El-Coco

El-Coco is a strategy card game, that is based on the legend of El-Coco from Iberian Folklore (Portugal and Spain). It takes place in a medieval Iberia, where El-Coco is devastating the lands with his shapeshifting ability. It is up to you to create a deck strong enough to withstand his attack and protect your land, or even better, scare him off first, by discovering him. 

El-Coco isn´t the only opposition, however, keep an eye on all 4 players (recommended), as anyone can sabotage another player by purposefully keeping and withholding certain cards from the deck. 

El-Coco was inspired by Sushi-Go! and Lobisomens D’ Aldeia Velha. Making use of a mechanic from both, namely being the passing of hands and bluffing. 

Players must think ahead and analyse the other players social behaviour to find who El-Coco might be, before he is unleashed. Will you save your village? Or will you and everyone there vanish from the history books? 

Initially we started the design of our game with a Bottom-up approach. However, we faced many challenges with this design method, mainly being the overabundance of different ideas that were very opposing in nature and overly complex. We decided to switch to a Top-down approach instead. This allowed us to gain much needed context and perspective that enabled us to develop the full vision, albeit with a lot of trial and error.