as Carcassonne, require players to match sides to place tiles. These are discussed in SET-02, Tile Laying. Finally, some games require the players not to match but react to matches. This mechanism is most often found in speed games, such as Snorta! and Jungle Speed. In these games, players take turns flipping the top card of their personal draw piles. If the card flipped matches one showing for another player, the players involved must be the first to react. In Jungle Speed, players need to be the first to grab a wooden totem in the center of the table. In
Snorta! each player has an assigned animal, and players must make the animal noise of the player they matched. Several party games use a match, or sometimes anything-but-a-match mechanism. Some games leverage the Stroop Effect, including the eponymous Stroop. The Stroop Effect refers to the way our mental gears lock up when a word’s visual presentation differs from its meaning, e.g., the word “green” written in red text. In Stroop, players must play a word that visually looks like the textual definition on the previous card. Cockroach Salad has players playing salad ingredients, naming the cards as they play them. However, if a player matches the same card as played just previously, they must “lie” and claim the card being played is something else. Similarly, if a player plays a card that matches the claim of a previous player, even if it does not match the card just played (e.g., in the case where the previous player lied), they must lie too. These party games work because they subvert our expectations, both psychological and ludological, about how matching typically works.
Sample Games
Carcassonne (Wrede, 2000) Cockroach Salad (Zeimet, 2007) Crazy Eights (unknown) Dominoes (unknown) The Game (Benndorf, 2015) Geography (unknown) Jungle Speed (Vuarchex, Yakovenko, 1997) Nightfall (Gregg, 2011) Snorta! (Childs, Richardson, 2004) Stroop (Chaffer, 2017) Uno (Robbins, 1971) We the People (Herman, 1993)
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描述
玩家仅限于打出与刚才打出的卡牌或标记上的某些特征相匹配的卡牌或标记。在某些情况下，之前打出的几张卡牌或标记将可见并可供匹配。
讨论
这种机制最纯粹的实现，也是许多玩家在生命早期遇到的，是在《疯狂8》（Crazy Eights）和《Uno》中。游戏围圆圈进行，每位玩家必须向弃牌堆打出一张与当前顶部卡牌的数值或颜色/花色相匹配的牌。另一个大家童年可能熟悉的例子是《多米诺骨牌》（Dominoes），其中玩家匹配数字而不是花色，每个骨牌具有两个值，每侧一个，以便于匹配。确定哪些打法有效非常简单，这使其成为低复杂度游戏或高复杂度游戏中子系统的理想机制。以匹配为核心机制的游戏通常是脱手游戏（shedding games），玩家的目标是摆脱所有手牌。驱动这一机制并使其有趣的关键设计标准是拥有多个匹配轴，或者是使单张卡牌具有多个匹配机会。这些轴可以被认为是玩家可以用来游戏的轨道或路径。《疯狂8》有两条轨道——花色轨道及数值轨道。花色轨道要大得多——4条轨道上的13张卡，而数值轨道则相反——13条轨道上的4张卡。这些
相交，给玩家不同的路径来浏览手牌以丢弃所有卡牌。设计师需要平衡不同轨道上的交叉点数量和每个轨道的大小。太多了，寻找匹配就没有什么挑战。太少了，游戏就会锁定，许多回合可能会花费在抽牌或任何“疏通”系统的机制上。匹配也可以用作子系统或用于匹配奖励。吃墩（CAR-01）是一种匹配机制，因为玩家被限制在可能的情况下跟随花色。在《日暮》（Nightfall）中，卡牌具有链接颜色。效果卡可以连续打出，每一张都链接到链中的某种颜色。在没有更多卡牌添加到链中后，卡牌被解决。成链打牌是游戏中的一个关键战术，因为它允许连击效果。这种链接概念用于公路游戏《接龙》（Geography），玩家轮流命名一个地名，但它必须以前一个玩家地名的最后一个字母开头。玩家不允许重复已经给出的答案，游戏继续进行，直到玩家无法想出答案。这个游戏强调了这种机制的基本性质——限制可能动作的域，希望限制到你对手无法做到的域。游戏《我们人民》（We the People）使用匹配作为战斗解决机制。每次战斗开始时，玩家抽取显示战术的卡牌。攻击者领头，防守者必须匹配攻击者打出的战术，否则输掉战斗。然后，防守者可以尝试夺取主动权并领下一张牌，否则由攻击者领。
“匹配”的定义也可以扩展到类别或规则，产生有趣的结果。例如，在难以通过互联网搜索的游戏《The Game》中，玩家将卡牌打到堆上，其中一些必须打出更高的牌，有些需要更低的牌。“匹配”空间在回合过程中缩小，给出一个叙事弧线。许多板块游戏，如《卡卡颂》（Carcassonne），要求玩家匹配边来放置板块。这些在SET-02，板块放置中讨论。最后，有些游戏不要求玩家匹配，而是对匹配做出反应。这种机制最常出现在速度游戏中，如《学问猫》（Snorta!）和《图腾快手》（Jungle Speed）。在这些游戏中，玩家轮流翻开个人抽牌堆的顶牌。如果翻开的牌与另一名玩家展示的牌匹配，涉及的玩家必须第一个做出反应。在《图腾快手》中，玩家需要第一个抓住桌子中央的木制图腾。在
《学问猫》中，每个玩家都有一个指定的动物，玩家必须发出他们匹配的玩家的动物叫声。一些派对游戏使用匹配，或者有时是“除了匹配什么都行”的机制。有些游戏利用斯特鲁普效应，包括同名的《斯特鲁普》（Stroop）。斯特鲁普效应是指当一个词的视觉呈现与其含义不同时（例如，用红色文本书写的“绿色”一词），我们的思维齿轮锁住的方式。在《斯特鲁普》中，玩家必须打出一个在视觉上看起来像前一张卡片上的文本定义的词。《蟑螂沙拉》（Cockroach Salad）让玩家打出沙拉配料，在打出时说出卡牌的名字。然而，如果玩家匹配了刚才打出的同一张牌，他们必须“撒谎”并声称正在打出的牌是别的什么。同样，如果玩家打出一张与前一个玩家的主张相匹配的牌，即使它不匹配刚才打出的牌（例如，在前一个玩家撒谎的情况下），他们也必须撒谎。这些派对游戏之所以有效，是因为它们颠覆了我们在心理上和游戏逻辑上对匹配通常如何运作的预期。
游戏范例
Carcassonne (Wrede, 2000) - 《卡卡颂》 Cockroach Salad (Zeimet, 2007) - 《蟑螂沙拉》 Crazy Eights (unknown) - 《疯狂8》 Dominoes (unknown) - 《多米诺骨牌》 The Game (Benndorf, 2015) - 《The Game》 Geography (unknown) - 《接龙》 Jungle Speed (Vuarchex, Yakovenko, 1997) - 《图腾快手》 Nightfall (Gregg, 2011) - 《日暮》 Snorta! (Childs, Richardson, 2004) - 《学问猫》 Stroop (Chaffer, 2017) - 《斯特鲁普》 Uno (Robbins, 1971) - 《Uno》 We the People (Herman, 1993) - 《我们人民》