Viewpoint is a card game played with a series of specially printed decks. The theme, including card title and image, of each card in the deck is based on an aspect or play on words related to vision, such as "Spectacles", "Eye Spy" or "Blind Freddie". The game was designed by Sean Carroll and its premiere edition was released by Australian game publishers 93 Made Games at the Gen Con Oz gaming convention in September 2009. The first Viewpoint expansion set, Viewpoint Reflections, expands on a storyline introduced in the Viewpoint Hustle animation, which is based on a group of characters, with eyes for heads, who travel to different dimensions by jumping through specially-programmed television sets.

Official Rules

The basic Viewpoint deck consists of 70 cards from the premiere edition but may be expanded or modified by removing cards or adding cards from expansion sets and special releases.

Each card includes rules text and a number. The rules text states what actions to perform when the card is played. Standard actions include drawing cards, discarding cards, playing additional cards, taking extra turns, making other players miss turns, taking cards from another player's hand and moving played cards to the discard pile. The number, which is situated in the top-left-hand corner of the card, is known as that card's View-points. View-points range from -15 to 20 in increments of 5 and only count towards a player's total when a card is on the table.Viewpoint Gamers Guide on YouTubeViewpoint Rules & FAQs

During play, cards are considered to be in one of 4 zones - Draw Pile (from which cards are drawn), Discard Pile (where discarded or cancelled cards are placed), Hand (where cards are placed when drawn and where cards are played from) and Field of View (where cards are played into). Each player has their own Field of View and Hand, whilst the Draw Pile and Discard Pile are shared.

The objective of the game is to be the first player with a total of 100 or more View-points in their Field of View at the end of their turn.

Each player starts the game with 5 cards dealt from the Draw Pile. Starting with the player to the left of the dealer and continuing clock-wise around the table, players take turns until one player has achieved the objective.

A standard turn is divided into four steps - Draw one card, Play one card, Perform actions, and End the turn. Some cards contradict the standard turn process by allowing players to draw or play extra cards during their turn. When a card contradicts a basic rule, the rule on the card is considered correct.

The game ends when one player has accumulated 100 or more View-points, or the Draw Pile and all players' Hands are empty. The Draw Pile does not get automatically replenished after it runs out of cards.

Symbols and Keywords

Most cards include symbols and keywords in their rules text to simplify describing what actions to perform. The symbols refer to each of the play zones - Draw Pile (a purple card with a 'V' on it), Discard Pile (a red waste bin with an 'X' on it), Hand (a blue imprint of a hand) and Field of View (a green eye). The keywords are shorthand for more detailed rules text.

Keyword Description DRAW The player must take the top card of the Draw Pile and put it into their Hand. DISCARD The player must take a card from their Hand and put it face-up into the Discard Pile. PASS The player must take a card from their Hand and move it to the Hand of a specified player. STEAL The player must look at the cards in any other player's Hand, take any card from that player's Hand and put it into their own Hand. SWAP The player must exchange any card in their Field of View with any card in another player's Field of View. REVEAL Cards with the REVEAL keyword may be used in one of two ways. The first way is to play it normally during your turn and perform the actions (if any) stated on the card (except for the actions stated after the REVEAL keyword). The second way is to show the card from your Hand to all players, during any player's turn, and perform only the actions stated after the REVEAL keyword. CANCEL Cards with the CANCEL keyword are used to cancel other actions. The actions that can be cancelled are stated on the cancelling card. When a player cancels a card, both the cancelled and cancelling cards are moved to the Discard Pile, unless otherwise stated, and the actions that were cancelled do not happen (even if the actions would have affected more than one player). REPLACE The player may move up to a specified number of cards from their Field of View and put them face-up into the Discard Pile. The player then plays cards (one at a time), equal to the number of cards they put into the Discard Pile, from the top of the Draw Pile into their Field of View. The actions on the newly played cards are performed as normal. HIDE The player may put ('hide') a card in any player's Field of View face down underneath this card. The hidden card is considered not to be in a Field of View (for View-points and action purposes) but may be unhidden (and returned to the Field of View) if the hiding card is moved out of the Field of View (except for being hidden itself). Only the player whose card hid the card may look at the hidden card.

Pseudo-Keywords

Long-form action descriptions are sometimes referred to using pseudo-keywords such as those listed in the table below.

