Teaches: scales (and the notes they build on)
This is a work in progress, and I'd be glad to have help in making it better. The general idea:
- A game similar to Chromatics, but diatonic. And unlike Chromatics, cards must always ascend in note value.
- You have to stack up a complete scale (7 notes) from bottom to top, sort of like Dutch Blitz.
- As in Dutch Blitz, everyone plays at once, once a signal is given to go.
- During play, each player tries to place any card from his/her hand onto a stack so that the new card is the next note of the scale being built on that stack.
- (Alternative idea: you have to work through your hand in sequence, turning over 3 cards at a time, as in Dutch Blitz? Probably not.)
- Each stack needs to be spread out enough to leave each of the cards visible, so that players can continue to check what scale that stack represents.
- If a player plays an incorrect card on a stack, i.e. plays a card that isn't the next note in that stack's scale, another player can challenge them. A challenge stops play.
- If proven to be incorrect, the offending player pays a penalty by taking back the incorrect card and choosing two cards from the challenger's hand (without looking at them)
- If the challenged play was actually correct, the challenger takes two cards from the other player's hand (without looking at them).
- Suits don't matter (you can play a card regardless of its suit?)
- Octaves don't matter (A is followed by B regardless of octave)
- Enharmonic equivalents don't matter (open to discussion on that)
- The goal is to be the first one to use up all your cards.
- Play begins by dealing four cards out on the table face-up to be the starting notes of four scale stacks (is that a good number?) and dealing out the same number of cards to each player.
- (What to do with any remainder cards? Start more scale stacks, I guess.)
- A player who completes an existing scale stack (of 7 notes) should call "Scale!"
- Play stops while other players check that the scale is correct. This can be an opportunity for discussion and learning.
- If correct, the finished pile is turned over, and the player who completed it starts a new scale stack using any card in their hand.
- For a basic game, you restrict play to major scales
- According to the knowledge level of the players, you could add minor, harmonic minor, blues, etc. by agreement before each round.
- In this case, the scale represented by each stack is not determined immediately; but as each new card is added, the whole stack must conform to one of the valid agreed-upon scales (you can't add mixolydian mode in the middle of the game!). For example, suppose a game is being played in which major and natural minor scales are allowed (and only those). If the stack is started with a C, it could be a C major scale, or C minor. Suppose the next card played on that stack is D. The 3rd card will determine the scale: E-flat implies a minor scale, E-natural a major scale. If the 3rd card is an E-natural, the 6th card must be an A-natural, not an A-flat.
- When you've played all the cards in your hand, you shout "Scaled out!" (or something cleverer?) and the game is over.
Thoughts? Gaps? Improvements?