Team Cheapass has been working on a surprise for the campaign, currently called “Moxana’s Game," and we're excited to share some details!

Moxana first appeared in Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure, where she works as a fortune teller. She’s actually one of the ancient Muses, automata that were built hundreds of years ago as advisors to royalty. (Check out the other Muses in Phil Foglio’s “Muses” Pairs deck, available as an add-on in this campaign.) Though Moxana is getting a little old now and doesn't work as well as she once did, she still tells fortunes and plays games!

One of those games might just be an in-world version of Girl Genius: The Works; not a modern game filled with pictures of Agatha and Krosp (and Moxana herself), but a simpler and elegant version with the same core rules.

It turns out that if you use five colors to make these cards, there are exactly sixty ways to arrange them. Thus, Moxana’s Game is a 60-card deck with one of each color pattern. The one color missing from the edges of the card is painted on the center dots, and each block of cards with the same dot color is numbered with a point value 1 through 12.

Playtesting for this game started a while back, and now it’s pretty sharp. It’s simpler than the “modern” version, but still challenging, and it feels a lot more like something that might exist in the world of Agatha Heterodyne.

There are a few rules changes, of course. The long edges of each card are always “longer” than the short edges, so there is no need for counting symbols. One suit, typically the red pips, is deemed the “bad” suit. Those cards are worth negative points. 

Players are always required to make a move if they can pop something, whether the board is all faceup or not; if they can’t, they must make no move at all. James says this makes the board into a Prince Rupert’s Drop, whatever that means. More details will emerge as playtesting continues.

We don’t think there will be enough demand to print a full press run of Moxana’s Game. However, we like it enough to want to make it available to Girl Genius fans! If you’re interested in Moxana’s Game, tell us so on Twitter and Facebook with a #MoxanasGame tag. If we see at least 50 posts, we’ll finish up development and make Moxana's Game available via Drive Thru Cards!

Stay tuned for another update on Wednesday, when we’ll preview Deck 2: Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure. Thanks again for backing Girl Genius: The Works!

Team Cheapass