SQUIRMISH™

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #15: Swirlyface

Look deeply into Swirlyface’s eyes. Deeper… deeper…

How did you end up lying on the floor unconscious? Where did your wallet go? And how did you end up in Philadelphia with a marriage license folded up in your pocket? Whose hair is that in the sink? Why does the room reek of stilton cheese? And your left canine tooth… replaced with a pink eraser?

These are the sorts of questions those who oppose Swirlyface are likely to be asking soon after. Her hypnotic gaze is confounding… staring into her eyes is, at the very least, likely to make opponents lose their balance as they tilt their heads 87 degrees to the right.

Her attack doesn’t usually do a lot of damage… but on a 5 or 6, it doesn’t need to. If she confounds her opponent, they do the attacking for her, and pummel another card for her in their confusion.

When her special ability Askew You is used on her turn, she can choose to move an opponent’s card, leaving her victims wondering where they are before they even knew where they were in the first place.

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #14: Buckychuckel

A lot of people carry severed rabbit feet for good luck. This is not nearly as lucky for the rabbits that were using the feet before them. Buckychuckel has two rabbit feet, and they are still attached to him… which makes him doubly lucky at least.

Buckychuckel’s luck is nothing short of remarkable. If he drops a piece of toast, it not only lands butter-side up, it lands on a plate! If you place Buckychuckel into the Squirmish, perhaps, like the silver scratch-off on a lottery ticket, some of his luck will rub off on you.

So great and uncanny is his luck, that every time he is attacked, his lucky feets make the card attacking him suffer some random misfortune (such as hitting their head on a low flying pancake, or stepping on a sleeping wombat) that costs them a hitpoint.

He does not do an enormous amount of damage, generally, but on a 4-6 on his basic attack, he pulls off a Jump N’ Stomp move, which does 3 damage and heals him 1 hitpoint.

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #13: Killgor the Conqueror

SO CUTE!!!!

Little, pink and baby-like, Killgor the Conqueror is probably the single cutest card in the Squirmish deck… at least until he opens his mouth and squeaks his battle cry: “THE BLOOD OF MINE ENEMIES SHALL FLOOD THE STREETS OF THEIR ANCESTORS!” Actually, he is even cute saying that. Cute, cute, cute. Cute. Just wanna hug the snuggly little fuzzy!

With only one cute little hitpoint, you would think Killgor would be easy to destroy… and he is! Any hit will probably knock him out. However, he is very hard to hit. His small stature, combined with opponents’ aversion to causing harm to such a “cute widdle fella” makes it so any attack on Killgor fails 50% of the time (on a 4-6 roll). But how could you even THINK about hurting such a darling little cutie?

Still, just one hitpoint… how threatening can the little fella be, right? Just look at those sweet little pink-eraser arms! I bet they make teeny-tiny honking noises when he punches!

Well… Killgor is actually one of the most dangerous cards in the deck. An expert in all manner of weaponry, a master of the ancient martial art of kill-fu, and a proud carrier of all sorts of cute little rodent-borne pestilence, Killgor’s basic attack is absolutely lethal.

Killgor’s basic attack never fails to inflict damage- and it inflicts a lot of it, doing a minimum of 5 points of damage. On 6, Killgor smites! and knocks out the attacked card regardless of how many hitpoints that card might have (assuming the opponent has five cards in play… if not, he “only” does 10 points of damage).

Really, though, if you’re going to get knocked out… he’s such a cute little guy to do it, isn’t he? With those big round, eyes! SO CUTE!!!

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #12: jingle hat

If you hear a jingle and it is not December (the month that jingle hat hibernates at the bottom of a volcano), watch your back. It could be jingle hat sneaking up on you… the bell on his hat gives him away.

He’d sneak silently if he could, but if anyone saw the unsightly horn that his hat hides, he would instantly be trapped on the other side of a mirror where he belongs (he can only exist on one side of a mirror at a time). To get back to this side involves a long, complicated process involving a lot of herbs, a genial manticore, and a live pus-sacrifice… or someone simply breaking the mirror. Breaking a mirror jingle hat is in causes a lot more than 7 years bad luck… you’ll be faced with a new jingle hat from every broken mirror shard.

jingle hat, with his irritating lower-case name, is neither elf nor fairy, despite his resemblance to both. He is pure imp, a lesser-known sprite known for their mischievous pranks, silly songs, and propensity for murder.

