Sneak Peak at Pandante's Final Components

Rodney of WatchItPlayed did a great video showing off the production version of Pandante. I expect to ship the game to kickstarter backers at the end of May. If you missed out on the kickstarter, you can pre-order here and your order will ship after the kickstarter batch of orders goes out.

Here's the video:

Pandante Development: Rules Updates and Manufacturing

The Pandante kickstarter was successfully funded last month, and manufacturing is now underway. So far, no delays so we're still on track to meet the ship date in May.

There have been a few rules updates since the print-and-play version was available at the start of the kickstarter. The latest (and final) rulebook is at www.sirlin.net/pandante/rules. The print-and-play version is available here.

In case you already played the game but didn't notice the updates, I'll list them here for you.

1) If you fold with the highest (or tied-for-highest) hand, then you must buy breakfast next gambit. This means if you already plan to fold, you can't bet on straight flush to get a free snack (free card) while denying everyone else snacks. If you do this, you'll have to pay to get new cards anyway.

2) The conditions for when you get a Panda Lord are more specific. The part that has not changed is that you need to win a gambit alone by claiming you had a higher hand than you really did. But now in addition, one of the following two things must also be true: either at least *someone* had a chance to challenge you and decided not to -OR- you scared everyone into folding so that you were the only person left in the showdown. Now getting a Panda Lord is a bit more in the spirit of getting away with a lie. There were just uncomfortably many cases before where you could get one just because you happened to be the only one left after several people challenged each other during the showdown, and you were last from from the dealer button.

3) When resolving ties, you now go in reverse turn order rather than regular turn order. For example, imagine a 1v1 game where you and I both claim "straight" as our hands. At the end of the gambit, we first try to break the tie by saying what kind of straight we have. Assume I have the dealer button, which means you say what kind of straight you have first. For example, you say a 7 high straight. Then imagine I repeat whatever you say automatically so that we stay tied. I can always do this when I have the dealer button and in the previous rules, players *accepted* challenges to their hands in turn order. That means I would challenge you first. So in the case where neither of us has a straight, I could always get away with challenging you first, I would get free snacks the whole gambit, and there'd be no way you could really stop that while I had the dealer button.

Now, players accept those challenges in reverse turn order, so I (with the dealer button) get challenged first. I got to say the kind of straight I had second (so I still could say whatever you said to maintain a tie), but I actually have to put some thought into it now because I'll be receiving challenges first. Note that this rule change *only* applies to when hands are tied at the end. It just fixes some issues with that case that come up especially much in 1v1.

4) 4X -> 5X for challenging poker hands. The most costly type of challenge in Pandante is when you falsely accuse a player about their poker hand. For example, they say they have a floosh, you challenge it, but then they really have the floosh. You had to pay them 4X gold where X is the number of players before, but in the final version it's now 5X gold. This will reduce the number of overall challenges so that it's a bit more possible to actually get away with lying sometimes.

5) There was also a slight adjustment in the amount of gold needed to win the game when there's 4 or 5 players. The amount of gold needed to win for 2 / 3/ 4 / 5 players was 80 / 90 / 100 / 120 / 150 but in the final version, it's now 80 / 90 / 110 / 130 / 150 gold. This has no effect on the seriousface gambling mode of the game.

It's great that so many of you are into Pandante that we were able to make those tweaks for high level play. It's quite a fun alternative to poker. If you missed out on the kickstarter, pre-orders will be up in 2 or 3 months on www.sirlingames.com. In the meantime, follow Sirlin Games on facebook so you can get notified about when Pandante is available or try the fan-made online version or the official print-and-play version.

Pandante Kickstarter Ending Soon

Just a reminder that we're in the last two days of the Pandante kickstarter. It's your last chance to get in on the gambling pandas. A lot of you have told me that the game feels like "Poker 2" and that it fixes various issues you've had with Poker. While that wasn't actually the original point of making Pandante, it sounds good to me! And thanks.

