Every once in awhile a card game comes out that makes you go… “why didn’t I think of that??”. This is one of those games. Conceptualized by Len Kendall and currently funding on Kickstarter, Western Tropic takes a standard game and evolves it into something greater. Brilliant!
Western Tropic is played with a deck of standard playing cards but it utilizes a set of custom components and symbols that give the game far more depth. The game includes a custom 52-card deck that can be used for any standard card game. In addition to the typical suits you see on a deck of cards, the Western Tropic deck includes suits that remind you of each suit’s abilities.
The gameplay utilizes a 5×5 grid that acts as a communal, but ever-changing set of cards that players use to create the best possible poker hand. Much like Texas Hold’em, each player has hole cards that are unique to them. What makes it fun and challenging is the use of an extra (third) hole card each round that can be traded in, to grant various actions such as moving your character around the grid, or changing the grid, altogether.
Here are 5 things you should know about Western Tropic:
1. This deck of custom cards was originally designed for use with the upcoming tabletop game Western Tropic. The game takes the spirit of Texas Hold’em poker, but adds significantly more depth and strategy to the game by utilizing additional components and rules.
2. The playing cards that come with the deck, art by graphic designer Brooks Engel (Instagram: @nowherelandsupply), received so much attention. Len told Kardify,“ I decided to offer the deck on its own for those who were only interested in the playing cards. Since there is a strong community of playing card collectors, this has proven to be a very popular option for the Kickstarter campaign. The deck has also picked up quite a bit of attention on Reddit.
3. The theme of the game and the corresponding design is a juxtaposition of two genres that generally don’t go together: The Wild West and Tropical/Jungle. The premise of the game is that an eccentric billionaire hosts an annual card game tournament on a remote island in the Pacific. Since he’s a fan of Westerns, he has recreated an old west town in the middle of this island (think West World if you’ve seen that show). “The real-world island that actually inspired the game is called the Palmyra Atoll. I even had an artist sketch a fictionalized version of the island to add further detail to the world I’m building around this game (image below)”.
4. While these two opposing themes are mixed in through-out the full game, you can also see the subtle combination of them solely in the card deck. “The tuck box focuses primarily on the island art (with hidden skull graphic created by the design) while the actual cards are a combination of the two themes. For example, the King card leans more into the cowboy feel, but the leaves surrounding him still tie back to the jungle elements. The overall color scheme also is meant to reference both desert and the jungle environments.”
5. As of right now, Len is only going to produce/sell these cards via the Kickstarter campaign. It will be active until October 11th. The actual cards will then move into production and will be available by or before February.
Printed by AdMagic, the standalone Western Tropic Playing Cards is available on Kickstarter for $10 or get the full game for $25!
