saltlakemusic: Tipsy v2.0

Tipsy v2.0 · May 29, 11:15 AM

It’s that time of year again, when I get bored and start doodling, woohoo. Some of these little sketches turn into something marvelous, and then there are those other doodles that make their way into Tipsy cards. Tipsy is a game created in 2003 by myself with the help of several buddies (Chad “Flash” Vought was the foremost contributor to the creation) which attempts to incorporate the simple, indulging elements of classic numerically based drinking games such as King’s Cup, Short Bus and Quarters with the picture-based playing style of modern card game systems such as Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and just about any other dorky card game on the shelf. We liked the intoxicating effects of drinking games, but we also liked the ability to strategize by building custom decks which served certain purposes. Naturally drinking games are favorable to those who can withstand enormous amounts of alcohol, therefore the bulkier and typically more gluttonous players seem to dominate. We wanted a game where Tina, the little 120 pound freshman cheerleader, could sit at the table and face off against 250 pound Russel “The Muscle” Gonzales, fresh out of boot camp, and drink him into the gutter. The result was Tipsy.

It’s getting better all the time

Interestingly, the rudimentary version of Tipsy from winter of 2003 was nothing at all like it’s offspring. The game was played with a normal Texas Hold-em deck, red cards were helpful to you and bad for the opponent, black cards were thus helpful to the opponent and bad for you. If you drew a black seven: you drank seven, if you drew a red seven: the opponent drank seven (this game was a little too merciless on the liver to be played to completion). The one eyed Jack would reverse these rules so that from then on red cards hurt you and black cards helped you. Each royal card served a similar role, suicide kings forced both players to drink 10, queen of hearts made nobody drink, Jokers were especially fun since we had covered them with white stickers and wrote insane instructions on them such as “Show your titties” or “Crush a can on your forehead”. These fairly unique cards eventually became the basis for the next version of tipsy, in which all the cards were covered in these stickers, each with it’s own individual instructions to the player who drew it. Still this game didn’t allow for more than two players at a time, and the instructions were so extremely unorganized and full of distractions that drinking became second in priority to prank calls, flatulations, various nudity and profanity, and of course simple stunts which an intoxicated should never have attempted (riding a kids bicycle off of a home-made jump while drunk is never a wise idea). Several months later, after much reformation, the first batch of version 1 cards were produced, 27 decks were built and distributed to close friends and family, the very first 6 decks were made by cutting out pictures with scissors and gluing them onto cards, then as interest increased the cards were printed onto adhesive labels in massive quantities, which were a huge improvement from the unshufflable glue-on cards which tore and cracked more often than not.

Do-it-yourself Production Or 2 Dollar Decks By Mail

The version 2 cards are still being made in the adhesive label format. Fabricating a deck from scratch costs exponentially more money than using adhesive labels and inexpensive Bicycle playing cards. Undoubtably the most drastic improvement of Tipsy with the advent of version 2 is the ability to print your own cards at home for next-to-nothing, thanks to the technology provided by Saltlakemusic.com and our webman, Josey. The process is simple: You’ll need a printer (preferrably inkjet or bubblejet type with color. I use an Hp1200 all-in-one printer), several sheets of adhesive name badges (Avery brand works best, 2 1/3” x 3 3/8” is prefferred) and any standard 2 1/2” x 3 1/2” deck of playing cards (I use Bicycle playing cards because they’re cheap, durable and usually offer a choice of red or blue). Windows users will find these cards very easy to print, since the adhesive labels purchased at most stores typically include a pre-defined print template for Microsoft Word (find this by opening MSWord, then clicking “Tools” then clicking “Envelopes and labels” then clicking “options” then selecting the appropriate product number and size of label, then clicking “New Document”) with detailed step-by-step instructions on the back of the box. Mac users will need to purchase fabricated labels by mail using the RBM link below, or figure out how to make it work with whatever application they can find. The images on this page can be easily copied and pasted onto MSWord (they’ll need to be rotated sideways for this. If Word wont let you rotate the image, you’ll need to first open it first in MSPaint, rotate it 90 degrees onto it’s side, then copy and paste it again onto MSWord). Make sure to print several test pages with normal paper to ensure that the images are aligned, minor adjustments may be needed to keep the outer edges of the pictures from drifting off of the center of the labels. Once you’ve tested it several times, just feed the label sheet in the printer the exact same way, being careful to print on the correct side of the sheet.

Why do it yourself?

There are several obvious advantages to printing your own cards, you can optimize your deck however you prefer without having to re-order certain cards. If you want only 1 or 100 Patrick Stewart cards: it’s entirely up to you. If you already have a Tipsy deck you can print individual cards rather than getting a Popper of cards you already have, and the cost is the same either way. One major disadvantage to printing your own cards is the quality of the image seems to suffer slightly. I have tested this on my own computer and the size of the image when printed is almost exactly 2 1/2” x 3 1/2”, but only after stretching the image slightly in MSWord to fit the label, which distorts the picture substantially. The other downfall to printing yourself is that usually name badge labels are sold 8-10 labels per page, the smallest amount of name badge label sheets per box that I’ve found is 10 sheets, that’s 80-100 labels! Since the deck is composed of only 40 or less cards, many sheets of labels will be wasted, along with the money spent to buy them (these boxes of 100 labels cost $15-$30). For these reasons I’ve decided to continue the popular request-by-mail production method, in combination with the do-it-yourself production method, to ensure that everyone who wants one can get themselves a deck or two of Tipsy cards.

