Brawl is a real-time card game

Real-time card game

A real-time card game is a card game in which all players may act simultaneously .The card game Set has a real-time element; in Set, the players are racing to identify patterns in the cards on the table...

 designed by James Ernest

James Ernest

James Ernest is an American game designer and juggler. He is best known as the owner and lead designer of Cheapass Games. Prior to founding Cheapass, he worked as a juggler at various venues, including Camlann Medieval Village, and as a freelancer with Wizards of the Coast. He also worked for...

 and released in 1999

1999 in games

This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and table-top role-playing games published in 1999. For video and console games, see 1999 in video gaming.-Game awards given in 1999:...

 by Cheapass Games

Cheapass Games

Cheapass Games is a game company founded and run by game designer James Ernest, based in Seattle, Washington. Cheapass Games operates on the philosophy that most game owners have plenty of dice, counters, play money, etc., so there is no need to bundle all of these components with every game that...

.

Gameplay

Like Spit

Spit (card game)

Spit, also referred to as Slam or Speed, is a game of the shedding family of card games for two players. The game is played until all of someone's cards are gone; at which time, the game has finished.-Gameplay:...

 or Icehouse

Icehouse (game)

Icehouse is a turnless abstract strategy game invented by Andrew Looney and John Cooper. It was the first of many games played with Icehouse pieces....

, players in Brawl do not take turns, instead either making a move or staying inactive as best suits their strategy at that moment. The game is fast-paced (games typically last a minute or two) but still has a fairly high level of strategy.

Each player has a different deck of cards. The object of the game is to win the most Base-cards by playing the most Hit-cards onto the Base before a Freeze-card is played on it. The game ends when a Freeze is being played on every Base in play. Player wins a Base-card if he has most Hits on his side of the Base. If both players have the same number of Hits on the Base, the owner of the Base-card wins the Base.

Cards

Here are all different types of cards published in the decks, as of 2006, including rules applying to them and some facts:

Base

• At the beginning of the game, each player places one Base on the field.

During the play, a Base is played either to the left or the right of Bases already in play. There can never be more than three(3) Bases in play at the same time.

A Base is considered to have two sides, one for each player, on which one can play Hit-cards

Hit

Hits come in three(3) basic colours, Blue, Red and Green.

A Hit can be played on either side of a Base that does not already have a Hit-card. A The Hit can also be played on a Hit of the same colour.

Kasanova-deck introduces a unique Wild Hit, which can be played on any Hit, but not on a Base or a Press. Also, any Hit or Block can be played on a Wild Hit.

Hit-2

Follows exactly the same rules as an ordinary Hit and is counted as one, except that it cannot be played on a Base or a Press. Also, when counting for the winner of a Base, Hit-2 counts as two(2) Hits.

Block

Blocks come in three(3) basic colours, Blue, Red and Green.

A Block can be played on a Hit of the same colour.

Ting Ting -deck introcuses a unique Wild Block, which can be played on any Hit.

Clear

A Clear is played on a Base after which that Base and all cards played on it are moved to the side of the field. This Base is no longer in play.

If there is only one(1) Base, you can not play Clear on it. Also, if there are three(3) Bases in play, you can not play Clear on the one in the middle.

Press

A Press can be played either on a Base, a Base Modifier or a Block.

If played on a Block, a Hit can be played on it. This Hit must be the same colour as the Hit under the Block.

If played on a Base or a Base Modifier, it nulls the effect of every Base Modifier (if any) underneath it.

Freeze

Every deck has three(3) Freezes and they are places at the bottom of the deck between mixing of the cards and the beginning of the game.

A Freeze can be played on a Base. After that, no more cards can be played on that Base or on any other card connected to it.

Base Modifiers

The Base Modifiers were first introduced by the Club Foglio Set and cannot be found from the original 6 decks. They are all played on a Base, another Base Modifier or a Press played on any of the previous two kinds of cards.

Hold

If no other card has been played on a Hold, it prevents a Clear from being played on that Base.

• Only found in the Club Foglio -decks.

Null

When counting won bases at the end of the game, the base under this card counts towards neither player;

• Only found in the Club Foglio -decks.

Reverse

When counting hits towards winning a Base, odd number Reverses switches the owner of both sides.

Double

When counting won bases at the end of the game, this Base counts as double the number of bases for each Double on it.

• First introduced in the Catfight
  Catfight
  Catfight is a term for an altercation between two women, typically involving scratching, slapping, hair-pulling, and shirt-shredding as opposed to punching or wrestling . However, the term is not exclusively used to indicate a fight between women, and many formal definitions do not invoke gender...
  
   Set

Decks

The original set consisted of 6 decks:

• Bennett
• Chris
• Darwin
• Hale
• Morgan
• Pearl

As of 2006, four sets of expansions are available for the game:

• Catfight
  Catfight
  Catfight is a term for an altercation between two women, typically involving scratching, slapping, hair-pulling, and shirt-shredding as opposed to punching or wrestling . However, the term is not exclusively used to indicate a fight between women, and many formal definitions do not invoke gender...
  
   Set
  • Nickie
  • Sonia
  • Tamiya
• Club Foglio Set
  • Alex
  • Crane
  • Gina
  • Mischo
  • Rent
  • Tess
• Ting-Ting
• Kasanova

In 2001, Brawl: Club Foglio won the Origins Award

Origins Award

The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...

s for Best Card Game Expansion or Supplement 2000 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game 2000.

In 2005, the French company Eclipse Vis Comica published the six original decks in French (though the cards were in English), and added a new promotional deck, Natacha which was available only with the proof of purchase of all 6 standard decks. These decks were all 44 cards instead of the original 35 cards, and included new rules, including "customization" options. For this edition, the name of the game was changed to Fight, and the characters were all replaced with more flashy, anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

-style characters.

External links

• Kasanova deck, an unreleased licensed Brawl deck
• Brawl Spoilers, a quick-reference table for the recipe of each of the decks for Brawl