My Pet card game

So, for challenge 6 we had a few options of which to do. I went back on forth on which one to do. One was to take the game Risk and modify the rules to advocate world peace. I toyed with this one for a while but couldn’t come up with a set of rules that would still maintain the fun of the game.
I ended up doing the option to create a game that introduces the concept of grief to children. I came up with the following:

For dealing with grief I have designed a card game to deal with the life, and ultimately the death, of a pet. While the deck presented below is set up as a ‘dog’ deck, it would be easy to modify for other pets – cats, fish, hamsters, etc (for shorter lived pets the age cards would be months instead of years).

This can be played as a solo game or as with other children. Each child would have their own deck and take turns playing as below. The decks don’t mix.

The 50 card deck consists of the following cards:
1 Young Pet card – depicting a puppy. Text: ”Young Pet. Start with this card in play.”
1 Adult Pet card – depicting the adult dog. Text: “Adult Pet”
1 Passing/death/better place card – depicting a pleasant afterwards (example – tree on a hill, empty field, sunny day, rainbow, etc). Text: “Passing”

20 age cards – depicting a birthday cake. Text: “Age”
10 play cards – depicting a ball or a stick/Frisbee being thrown. Text: “Play. 1 point”
10 training cards – depicting a leash or a whistle. Text “Training”
1 simple trick card – depicting a begging dog. Text: “Simple Trick: Beg. Needs 1 Training. 2 points”
1 simple trick card – depicting a dog barking. Text: “Simple Trick: Speak. Needs 1 Training. 2 points”
1 trick card – depicting a dog running with a stick in its mouth. Text: “Trick: Fetch. Needs 2 Training. 3 Points”
1 trick card – depicting a dog walking behind legs. Text: “Trick: Heel. Needs 2 Training. 3 Points”
1 trick card – depicting a dog lying down. Text: “Trick: Play Dead. Needs 2 Training. 3 Points”
1 trick card – depicting a dog sitting. Text: “Trick: Stay. Needs 2 Training. 3 Points”
1 trick card – depicting a dog rolling over. Text: “Trick: Roll Over. Needs 2 Training. 3 Points”

Rules (for younger children):
Remove the Young Pet, Adult Pet, and Passing cards from the deck and place aside. Shuffle the remaining cards and place the deck face down. Place the Young Pet in front of you and draw 3 cards to start.

The turn sequence:
- Draw a card to start your turn.
- You may play one Age card.
- You may also play one of the following cards. Note that you may not have more scoring cards in play than Age cards.
- Play a Play card.
- Play a Training card.
- If you have enough Training cards in play you may play a Trick card. Discard the needed amount of Training cards from play as are on the Trick card.
- If you have more than 5 cards in your hand, discard a card. You may not discard an Age card.
- Once you have 10 Age cards in play, change your Pet card to the Adult Pet.
- Once you have 20 Age cards in play, change your Pet card to the Passing card. Add up your Play and Trick cards to see what kind of life your pet had.
- The next player may now take a turn or go back to start of the turn if you are playing by yourself.




Rules (for older children):
Remove the Young Pet and Adult Pet from the deck and place aside. Shuffle the remaining cards (including the Passing card) and place the deck face down. Place the Young Pet in front of you and draw 5 cards to start.

While the Young Pet is in play:
- Draw a card to start your turn.
- You may play one Age card.
- You may also play one of the following cards. Note that you may not have more scoring cards in play than Age cards.
- Play a Play card.
- Play a Training card.
- If you have enough Training cards in play you may play a Trick card. Discard the needed amount of Training cards from play as are on the Trick card.
- If you have more than 5 cards in your hand, discard a card. You may not discard an Age card.
- If you draw the Passing card, change your Pet card to the Adult Pet. Place the Passing card in the discard pile, and reshuffle the discards and the remaining cards in the deck together and place the deck face down.
- The next player may now take a turn or go back to start of the turn if you are playing by yourself.


While the Adult Pet is in play:
- Draw a card to start your turn.
- Play any Age cards in your hand.
- You may also play one of the following cards. Note that you may not have more scoring cards in play than Age cards.
- Play a Play card.
- Play a Training card.
- If you have enough Training cards in play you may play a Trick card. Discard the needed amount of Training cards from play as are on the Trick card.
- If you have more than 5 cards in your hand, discard a card. You may not discard an Age card.
- If you draw the Passing card, the game ends. Add up your Play and Trick cards to see what kind of life your pet had.
- The next player may now take a turn or go back to start of the turn if you are playing by yourself.