Liar's Dice: Changing the Rules!

The Tools of Liar's Dice!

For this weeks exciting journey into game development, we were required to take the classic games Liar's Dice and add our own set of rules to change the game.  Liar's Dice is in the dice game family that can be played by two or more people.  It is a fairly easy game to play as it only requires that the players have their own five dice, as well as something to keep them hidden from the other players.  To begin playing, each player will add their five dice to their own cup.  From here, each player will simultaneously flip their cup upside down, keeping their dice hidden from their opponents.  Each player is allowed to look at what is under his cup (I.e. 3 fives, 1 two, 1 one).  From this point, the first player will make a guess as to how many of a certain number are on present on the table.  This will not only include his own dice, but the other players dice as well. An example of this would be 2 fours.  From this point, the next player can do one of three choices:

- Lie:  The player can call their bluff by saying they are lying.  This means that there is less dice of a certain number on the table, than the previous person guessed.  i.e. If the first player says there are 4 twos and there are only 2 on the table, they have bluffed.  If someone calls a player out on a lie, the player who was bluffing will lose one die.

-Correct:  If the player believes that the person before them is correct with their prediction (i.e. There are exactly 4 twos on the table), they are allowed to call them out as being correct.  If the player who made the prediction was right with their guess and someone calls them out, then the predicting player will lose one die.

-Guess:  If the player believes that the person before them was not right with their guess, but they also were too low, they can choose to make a guess of their own.  The player can guess any dice roll they want; however, the next guess must up the amount of dice by at least one.  i.e. Previous Guess is: 2 fours, the next guess must be at least 3 of a certain number of dice.

The game ends when only one player has dice remaining under their cup.

Since our rule change had to affect the positive feedback loop present in the game, I first had to decipher what that positive feedback loop was.  After playing the game, I realized that the player who has the most dice under their cup experiences this loop, as they have the most knowledge of the dice on the table.  To remove this loop, I had to take away that advantage so that when the leader is doing something correct, they are not fully benefiting.  The rule I added to the game was the mystical tokens.  At the beginning of the game, each player is given one mystical token that they can cash in during any of their turns.  This token is used to make the current player with the most dice, lift their cup a reveal their dice to everyone.  If there is multiple leaders, then the person trading in their token is allowed to choose who lifts their cup.  This rule change turned out the make the game more even, as the leading player could lose their advantage at any time because of the mystical tokens.