Piecepack

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Piecepack
Piecepack logo.svg
An Infinite Board Game.jpg
Some components from The Infinite Board Game
Designers James Kyle
Publication2001;24 years ago (2001)
GenresGame System
Website https://piecepack.net

Piecepack is a public-domain game system that can be used to play a wide variety of board games, [1] much as a standard deck of cards can be used to play thousands of card games ("A game system is a set of components that function together in multiple games" [2] ). Piecepack has been used by dozens of different game designers to create over 225 different board games and is available from many different manufacturers. It was created by James Kyle in 2001. [3]

Contents

The system consists of 24 tiles, 24 coins, 4 pawns, and 4 dice. [4] The Mystique Deck has been designed to use the same 4 suits (Suns, Moons, Arms, and Crowns), for compatibility with the Piecepack system. [5] The pieces are sometimes used in conjunction with other components, including dominoes or playing cards. [6]

The book The Infinite Board Game: Introducing the Amazing Piecepack System, published by Workman Publishing Company in 2015, details 50 of the games and includes a piecepack set with it, although the set included deviates from the published specification in the location of the suit markers. This deviation renders certain piecepack games (for example, Alien City) unplayable with the Infinite Boardgame piecepack. [7] The piecepack is one of the base game systems included in Tabletop Simulator [8] and is also available as a module for the Vassal Engine. [9]

The system has been used for prototyping other games, including the prototyping of video games. [10]

Expansions

HexPack

This is also a public domain expansion, which adds hexagonal tiles and triangular coins, using the same 4 suits as Piecepack.

Hexpack was created by Daniel Wilcox and Nathan Morse in 2008. They developed Hexpack as an expansion to extend the possibilities of the original modular system, introducing hexagonal pieces as an alternative to the square ones.

As an expansion, some or all of the Piecepack components can be used in the games, but this expansion has no additional dice or pawns.

CardPack

CardPack also in the public domain brings the system to cards.

There are 4 suits (arms, suns, moons and crowns) for the cards. And the cards are of empty value or 0, AS, 2, 3, 4, 5, like PiecePack.

There are also additional cards similar to the Joker card in poker where one is the 5 card values and the other the 5 suits.

Matchsticks


This expansion was created by Dan Burkey in 2018, and is in the public domain. It adds 144 pieces in the form of matchsticks. The reason for this expansion is to provide pieces to create games that involve roads, walls or similar elements.

The 144 pieces are broken down into:

In the centre of each stick is the number with one of the six values of the PiecePack (null or 0, ace or 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5). And each stick has the suit symbol at one end. This helps to give the north-south orientation to the sticks with the stick symbol.

The measurements are:

AcesPack

Expansion created by Miguel de Dios Matías in 2025 of public domain that adds aces.

The reason for this expansion is to contribute two things:

Increasing the possibilities for games that need either 5 suits or have random suits (for example using the dice with the faces with Piecepack suits).

Furthermore this expansion applies this logic to the other Piecepack expansions, such as HexPack, CardPack, Matchsticks by adding their corresponding Aces components. Adding the two Aces suits, the numeric and the suit suit suit. The exception is CardPack which does not add the composite card suit with the other Piecepack symbols because it already exists previously in this expansion as Aces of each suit.

References

  1. Martin, W. Eric (July 2004). "You Want a Piece of This?". Games .
  2. Hale-Evans, Ron (December 2001). "Game Systems – Part 1". The Games Journal. Archived from the original on December 28, 2001. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  3. Kyle, James (Summer 2001). "The Piecepack: In Search of a Generic, Universal Boardgame Set". Grampa Barmo's Discount Game Magazine (1).
  4. Brathwaite, Brenda; Schreiber, Ian (2009). Challenges for Game Designers. Cengage Learning. p. 93. ISBN   978-1584506232.
  5. Andrés, Néstor (2014). 12+1 games for the Mystique Deck. p. 8. ISBN   978-1-291-98316-6.
  6. Sakkas, Chris. "Free Culcha Piecepack" (PDF). Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  7. Eric Martin, W. (2015-11-03). The Infinite Board Game - Workman Publishing. Workman Publishing. ISBN   9780761185154 . Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  8. "Tabletop Simulator". Berserk Games. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  9. "Module:Piecepack" . Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  10. Miller, Olivia (Spring 2014). "Collecting Library Resources for Video Game Design Students: An Information Behavior Study". Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America. 33 (1): 129–146. doi:10.1086/675712. S2CID   110542576.