About the piecepack
The piecepack is a game system invented by James “Kyle” Droscha in 2001. A standard set has 24 square tiles, 24 round coins, 4 dice and 4 pawns, spread over four suits (suns, moons, crowns and arms) and six ranks from null to 5. Like a deck of playing cards, it is not one game but a toolkit: over 100 games have been written for it, and the design is in the public domain, so anyone may make, share or even sell a set.
Printing one is the cheapest way in. The piecepackr project by Trevor L. Davis offers ready-made print-and-play layouts in Letter and A4, and the Ludism piecepack wiki lists many other downloadable designs.
How to play in one minute
- Print, mount and cut a set: tiles and coins, plus the fold-up dice and pawns.
- Pick a game from piecepack.net or the Ludism wiki. Plans of Action is a 1-player puzzle; Cream of the Crop and Relativity take 2 to 4 players and 2 players.
- Build the board from the tiles as that game’s rules describe; tile backs show a 2x2 grid.
- Use coins, dice and pawns as that game asks: as money, units, timers or markers.
- Win by that game’s own goal, then try another ruleset with the same pieces.
What’s in the PDF
- The default piecepack in “cutlines” layout (thin borders for cutting with scissors): 7 colour pages, landscape US Letter, or the A4 version. It uses French suits (hearts, spades and so on) rather than suns and moons.
- Page 1 explains the anatomy of each piece and the credits.
- The same page offers “crop marks with bleed” versions and many alternative suits (chess, dingbats, zodiac and more).
- Player counts and times above are for the starter games on piecepack.net; other games vary.
In the PDF
- 24 tiles
- 24 coins
- fold-up dice
- pawn saucers and pawn belts
- extra piecepack pyramids and matchsticks
- piece anatomy and credits page
AbstractGame SystemModular BoardGame System