I thought you guys might like this blast from the past: the original console version of Pandante from the 80s. So here you go:

If you back the deluxe edition, in addition to the regular retail version of the game with 180 clay poker chips, you'll get the kickstarter exclusives of: 6 diamond challenge cards, an alternate Orange Panda Lord (General Oni-Mari), and an alternate art Joker featuring Lum, Gambling Panda. For more info on the kickstarter, head here while you still can!

Diamond Chip Update

In case you missed the Pandante kickstarter update, here you go!

Pandante has three denominations of chips, and that’s all you need. But wouldn’t it be sweet to have a FOURTH denomination? One that looks even more valuable and awesome than the black panda chip? Let’s do this!

Introducing DIAMOND CHIPS:

This is actually the most exciting part of the whole project for me personally. I really want to have a set of all four denominations of these chips, including the awesome diamond chips, so I hope we can make this happen. If we do, the chip counts will be: 60 white chips, 60 red, 60 black, and 60 blue diamond chips (240 chips total).

There are four reasons why it helps to have a fourth denomination. The first is that if you decide to play Pandante in the real money mode, players must start with at least $100 (you start with only $50 in the social fun mode). Also, players who lose in that mode might want to rebuy in. Or a player might want to buy in for more than $100 in the first place. It really helps to use these diamond chips as $10 or $25 in that mode.

The second reason it helps to have a fourth denomination is for human poker. Several of you have mentioned that for human poker, you prefer having a fourth denomination. It still works with three denominations, but a fourth allows for more players and easier handling of larger buy-ins. So the diamond chips will make the set as a whole into a better poker set.

The third reason is that in the fun mode with the gold fairy you're trying to be the first player to reach a certain threshold of gold and it's helpful if it's easy to quickly count up the chips of anyone who is close to that threshold. If people with lots of gold change out a bunch of it for $25 diamond chips, you can figure out how much they have pretty quickly. And more than that, it just feels awesome to have the diamond chips because you get to brag. It's a baller move to say "I have so much money that I'll get a couple diamond chips so it's easier to count."

The fourth reason is just look at them, I mean wowow!

If you know any poker enthusiasts, consider mentioning the Pandante kickstarter to them. They might be intrigued by the gameplay or they might be into the great components (or both!). If we go outside the usual pool of board game players, maybe we can get enough people to make the diamond chips a reality. I hope so!

Introducing Pandante!

The Pandante kickstarter is up! Head on over there when you're ready.

We've all heard about gambling Pandas, but I didn't realize how much fun their games were until I saw them myself. They play this game called Pandante that's sort of like Human Poker, but it's a lot more about lying. You lie about what's in your hand and you lie about which abilities you have access too. (There's only a few abilities and they're pretty simple.)

(That picture shows beta cards rather than the final ones, but the kids expressions are too great to not show you!)

Everyone pretty much knows that tons of lying is going on, so that adds quite a bit of fun factor. And there's not much folding in Pandante, at least not nearly as much as in Human Poker. There's also no Panda elimination. I found that all of that has great synergy because it means everyone is participating most of the time, so that's more opportunities to lie about stuff (and laugh about it). That said, it's also playable as a really serious gambling game for real money. I really liked that it could be a really social game as well as a highly competitive one, so I decided to bring it over from the Pandalands for everyone here.

There's two versions of the game. The basic version is the kind component quality you'd expect from a good card game. The thing is, the Pandas are sticklers for poker chips, but only the best kind. So the luxury version of the game is all about custom, high quality poker chips. The chips are so good that you might want to play Human Poker with them too, so the Luxury version also comes with a special poker deck that matches the style of the rest of the game.

All the graphic design was done by the acclaimed European designer Hectóre Blivand. He only works on high fashion products, and I love the beautifully minimal look he created. It's classy.

Head on over to the kickstarter page for lots more pics, video, and info about the game and components!