Ben Cheung

GAME CONCEPT

Newsworthy is a social interaction game where players are playing investigative reporters looking for news for their news outlet. Players play in real-time looking for news on the internet seeking articles on their smart phones, tablets, or PCs. The game can be played in person or remotely with a conference call or telephone call. The topics to investigate in each round are guided by the revealed Tech Deck card. Some rounds have fixed categories based on the value of the card revealed. In other rounds, the topics are from the title of the Tech Deck card. Newsworthy is one of the most unique Tech Deck games because it blends a conversational game, and interactive social game. A player voting mechanic allows articles to be rated against each other to determine the best scoop. It sports a unique game mechanic where players seek information from outside of the game by players accessing the internet. While there have been News themed games before, no other game has players search the Internet for news articles and grade them.

GAME SETUP

EXPEL CARDS - Expel (remove) all the wild cards and all Knowledge and Science domain (suit) cards from the deck.
SHUFFLE DECK - Shuffle the remaining cards and set it by the side of the play area.
MODE OF PLAY - Play in Blitz mode or normal mode. In Blitz mode, you just play one round. In normal mode, you play until a player has reached a winning number of points.

NEWSWORTHY GAME PLAY OVERVIEW

Each turn do the following:
REVEAL A CARD - Reveal the top card of the common draw deck. This will be the topic for the round.
DETERMINE THE TOPIC If the card is a technology domain card, use the title of the card as the topic for the round. For example, if the 13-Technology is revealed, the topic will be Robotics. Otherwise, consult the table below based on the value of the card:

FIND THREE ARTICLES - All Players have 10 minutes to find three news articles on the topic of the round. You may use any kind of device such as a computer, smart phone or tablet to search the internet to find three news articles. Rules for finding articles: They must be actual news articles from news sources. You are also allowed to use physical newspapers and magazines. Spoof and humorous articles from satire sites are allowed for Value 1, Value 3, and Value 6 topics. For example, you could use The Onion web site for articles on values 1, 3, and 6 topics.
SHARE ARTICLES - Each player reads the title of the news articles they found to the other players. You may also collect article titles together and share through screen sharing, email, messaging, or conferencing.
CONVERSATION STARTERS - Each player may ask two follow-up questions to any other player about any of their three articles as a conversation starter. Players can ask any kind of open-ended question. Players might ask questions about the details of the article, where they found the article, what they thought of the content, or the implications of the article. Players can of course feel free to continue to discuss and talk about the articles. The tagline of Newsworthy is "a conversational game"! After conversation, discard the topic card. Then, vote and Score.

VOTING AND SCORING

VOTE ON ARTICLES - Players vote on what they consider to be the three best articles among the other players. Use any sort of ballot system to indicate your vote for the other players (#1, #2, #3). At the same time, the owning player secretly notes down what they think is their best article (#1, #2, #3). You can the use the cards not in play as ballot cards and secret indicator cards. For example, the 1, 2, and 3 of Knowledge and Science cards could be used as voting and indicator cards.
RESOLVE VOTING & SCORING (3-6 Player game) A player scores 1 point for every “best article” (#1) vote from another player. If the owning player’s secret vote for best article matches their article that got the most (numerical) votes from other players (ignoring vote rank), they score 1 point. A player who gets two or more votes on any one of their articles scores 1 bonus point.
RESOLVE VOTING & SCORING (2 Player game) Players secretly indicate their best and second-best articles. Then, if the other player's votes matches your best article selection, you score 2 points. If the other player's vote matches your second-best article selection, score 1 point.
END OF GAME If playing in Blitz play mode, the game ends in one round. In normal mode, with more than 2 players, the game ends when a player scores 10 points; otherwise, it ends when a player has 5 points. If there are ties, the tied players share the victory. Players may decide to continue to play and continue the conversation! I have seen rounds go an entire hour! The point of the game is to foster interesting conversation after all.
EXAMPLE OF SCORING The following diagram shows an example of scoring.

TOPIC The revealed card for the round was the 7-Technology (Virtual Reality). Players have each found three news articles related to that topic. After a questions and conversation phase, players then vote.
VOTING Example
Player #1 put his "Best vote" for Player #2's Article #2. He put his second best article vote for Player #3's Article #3, and his third best article vote for Player #3's Article #2.
Likewise you can see that Player #2 voted for: #1(best) Player #3's Article #2, #2(2nd) Player #1's Article #2, #3(3rd) Player #1's Article #3.
Player #3 voted for: #1(best) Player #2's Article #3, #2(2nd) Player #1's Article #3, #3(3rd) Player #2's Article #1.
SELF-VOTING Example
Each player also secretly noted what they thought was their best article. Player #1's self-vote was for his own Article #3. Player #2's self-vote was for his own Article #2. Player #3's self-vote was for his own Article #1.
SCORING Example
Player #1 scored 1 point because his self-vote (Article #3) got the most number of votes among his articles. Player #1 scored 1 point because one of his articles got more than 1 vote. Player #1 scored 1 point because he got the #1 best vote from Player #1 on his article #2. Player #1 scored 1 point because he got the #1 best vote from Player #3 on his article #3. Player #3 scored 1 point because her article #2 got more than 1 vote.

DOWNLOAD THE RULES

Newsworthy Full Rules: Newsworthy Rules

INTRODUCTION VIDEO

Watch a video on the introduction of Newsworthy. The introduction video describes the basic concepts, objectives and an introduction to the Tech Deck.

PLAY GUIDE VIDEO

Watch a play guide video for Newsworthy. The play guide video is an in depth video on how to setup the game, and all the steps involved in playing the game.

ENTRY ON BOARD GAME GEEK

You can read and explore the BoardGameGeek entry for Newsworthy.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION
· Published: November 1, 2022
· Format: Card Game
· Elements: 54 Cards
· Size: 3.75" x 2.8751" x .875"

ORDERING NEWSWORTHY
· To purchase the Tech Deck: Contact Me