Ingenium

Mechanics

TRIZ Inspired • Contracts • Pattern Recognition

Game Overview

Core Concept:

Ingenium is a 3–7 player competitive card game where steampunk inventors race to solve bizarre engineering challenges using paradoxical logic. Drawing inspiration from TRIZ theory, players draft tool cards and cobble together ingenious (or outrageous) contraptions to win over the table and claim invention contracts.

Key Systems:

  • TRIZ-Inspired Invention Challenges:
    • Each round presents a shared puzzle based on one or more of the 40 TRIZ inventive principles – like eliminating contradiction, combining incompatible tools, or using inverse functions.
    • Challenges might include things like “Create a device that is both mobile and anchored” or “Build a contraption using only items that repel each other.”
  • Card Drafting:
    • Players draft from a rotating pool of invention cards representing steampunk parts, paradoxical tools, wild materials, or conceptual mechanics.
    • Cards feature dual-use elements that can often serve contradictory roles depending on context.
  • Contraption Building & Presentation:
    • Once players assemble a viable (or at least entertaining) combination of cards, they present their invention to the group.
    • Creativity and thematic logic are both fair game in persuading opponents that your solution works.
  • Peer Voting:
    • After all presentations, players score across several categories on the best solution – but cannot score their own.
    • Contraptions with the highest score win that round with players splitting tied votes.

Design Principles:

  • Creative Constraint: Players must reconcile opposing tools or limitations to spark truly inventive solutions.
  • Collaborative Competition: Though players compete, the fun lies in collective creativity and clever improvisation.
  • Replayable Variability: With dozens of challenge combinations and card synergies, each session feels uniquely unpredictable.

Endgame Structure:

  • Trigger: The game ends after a set number of invention challenges have been completed.
  • Victory Condition: Players earn points from successful solutions voted on by peers. The highest total wins.
  • Tiebreaker: In the event of a tie, a final one-card challenge is issued as a tiebreaker round.

Future Expansion Ideas:

  • Inventor Roles: Introduce asymmetrical player powers inspired by famous steampunk minds or real inventors.
  • Mechanical Wildcards: Add special parts that change the nature of the puzzle mid-round or offer loophole-style effects.
  • Thematic Challenge Decks: Create themed packs like “Skyships,” “Time Travel,” or “Underwater Tech” to vary puzzle flavor.