This week your nice hosts have a rowdy game jam. Dale gave us a prompt: Create a matching game with a puzzle element. The puzzle must be "what matches first" and bonus points if there's cats.

The goal of every Nice Games Jam is for the team to come up with a playable game by the end of the episode. Did Stephen, Mark, and Ellen make it happen, or did they end up with a pile of nonsense? Well, maybe a bit of both.

• The "dot game" that Ellen referenced is called Dots & Boxes - Wikipedia
• A three-sided die similar to the one that Eric, Ellen's partner, owns.
• Here's a place you can buy your own three-sided die - Nvenom8 Designs on ShapeWays Marketplace

Paper, pencil or pen

Each player should have:

• Paper (or someplace to compose sentences)
• Something to write with (typing on a screen is fine)
• Some way of indicating points passed to other players (chips, coins, etc.) -- in the rules below, these will be referred to as "chips"

The game requires three decks. As of this airing, each deck has three cards:

• Prompts deck

• "Nice to meet you."
• "Where is the bathroom?"
• "Can I pet your cat?"

• No letter Es (this is incredibly difficult)
• Exactly 4 words
• Only single-syllable words

• Most words
• Most letters
• Longest word in the sentence

The goal of the game is to acquire the most points out of all the players.

Players acquire points by writing sentences that adhere to the Prompt, Constraint, and Scoring card drawn for each round.

Setup

• Shuffle all three decks.
• Distribute chips evenly amongst all players.

Starting a Round

1. Draw a single card from each deck. Place all three face-down on the table.
2. Set the timer for the desired duration: 1 minute, 2 minutes (default) or 3 minutes.
3. Flip all three cards face-up and start the timer.
4. All players then attempt to compose a sentence that meets the criteria of all three cards (Prompt, Constraint, and Scoring) within the time limit.

Share Your Sentences

Each player speaks their sentence aloud. (If you're playing online, you can also enter your sentence into the text chat.) The sequence in which players share their sentences doesn't matter—just be nice about it.

Round Scoring

• Players can’t use any of the words in the phrase on the Prompt card. There’s a penalty (-1 point) for each word used. Exception: You can use the same spelling of a word if it’s another type of word (noun vs. verb)

• Alternate rule for extra challenge and silliness: Remove the exception to the above rule.

• Each chip received counts as 1 point for the receiving player.

Disputes

During Round Scoring, any player can raise an argument about how the rules apply to another player's sentence. If you bring an argument, you have to propose a resolution, and people will vote on the proposal. (For example, you can propose a change to someone's point total that round, or suggest a change to a person's sentence to bring it within the rules.) If the vote passes, the solution goes through.

Continue Play and End the Game

For each subsequent round of play, draw a new set of cards. Play and score according to the above rules.

The game ends when all Prompt cards have been used. Shuffle Constraints and Scoring cards back into their respective decks as needed.

The player with the most points wins!