Pseudo-Keyword Description Used With These Cards play The player may play an extra card within their turn. Shadow remove The player moves a card from their Field of View to the Discard Pile. Mirage, Skewed View, Wandering Eyes, Evil Eye, Kaleidoscope exchange The player exchanges their Hand with another player's Hand. Cross-eyed copy The player performs the actions on another card. Mirror Image, Two-Way Mirror turn The player takes another turn or loses a turn. See Into The Future, Blindsided return The player returns a card from the Discard Pile to their Hand. All-Seeing Eye, Focus Attention bounce The player returns a card from the Field of View to their Hand. Hindsight take The player moves a card from another player's Field of View to their Field of View. Eye Catching refresh deck The Discard Pile and Draw Pile are shuffled together to make a new Draw Pile. Refocus dig and pick The player looks at the top few cards of the Draw Pile, selects a card from those cards, places that card into their Hand and puts the remaining cards on top of the Draw Pile. X-Ray Vision hand back The player places cards from their hand on top of the Draw Pile. Lazy Eyes protect The player uses a card to redirect actions that would affect other cards to affect that card instead. Eye on the Prize

Storyline

The concept of a Viewpoint storyline was first introduced in the Viewpoint Hustle animation, which was shown at the Viewpoint World Championships in December 2010. The animation depicts a group of characters with eyes for heads. The characters, known as Eye Guy, Speye Guy, Eye Gal and Evil Eye Guy, are playing a game of Viewpoint. After Evil Eye Guy is discovered to have cheated during the game, when a Viewpoint card falls from his sleeve, he tries to escape the other characters' wrath by running away. They then go in hot pursuit of Evil Eye Guy but, one-by-one, get taken out of the chase as Evil Eye Guy uses Viewpoint cards, such as Blindspot and Skewed View, to set up obstacles for them. Eye Guy avoids the obstacles and then uses his own card, Shadow, to dispatch Evil Eye Guy.

The Viewpoint Reflections expansion set introduces additional characters - Blind Freddie, the Lazy Eye Guys (Dirk and Pedro) and Evil Eye Pet - and storyline where the good Eyefolk (primarily Eye Guy, Speye Guy and Eye Gal) must prevent Evil Eye Guy from conquering the View-niverse (the entire Viewpoint universe).

Future animations are planned to coincide with the release of or championships associated with each Viewpoint set and will follow a general storyline where the good Eyefolk follow Evil Eye Guy to different dimensions by travelling through television sets, which he has specially programmed using Viewpoint cards.

The theme song for the Viewpoint Hustle animation was composed by up-and-coming contemporary piano artist Julala.Julala on Reverbnation

Sets and Special Cards

Set Name Year released No. of (Unique) Cards Introduced Keywords Tagline Storyline Viewpoint 2009 70 (23) DRAW, DISCARD, SWAP, STEAL, REVEAL, CANCEL, play, remove, exchange, copy, turn, return, bounce Blindside your buddies! Limited storyline within the card set; however, the Persistence of Vision card shows the Eyelets characters for the first time. The Viewpoint Hustle animation depicts the Eye Guy, Speye Guy, Eye Gal and Evil Eye Guy characters for the first time. Viewpoint Reflections 2011 70 (23) REPLACE, PASS, refresh deck, dig and pick, hand back Conquer the View-niverse! Eye Guy and Speye Guy set out to rescue Eye Gal who has been trapped by Evil Eye Guy in the Mirror World. This is also the world where Evil Eye Guy steals Blind Freddie's eye. Viewpoint Parallax Scheduled for 2013 70 TBD TBD Eye Guy, Eye Gal and Speye Guy follow Evil Eye Guy to the Parallax World in an attempt to recover Blind Freddie's eye. Zombie Viewpoint Scheduled for 2015 70 RESURRECT, roaming card, control TBD The Eyefolk Home Dimension is invaded by Zombeyes after Evil Eye Guy accidentally opens a portal to their realm.

Three cards have been released separately from the major sets - Eye on the Prize, Lookalikes and Eyelets. These cards were released in 2011 as special rewards to be awarded to players for attaining a specific tournament leaderboard ranking. The cards may be used in any casual-play deck and in tournament decks (where the use of those cards has been sanctioned).

Fan Cards

A number of fan-designed cards have been made,Viewpoint fan cards which can be used in non-sanctioned events or in casual play.

Strategies

Points-Variance Strategy

The objective of Viewpoint is to be the first player to reach 100 or more View-points. To do this, the primary strategy is for players to play cards that reduce their opponents' points totals or play cards that increase their own points total at a faster rate than their opponents'. The basic method to enable players to accumulate more points than their opponents is to play cards that remove cards from their opponents' Fields of View. Other ways to slow down opponents from scoring points include making them miss a turn, stealing the higher value cards from their hand or swapping their higher value cards out of their Field of View. The strategy of focusing on the difference between points totals is known as the points-variance strategy and is most-commonly used by novice players.

Value-Proposition Strategy

A stronger and more enduring strategy is to understand that the points values of most Viewpoint cards are balanced against the impact they have on the game. For example, Shadow, which is arguably the most powerful card in the game, is worth -15 View-points and allows a player to play an additional card each turn (effectively giving that player two turns to everyone one turn taken by their opponents). Conversely, a card like Shared Perspective is worth 20 View-points because it allows every player to draw a card. Typically, the higher-value, lower-impact cards only allow players to draw cards or make other players discard cards and the lower-value, higher-impact cards allow players to take extra turns or significantly reduce an opponent's total points. Therefore, it is sometimes advantageous to play lower-value cards because they might provide a significantly greater advantage over the course of the game. The strategy of weighing up a card's impact against its value throughout the game is known as the value-proposition strategy and is most-commonly used by experienced players.

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