Who Broke It? is a fast paced card game for 2-6 players.

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In Who Broke It? players are siblings that have accidentally broken their mother's favourite vase. No one wants to be blamed for breaking the vase, so players must make sure to not have the Broken Vase at the end of the game. A document containing all the cards and rules can be found here.

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Who Broke is currently still be tested and developed. Each card needs art, and a few cards may need to be changed.

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Gameplay and Rules

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To start the game, every player is dealt four cards and places one card face-down in front of them, which is removed from the round. Play begins with the youngest player (or whoever lost the previous game), and begins clockwise. Each player's turn consists of playing (discarding) a card, using the effect, and drawing until they have three cards. Player continues until every player has one card left in their hand. When every player has one card left they are all revealed and whoever has the Broken Vase, loses.

 

If the entire effect of a card cannot be used, it will have no effect. For example, if a card requires the player to draw another card, but there are no cards in the deck, they do not do anything and play continues to the next player.

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When swapping cards with another player, or choosing a card to swap with another player, only the cards that were in a player's hand can be swapped. For example, if cards are to be passed onto the next player, any individual card can only be swapped once, and cannot be passed around back to the original owner.

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Cards

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Broken Vase - Lose if discarded

Spare Vase - Does nothing

Hide the Evidence - Shuffle one card into the deck

Blind Accusation - Everyone takes one card from the next player

False Accusation - One player's next card does nothing

It's Their Fault - Give your hand to another player and take that many cards from them

It was my Evil Twin - Swap hands with another player

Alibi - Immune to card effects until your next turn

Excuses, Excuses - Reverse play direction

Distraction - Discard a card

Share the Blame - Everyone gives one card to the next player

Shouting Match - Shuffle everyone's hands together and deal them

Call Mum - Choose a player, if they have the Broken Vase, they lose

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Game Design Notes

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Gameplay involves players using cards to keep themselves safe and keep the Broken Vase out of their hand.

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Different cards are designed around being good and bad at different stages in a game. As some cards do not have effects when no cards are in the deck, it may be beneficial to use them early, or to hold them as duds until the end. Some cards are better played early (Blind Accusation), or kept until later (It's Their Fault). While some cards can be fun to play anytime (Call Mum, and Shouting Match).

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Cards are designed around keeping every player's hand at the same number at all times. This is to keep every player playing until the game ends, and to make players think strategically about their plays. The following is a list of specific instances of design that forces player's hands to remain consistent:

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• Shouting Match - Dealing the cards starts with the next player, so that when play continues, if the number of cards dealt to each player is not the same, that player (or following players) will have an extra card so hand counts return to being even.

• Excuses, Excuses - This card has no effect if other players don't have the same number of cards in their hand, so that a payer cannot go down to one card in their hand while another player has three.

• It was my Evil Twin - Requires the player to draw a card first, so that both players will have three cards at the end of the turn and the targeted player won't have one less card.

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Previous Versions/Changes

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Though playtesting, the game rules and cards have changed slightly. Below is a list of changes made since the original version of the game:

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• Out of the House - Card Removed. Out of the House skipped that player's next turn, but would have no effect if there were no cards in the deck when that player's turn came around. This card was removed after initial playtesting as it was difficult to keep track of and did not add very much to the game.

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• Call Mum - Card Added. Call Mum was added as a way to introduce a forced win in the game, and give the chance that games could end if player's were able to keep track of cards that were passed around.

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• Share the Blame/Blind Accusation - Reduced number/Card Added. Share the Blame allowed for deliberate movement of cards between players, and made it easy to track where the Broken Vase was going (if a player had it). Share the Blame was reduced, and Blind Accusation was added to introduce some randomness to passing cards around.

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• Dealing four card - Rule Change. Dealing an extra card to every player, and having them remove one card was introduced to add more randomness to the game. A secondary intention of this was to prevent players from being able to count cards as any card could be removed.