May 24, 2024

Game Pile: Lysen Co

Hey! Hey guess what?

This is a Game Pile about a game I made, not about someone else’s game! And I’m going to talk about it because I made it so you can play it!

A card back for the Lysen Co cards. It depicts a corporate logo showing an apple in a pair of green hands, on a golden circle, with the not unmenacing corporate catchphrase "Where nobody doesn't belog."

This is the print and play of my game of corporate beaurocracy and obscure sorting algorithms, the Stalin Sort game, Lysen Co! It’s a trick-taker game in which you’re trying to make sure whatever it is you do, it’s in some kind of order, even if it messes with anyone else.

First up, here’s the downloadable print-and-play file. Printable on an A4 sheet. There’ll be a Letter sized eventually. And below the fold, here’s the rules!

This is an Alpha! If you play the game and have rules questions, let me know!

A bunch of cards from Lysen Co. It shows a Senior Researcher, a Senior Admin and a Junior Admin. The Junior Admin's card is labelled with a visitor pass that marks them as a FILTHY TRAITOR.

Lysen Co.

Welcome to your new position of Commissioned Human Resource Dispensation here at Lysen Co Food Technologies! We trust that you’re going to do your best for the betterment of all mankind as represented by the correct and accurate construction of optimal ‘tiger team’ panels for the full-time distribution of actualised test partners! Don’t worry, we know you’d never let us down – no member of our employment family ever has!

This game was made by Invincible Ink. This game’s rules were written by Talen Lee. The art assets were from Freepik, the fonts  are Fyodor by Chris M. Hughes, and Supermolot by Jovanny Lemonad, and original art and composition are by Talen Lee.

Goal

You’re building teams of employees for the Lysen Co, an enormous company that’s researching… food. Or something. It’s complicated. It needs a lot of people. And you’re part of a team recruitment program, where each player is going to build teams with a trick-taking and super-efficient scoring mechanism!

Components

This is a print-and-play version of this game. The 52 cards in this game only need one face visible, and need to be able to be shuffled, so you need them to be reasonably stiff. Using sleeved playing cards and putting these cards in the face should work fine.

A list of techniques for making print and play cards you can shuffle is available here: https://youtu.be/WyMVRJu5yQ4

You don’t need any other components for this game. It’s just a deck of cards.

Setup

Shuffle the deck. Deal to each player 5 cards. Set the deck in a space for the players to reach, and next to it will be a space you use for a discard pile as the game goes on. Select a player to be the first Team Pro Partner by some method or other. Cut to card numbers if you’re out of other options, or have it be the person who most recently got a Performance Review or says ‘I hate my job.’ With that, the game starts!

Play A Round

Each turn, the players are going to make a Team Proposal by nominating Lysen Co employees from their hand. These cards will then go into a list in front of that player as that player’s History. Your History reflects how well you’ve performed as a recruiter – it shows which members of the Lysen Co family you’ve managed to pick out for the group! And nobody ever has a bad name on their record, unless you’ve done something foolish like recruiting a Traitor.

The Team Pro Partner first chooses a card from their hand, and places it in the centre of the table, face-up, showing the number on it and the type of card it is, then declares if players are going to count up or count down. Then, each other player plays a card face-down into that pile, in order until either:

  • Every player has added a card to the pile, if there are 5 or more players.
  • The pile is at least 5 cards, if there are 4 or fewer players.

With the Team Proposal completed, it’s time to see how the Team works out!  Turn the stack of cards up, and line the cards up to show the top card, and its number, then each card in order after it. What you next do is a Culture Fit Check, using Lysen Co’s patented Stalling Sort Algorithm:

Go through the list, and, counting up or counting down as the Team Leader declared originally, check for whenever you encounter a card whose number is out of order. Discard all cards that are found to be out of order from the card that comes before them. You only need to go through the list once this way, and what remains will be in order, no matter what! Efficiency itself!

If at least three cards of the Team are in order, then that Team Proposal succeeds! Each player whose cards remain in the Team claims them and puts them in front of themselves as part of their History… unless there are Traitors on this team! The Traitors that weren’t eliminated by the Stalling Sort Algorithm all go to the Team Pro Partner to reflect on their bad judgment at letting such mendacious operators into the Lysen Co family.

Then, any player who recruited a Marketer this round uses their ability, in order of the number on that Marketer.  Marketers don’t reactivate when they’re traded onto a team, though, so don’t think you can use one to get another to use again. 

Remember: The order of the cards going into the stack is important so don’t be sloppy with it!

Also Remember: The rules didn’t say you can’t talk about what cards you’re putting into the Team Proposal! You can talk to people! You can say whatever you like! You can say anything, even if it’s not true!

Anyway, with all of that resolved, the round ends. Each player draws cards from the deck until they have 5 cards in hand, the next player in order becomes the new Team Pro Partner and the next round begins!

Winning The Game

At the end of a round where no player can draw up to 5 cards, the game begins its last round. Players play one final round with what cards they have in hand, and then discard the remaining cards they have in hand. Then it’s time to check out the player’s POINTS™ — these stand for Personnel Optimisation (Internal New Trainee) Score.

Each card you have demonstrates how many POINTS™you get for it. Your Traitors aren’t worth any POINTS™, and each player who has the most Traitors can’t win the game! Then, check who has the most POINTS™ — that player wins the game!

If two or more players are tied for the same number of POINTS™, then the player who has the lowest numbered card in their History is the winner. If the players with the most points have no cards in their History, then nobody wins because you clearly aren’t a good culture fit with Lysen Co.