Iris: A Cooperative Micro Game

Commander’s Log: Nov 5th, 2286
Classified Document: Interstellar Relocation Initiation Strategy

“The business of settling these new planets has turned out to be a difficult one. The clones help do the dangerous labor but the tension between the human and clone populations is only rising. There is also something unsettling about their eyes. The engineers ensure me that their eyes only hold data but when I look into them, I can’t help but see something more sinister….” End Log

In Iris, players will work together to manage human populations and rebellious clone work forces while settling four newly discovered planets. Players have the goal of minimizing clone attacks and maximizing human survival rates. The game has major puzzle and memory mechanics that forces players to rely on one another for both game play decisions and remembering details. Iris takes the tension, collaboration, and challenge of larger cooperative games and puts them into an elegant 20 minute micro game.

In Iris players attempt to organize 16 clone cards in a manner that does not cause the clones to attack human populations. The game has simple rules that are easy to learn yet make for a complex and difficult game. There are three types of clone cards and each type of clone card has a common front. Each clone has a letter on the back of the card that stays hidden until the clones "Data" is scanned. When a clone is scanned this letter is revealed to all players. Players try to organize these clone cards in a way so that at the end of the game the letters on the backs of the cards cannot spell the words "BOMB", "MOB, or "AMMO". Because the only letters on the backs of the clone cards are A, B, M, and O this can be very challenging. Players come across the clone data slowly so there will always be information unknown to players. Players will weigh the odds of playing one clone over another (letter distributions are published on each card) while also risking gaining less knowledge about clones in order to take special actions like moving clones, moving human populations, or learning about un-played clones. The whole game leads up a big reveal. When all 16 clone cards are in their final locations they are all turned over and players see if any attacks occur. When attacks occur, human populations are lost. When all attacks have been accounted for players compare their remaining human population to their survival goal set at the beginning of the game.