Magical as all-get-out, jingle hat rarely does damage to his opponents, but often puts them into perilous situations. If you roll a six with his basic attack, he does his Jingle Tangle, and the player controlling jingle hat can rearrange all cards in play into whatever configuration they wish.

One 1-3 his basic attack has no effect… however, using his special ability Ringle Dingle, the player controlling jingle hat can re-roll a roll they don’t like once per turn.

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #11: Chauncey

Chauncey is an extremely sensitive fella. I’m not just talking about the poetry he writes incessantly. He is easily tickled, and most attacks just make him laugh rather than injuring him. He is not violent by nature, but when he is tickled (which is pretty much any time he is touched), all bets are off… he can’t help flailing around with his flooby front hooves as he guffaws. Getting knocked in the head by one of those things will make an opponent think twice about tickling Chauncey again.

His fatty shield prevents him from feeling pain or taking damage from any attack doing less than three damage. This helps him greatly with preventing him from getting knocked out, since he only has 8 hitpoints (which is pretty low).

He does a decent amount of damage with his punches… and if he does a full Flooba Booba attack with a roll of six, the controlling player immediately rolls another attack from him.

“Roses are red,
violence makes me blue,
but punch me in the head,
and I will laugh at you.”
~Chauncey

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #10: Cupcake

Card #10 is Cupcake, another member of the Kitty Kat Club… those clever cats who never attack one another.

Cupcake, one of the cutest Squirmish cards, is named after her favorite thing in the world.

Cupcake’s battle cry is “I’ll do anything for a cupcake!” This is true- she is a fickle friend indeed, as her loyalties are easily bribed with the pastry.

Strangely, she has no particular love for other kinds of cake… while she certainly enjoys a good birthday cake, it just does not ignite her passions in the same way. Something about the small and simple cupcake, with its frosting, sprinkles and paper wrapper, interests her in a way that no other sweet can. Perhaps it is because she does not have to share it?

In any case, her cupcake habit has made her grow quite large… she rarely goes a day without eating at least 50 cupcakes… indeed, she eats little else. She prefers them with pink frosting. Much like the flamingo’s pink hue is caused by its diet largely consisting of shrimp, Cupcake’s pink pallor comes from her constant consumption of red dye #2.

Her enormous size makes her quite a challenging opponent. 12 hitpoints is certainly nothing to sneeze at… and her attacks are pretty brutal. She never fails to cause damage with her basic attack… and on a six, she does her “Cherry on Top” attack, which, in addition to doing 3 damage, enables the player controlling her to draw a card which they can choose to immediately place.

Furthermore, every time Cupcake is attacked she can use her “Sprinkly Winkly” ability… and her controlling player draws a card.

Controlling Cupcake is a great way to draw a lot of cards. This is particularly useful early in the game, before you have placed a lot of cards. Just remember, you can only have five cards in your hand and five cards in play at a time… any extras need to be discarded or placed (if you are in the placing phase of your turn) immediately.

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #9: Baby Head

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Squirmish card #9 is Baby Head. Baby Head is soooooo sweet and cute and full of love. He really just wants to snuggle with you.

Unfortunately, Baby Head’s snuggles cause damage. He just doesn’t know his own strength. If you roll a six on his basic attack, he gets your card in a full snookle, which is a snuggle combined with him using opponents’ heads as a binky… did I mention Baby Head is enormous?

Baby Head is extremely difficult to knock out. Besides the fact that he has 13 hitpoints (which is a lot), he also is covered in the wonderful armor known as baby fat. This makes it so Baby Head takes -2 damage from all attacks.

As a result of his resistance to damage, when opponents attack Baby Head, he is not scared… he just thinks they want to play with him, and maybe snuggle and let him teethe on them for a while.

Although you would not think it looking at him, Baby Head is actually very old… ancient,even… or at least his body is. Nobody knows his age. His head is young, though. He sheds his head and grows a new one every nine months (new heads grow out of the flower-like appendage in his forehead). This insures that Baby Head will stay a baby no matter how old he gets. Each head has a whole new brain, too… needless to say, Baby Head is not very smart. He is very curious, though.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #8: Mouth-Hatcher

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Mouth-Hatcher, one a rare species of pelican, does not have a nest, nor does she want one. Why bother to build a nest, she reasons, when one can simply hatch chicks in your mouth? Hard to argue with that line of reasoning.

