by Poon Jon

King and Peasant is an 18-card game that I designed in 2023. It was supposed to hit the printers in 2024, but I decided to publish Furmation of Rome first instead.

Hi, everyone, I'm Jon, and I run an indie publishing company in Malaysia called nPips Games. Welcome to my second designer diary. Grab a cup of coffee as I'm about to take you through the journey of this game from an idea to physical cards.

Introduction to 18-Card Games

I was introduced to Button Shy in 2023 and was absolutely hooked on designing 18-card games. It was such a fun challenge that I ended up with three solid game ideas that made it to the prototype stage. First was King and Peasant, next "Cowboys and Zombies", and finally "Cop and Cartel".

Each of these games had their mechanisms inspired by other games. King and Peasant drew inspiration from Exploding Kittens, with its "hide the bomb in the deck" mechanism. "Cowboys and Zombies" was inspired by Red Dragon Inn's player elimination mechanism in which you have to make two tracks meet. "Cop and Cartel" was inspired by the classic card game Concentration, a memory game with a splash of modern boardgame mechanisms.

Only King and Peasant made the cut, so I will not further elaborate on the other two designs.


Medieval Theme

I love the beige-colored, medieval-fantasy setting: peasant revolts, the overthrow of the crown, kings getting assassinated — these are classic tales from the medieval era that have been told time and time again. What better way to capture that chaos and tension than with the bomb mechanism from Exploding Kittens?

From Idea to Cards

The game had two factions — the King fighting to hold power, and the revolting peasants — so a two-player game was the perfect fit, with one player taking on the role of the King, and the other the collective peasants.

I have been playing Magic: The Gathering for almost twenty years, and designing card effects is a part of game design that always gets me excited. Since King and Peasant is an 18-card game with the spirit of Exploding Kittens, it only made sense for players to share a deck. Due to the limitation of card count, I decided to split the cards in half: one side for the King, the other for the peasants. This doubles the amount of content, and it also gives both factions a distinct identity. This, however, significantly limits the amount of artwork and text I can place on each card.

To give the peasants full control of the assassin card, they will start the game with it in their hand. If the assassin started in the deck, the game would be too random, taking away player agency. To prevent the peasant from always placing the assassin on top of the deck, the King starts the game with sentinel cards that allow the King to look at and rearrange the top three cards of the deck.

Thematically, most people in a medieval kingdom were peasants. The King wouldn't know which of them were rebels trying to get him, while the King's guards were always stationed outside the castle walls, visible to everyone. To translate this into gameplay, the peasant plays their cards face down, while the King plays their cards face up. Diving further into the theme, to mirror the historical imbalance of the number of peasants and guards in a kingdom, the King is limited to three guards in play at any time, while the peasant can have any number of rebels on the table.

To add tension, strategy, and tactical play, all cards except "instant cards" must first be played on the table before their effects can be used. This gives the opponent a chance to respond to your actions, at the cost of dragging the game a little.


At this stage, the game as played looks like this:

Set-up
The peasant starts with two decoys and one assassin face down on the table, and the King starts with two sentinels and one spy face up. Shuffle the deck, then deal two cards to each player.

Gameplay
Decoys and the assassin are cards where you can use an action to slide them into the deck, and the King loses when he draws the assassin.

Over on the King's side, sentinels allow you to look at the top three cards of the deck and rearrange them, while the spy allows you to reveal a face-down card on the board.

Each player takes turns performing one action until a player loses. The King wins when the deck runs out of cards or if he is able to discard the assassin. The peasant wins when the King draws the assassin card.

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate

At this stage, the game felt quite repetitive, with multiple copies of the same cards that had underwhelming effects. Each game felt largely the same, with no tension at all. Starting with the same three cards on the board felt like a routine, with few meaningful decisions to be made.


In the next iteration, I increased the number of unique cards from six to ten. Set-up was a little more dynamic as instead of starting with the same three cards on the board and drawing two cards from the deck, players started with five cards in their hand: three fixed and two from the deck. The first three turns usually consisted of players populating the board with the same guards and rebels that previously began in play, so now the game was not only repetitive, it was draggy and repetitive.

In the final iteration, I made all cards unique, except for three copies of spy//thug. The set-up changed, with peasant starting with an assassin and decoy, and the King starting with a sentinel. Each player draws up to five cards, including the cards they started with, then each player chooses three guards/rebels to start the game with instead of starting with specific cards. Then the game proceeds with the peasant going first.


This small change reduced the chance of players getting the same hand of cards every game, and it also skips the slow process of setting up your board, throwing you straight into action.

Throughout the iteration process, the core gameplay stayed the same, with changes made only to the cards and set-up. Due to the limited number of cards, they became more powerful and flashy. Each action must feel impactful because the game can end quite abruptly.

Card effects were designed to advance each faction's goals in unique ways. Some rebel card effects allow the peasant to draw, then place cards from their hand on top of the deck, or shuffle all rebels in town into the deck, thereby keeping the King on his toes at all times, unsure as to when the assassin has entered the deck. The King, on the other hand, gained tools to look into the deck, discard cards from the deck, and even discard cards from town. Because the King's guards are public knowledge, just having certain guards on the board can pose a threat.


The game went through all sorts of playtests to get to this stage, from quick single-round demos with strangers to intensive two-hour sessions with the goal of breaking the game. From these playtests I have gathered that both factions have their own strengths, which might appear imbalanced during certain playthroughs. Some card combinations can be very powerful if executed in the right order. You might get an incredible starting hand, but the ability to execute that hand of cards flawlessly will be difficult, especially with the "one action per turn" rule. Of course some cards break that rule, and the most explosive combos usually involve them.

After going through hundreds of rounds of this game, I have gained a new perspective. When playing with the same player repeatedly, King and Peasant stopped being just a tactical two-player game, evolving into a subtle mind game of bluffs and reads.

Feedback — the Good and the Ugly

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I have received was "Why not make the cards opposite of each other?" I did experiment along these lines, but it didn't work out. Visually it felt right, and the symmetry looked clean, but because of that, it never felt wrong when players looked at their hand from the opponent's side of the card. I found it much easier to teach the game by telling players the King uses the top part of the card, while the peasant uses the bottom.


Next were the cries of imbalance. Some were convinced it was impossible for the peasant to win; others insisted I nerf the peasant because the King was helpless against the assassin. The feedback was quite divided, which to me was a good sign. It meant both sides had potential, with victory swinging heavily based on board state and the number of cards left in the deck. Every turn could be a turning point, which is exactly the kind of tension I wanted.

Other common feedback included requests to increase the number of cards, to change the theme, and sometimes "That's it?" Through all this, I have developed a personal barometer to gauge whether someone was actually engaged in the game. If I didn't get a visible or audible reaction when I slipped the assassin into the deck, that was a clear sign they weren't feeling it.


On the brighter side, I have received a lot of flattering comments from when I sold beta copies of the game in an exhibition, feedback from the Cardboard Edison judges, feedback from blind playtests, etc. Those moments boosted my confidence in pushing forward with this game.

That's a Wrap

After many, many, many long conversations with friends and plenty of solo ruminations, King and Peasant felt like the right choice to be the next game I publish. It might not stand toe-to-toe with great two-player titles released in the recent years like Kelp, Ironwood, and The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth, but I'm genuinely proud of the design. I'm sure there's room for an 18-card game that fits neatly on a coffee table and still delivers satisfying, tactical gameplay.

I will be sending a few copies to the United States, and they are expected to arrive around August. You can get a copy through Geekmarket or catch me in events within SEA. PNP and TTS versions are available, too.