The Adventures of Altac Pomo

Played two at a time

Goal: to finish your degree and get a job without losing your spirit. To do so, you need to interact with other players and create your own winning card set (or deck).

Required equipment: Starter card set, additional (blank) cards, pens

Starter card set:

• Advisor (one-star Status card)
• Required reading (one-star Achievement card)
• Love of reading (one-star Passion card)
• Dingy apartment (one-star Life card)
• Trashy reading (one-star Sanity card)
• Experience record card, divided into Play and Win sections

Play: card duels

There are two types of activities in the game: card play and card creation. Card play is a simple duel: each player shuffles her or his cards, deals from her or his hand, and whoever has the higher rank in the pair wins the duel:

• More stars beats fewer stars
• For cards with the same number of stars, Status > Achievement > Passion > Life > Sanity > Status. (So Status beats every other card except Sanity.)

If both players show cards with the same number of stars in the same category, each player sets aside that card and selects another card, with play continuing until there is a winner. At the end of a card duel, each player puts her or his mark (which may be simply initials) on the other player’s experience record card. The experience record card has two sections on each side: Play and Win. You always put a mark in the other player’s Play section, and if the other player won, you also put your mark in the Win section.

Card creation

As you accumulate experience, you can exchange the marks of other players on your experience record card into the right to create new cards in your deck. Each card you create will be in one of the five categories above, with 2-5 stars depending on how many experience marks you exchange, and the mark of a fellow player (who saw you cross off the requisite marks on your experience record card), and on the mostly-blank side, a declaration of Creative Commons license. It is through the creation of new cards that you progress in the game, either to finish your degree or to get a job.

Stars: Each mark on your experience record card is worth one star. (You must have at least two marks to create a card. You cannot create a new card with only one star.)

In addition, for THATCamp and THATCamp only, you have the right to create a new card for every comment you add to the bottom of this post. (I will put my mark on your card for these new cards–find me and I’ll be happy to read the comment and initial your card. You need to play at least a few card duels between comments, so you have something to write about, so if you write more than one, I’ll ask to see your experience record card.)

Categories: You pick the category.

Specifics within categories: you pick what you get within the category, but you should keep in mind the requirements for graduation:

• Two Status cards in the following areas: teaching, presenting at a conference, being an R.A. for a professor, working on a committee.
• Three Achievement cards: one each in theory, methods, and content. Label each achievement card with both the general and specific (e.g., Cupcake Theory).
• Two Passion cards: a pre-dissertation scholarship project and your dissertation project
• Two Life cards, which are nonspecific (you can create your own such as relationship, join a fitness center, child, moving)
• One Sanity cards: you have to create your own!

You will see that all of the starter cards are marked “CC BY” to indicate Creative Commons license. As you create your own additions to the cards, you will declare what license each card has.

Winning

You win by graduating and/or getting a job. Graduating requires that you create 10 cards (see the degree requirements above). Getting a job requires creating cards worth at least 25 points.

Feedback

If you play this game, please comment below and help improve the game by answering the following questions:

• Best parts?
• Weakest parts?
• Suggestions for change?