Function Tug of War

I'm working on an idea for a game for my class.  I got the idea from this post on one of my favorite blogs, Simplifying Radicals.

I'll update this more with my thoughts on the game, I'll be doing some playtesting over the next couple days.  I'll take pictures as I do so.

Here is a link to my folder with the files I've made for the cards so far.

Function Tug of War

The rules:

Function Tug of War

Objective:

To win 2 of 3 tug of war battles

Materials:

Each player will need a set of character cards. (16 cards per set currently, these sets are duplicates)

Setup:

Each player draws the first 3 cards from his deck.  (maybe players only get 1 card and must place whatever they get?)

Game mat (this would make it easier to align the cards) is placed between the players.

Game play:

Players will be placing their characters down into a 3x3 grid as shown, this is done one card at a time.

The game is played simultaneously; each player selects a character to play, as well as its location, and reveals it at the same time.

After each card is played, the players draw another card into their hand.

This is repeated until the grid is full.  At this point the calculation begins.

Calculation:

Each character has a function as well as stats that he is looking for.  These are used to determine the player’s strength.  In order to calculate the value for a player, look at all characters in the same row or column as him (including enemy characters).

Examples:

To calculate the strength of this character we first note that he is looking for crowns. Counting in his row and column there are a total of 4 crowns, so his strength will be f(4) = 14.

This character is looking for both green men and top hats.  Looking at his columns and rows we find 3 green men and 1 top hat, so his value will be

f(3, 1) = 6

This process should be repeated for all characters to determine the 18 strengths.

Determining the winner:

Once all the strengths have been calculated, players work out their total strength for each rope.  Highest total in the column wins that rope.  Player that wins the most ropes is the winner.