ébresztő playing cards

december 15, 2020

i created a board game. my initial idea was to represent social phenomena in a playful way, without the result being awkward or cringe. i was inspired by a great german card game, halt mal kurz, and its gameplay is similar to mine. it even features a card called “communism,” which redistributes the players’ cards equally.

building on that, i started thinking about how i could represent everyday things, characters, and even distinctions and privileges using simple card actions in the game.

the backstory is that the players are in their dreams, where the mundane is supercharged, sometimes appearing as sweet dreams, other times as nightmares. the goal is for one player to wake up—hence the name, ébresztő, which means “wake up!”

the gameplay is similar to uno, where you play one card per turn, matching color to color, or symbol to symbol. the game ends when someone runs out of cards—meaning they’ve woken up. every card has an action that must be carried out when played.

what’s new compared to uno and the original german card game is that there are character cards that affect the player’s experience, either positively or negatively. for example, with the politician character card, you can then play any card, but with the allergic card, you can only play one specific kind. with the chain-smoker card, you have to beg someone for a card at the start of each turn, and with the nihilist card, the player isn’t allowed to speak.

there’s a lot of interaction between players, and there’s always someone playing with open cards. plenty of little details are woven into the game to keep it exciting.

as for the design, sweet dreams are represented by pink, and nightmares by orange. little lambs and monsters accompany the dreams on the cards. i drew each card by hand, paying attention to representing a variety of body types in the silhouettes.

i also designed the packaging so it can be flat-packed into a standard envelope, making shipping much easier and cheaper.