Mouth-Hatcher tries to be a good momma. To her credit, it is really fairly rare that she swallows one of her numerous chicks, and when she does, she quickly vomits them up. Her chicks have built up natural immunity to her digestive enzymes, since they live their young lives in what is essentially a pool of her saliva. Someday, with a lot of luck and perseverance, some may grow up to swallow her grandchildren.

When (after a 6 is rolled) she spits slobbery chicks at high speeds towards all of her adjacent enemies as an attack (doing 2 damage to each enemy), it is not because she doesn’t love her chicks. It’s because her chicks make excellent weapons (her saliva is highly corrosive non-mouth-hatchers).

Mouth-Hatcher’s “Pelican’t” special ability only activates when you roll a six when one of your opponents draws a card… but if it is rolled successfully, your opponent must discard the card they just drew. They pelican try again next turn.

10 hitpoints is pretty average. With no defensive powers, Mouth-Hatcher isn’t all that hard to take out with a little time.

Mouth-Hatcher’s battle cry is “QKKK,” which is pretty much all she can say with a mouth full of her chicks. If she could speak more, I wonder what she might say? Perhaps she would be a great orator. Perhaps she would give great and powerful speeches that would inspire the world. Perhaps she would continue to say “QKKK.” Eggs are cheap and plentiful (and she finds her chicks delicious to suck on), so I doubt we’ll be finding out any time soon.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card #7: Paddypaws

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

An enormous catnip enthusiast, Paddypaws has catnip with every meal. She delights in the different effects and flavors of the wondrous cat-herb, and is quite the connoisseur of the stuff. A sniff from her sensitive nose over a bit of nip can tell her the strain of the plant, the vintage… sometimes even the yard it was grown in!

While this hobby has its pleasures and advantages for her, it also makes her extremely skitterish… it does not take much to send Paddypaws running for cover.

Paddypaws is full of fluff and fatty stuff. She would make an excellent pillow if she would stay still and stop worrying so much. This fluff and fat, along with her nougaty center, provides her with a reasonable amount of hitpoints (11 of them).

Paddypaws is not an easy card to knock out.

In addition to being the seventh Squirmish card, Paddypaws is the second member of the Kitty Kat Club in the deck. Since no member of the KKC can attack another member of the KKC, she can’t attack Kittyclops, and Kittyclops can’t attack her.

It is not just other KKC members who have trouble hitting the skitterish Paddypaws… she has most sensitive whiskers. Her whisker radar ability alerts her to coming attacks 50% of the time, and instead of getting a wollop, she dives under a nearby sofa or bush and avoids the conflict.

She’s really a lover, not a fighter, though. A 1-5 on her basic roll does little or no damage. However, if you roll a 6 with her, her big fluffy paws go into full Muhammad Ali-mode, and she does 2 damage and another attack on a different card in play.

Meet the Squirmish™ Cards | Card 6: Mummyfrog

Squirmish is now on Kickstarter here. This is a series of posts designed to help you learn a bit about some of the cards before you play the game.

Mummyfrog is card #6. Born over 2000 years ago in the river Nile, this ancient amphibian is in awfully good shape for his age. Buried with a forgotten pharoah, he was released from his tomb when some explorers rediscovered it back in the thirties.

Back before he was a mummy, Mummyfrog romped about playfully in the water… but water no longer agrees with his sensitive mummy-skin. He now swims about in the sand, often hiding underneath it for days at a time. He still eats flies, but only flies that are dead and dried out… you can often find him lurking around windowsills and light fixtures looking for a dried fly lunch.

Woe unto those afflicted with his Curse of the Nile… it does 3 damage to ALL active opponent cards! Opponents are going to want to be awfully careful attacking this little fella, though… he does 2x damage when attacking a card that attacked him on the previous round.

For a little guy, Mummyfrog has a lot of hitpoints… 12 of them. Happily, all those years of baking in the sun has made him more solid than brittle… he feels more like a raisin than a matchstick when touched.