Tipsy By Mail

RBM (request by mail) is invaluable for people who aren’t too serious about playing Tipsy but enjoy collecting the cards. In some cases RBM is far less expensive than buying the materials yourself. Since I purchase name badge labels in massive amounts, the cost of printing is much less than for somebody needing just one deck. Also, certain items like official Tipsy cardboxes and Poppers packs (individual, hard to find cards), as well as instructional materials are only available through RBM. I should mention that nobody is profitting from RBM or otherwise. At only 2 bucks per deck, the price of cards by mail is so cheap that it’s barely covers the costs of shipping.

Click here to order complete decks of cards

Click here to request individual cards

What’s new in version 2?

There’s lots of new cards and effects, and several of the Version 1 cards have been discontinued, becoming “rare” (note: rules imply that no more than one of any rare card may be used in a single deck). Some of these rare cards were good ones, others not so good, but to keep the game lively there will always be rarities such as the martial arts series cards like Muay Thai and Chung Do Kwon, or one of my favorites: Quick Advance. I’m sorry to say cards like these (due to the collapse of the hard drive on my iBook) are no longer available, except through those who already own them. Many of these rare cards are now extinct due to careless spills of beer and such. The version 2 cards have been scanned in full color, even though the drawings themselves are in ink. The bluish tint in the image is likely a result of the cheap bulb on my piece of shit scanner, which is even more apparent in the new version, but this is a small price to pay for a crisper looking print. The old cards, along with their effects have been kept consistent with their original purposes, although the names and phrasing of some may have been altered slightly.

Three major changes in card effects appear in Version 2:

King’s Cup: Version 1 says “While this card is in play don’t drink, instead pour drinkage into the center cup. When this card goes out of play, target player drinks it’s contents.” The person who played this card therefore never drank, since whoever removed the card from play would doubtlessly be the victim selected to drink it’s contents. This was a very good card, but there were major issues. For example: situations arose in which several King’s cups were in play by different players at once. If a card was played capable of removing all of the King’s cup cards from play at the same time, who was the benefactor of assigning a target player to drink? This was one of those great unsolved mysteries of Tipsy, and has been cured in version 2 by reducing the effects of the card. The new King’s cup card says “While this card is in play: don’t drink, instead pour drinkage into the center cup.” And that’s it, what’s needed to make an opponent drink the contents of the cup is the Kevin card, which states “When this card comes in play: Target opponent drinks the contents of the center cup.” Thus the new King’s cup card is a valuable defensive measure, which can backfire if used against an opponent who wisely times the introduction of the Kevin card.

Realization: Version one states “Drink 1: Target opponent drinks X.” This was a complete typo. If X were to be changed to 10, using Uber Logic or something else, it meant that by drinking ten drinks with this card in play, you could cause an opponent to drink 100 drinks at once. This was never intended and has plagued the game incessantly since it was created, only mercy has kept players sporting this card from spoiling the game altogether. We’ve fixed this error in version 2 of the card which states “Once per turn: Drink 1: Target opponent drinks X.” This means that the absolute most drinkage this card can put out per turn is 10. But then again, with 4 stacks, all showing the Realization card, a single player can dish out as much as 40 drinks per turn to a single player, all this by drinking 4 little drinks.

Thought Police: Version one says “While this card is in play all players can look to see what their next card will be.” This card was stupid. The original idea was to allow a player to see whether their next card was at all useful before they played a card like Magic Stick or Pinapple Hunter which let them draw a new card, one that might be useful. Then the rules were abridged so that only one card could be played per turn, which changed the strategy behind those “Draw 1” cards completely. These cards are now for desperate measures only, when you know that somewhere in the deck is that card you need to turn the tables, and you need to get at it quickly. So we’ve completely changed Thought Police to serve a similar purpose. The new card states “When this card comes in play: all players return their discard pile to their hands.” This is a tool for use in combination with John Lithgow, Mystery Dinner Theater and similar cards which base the drinkage amount off of the number of cards in your hand. Against players who discard often, Thought Police works great in combination with cards that force players to drink each time they discard (ie: Meathead Justice).

Finally – we have the long awaited Lord of the Rings trivia cards, both Sam and Frodo, which are good for you if you’re the dorkiest person at the table, but not so good against a group of equally dorky dorks. Either of these cards opens up a random trivia question out of the separate LOTR trivia deck (available through request by mail), which the target opponent must answer correctly or drink as a consequence.

Easy to follow instructions and step-by-step tutorial CDs are also available at no cost through request by mail (see the above link).

Fight Club and Star Wars trivia decks are in the works for version 3, as well as Truth or Dare type trivia for those players blessed enough to be among the presence of the opposite sex while playing. Suggestions for future cards and changes to card effects are extremely welcome. Hope you enjoy.

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