game design

I'm working on new card game right now. It looks nothing like the standard set of cards above—it's even more pictorial. The game involves nuances of some well known standbys (i.e., War, Crazy Eight, and Uno), but the game-play and design is infused with enough originality to steer it well clear of patent issues. Which reminds me—I need to look into patent registration at some point. 

I just tried the latest iteration of the game out on my family tonight. It really helped to work out some of the major bugs involving card numbers and ratios. My aim is to make this something that could be played one on one, but also be just as enjoyable in a group setting. It's so interesting how things that seem so clear in your head become quickly obsolete once UX testing begins. In no time, we figured out the game wasn't intuitive enough and had too many "attack cards" (I'll explain later).  Nobody could win—at least not so far as we could tell for the first 20 minutes we played the game. So I whipped out my sharpie and neutralized half of the attack cards and we dealt out another game. It was night and day in terms of play. Still lots to figure out in user testing, so some of the illustrative aspects of the cards will remain crude until I have a firmer idea of game play.