Serge Pierro has created a card game with pictures of his home town: Shelter Island, the Card Game.

Serge describes himself as having significant experience in the field as a play tester for many companies, and he wrote a book about strategy when he was ranked 7th in the world at Legend of the Sword, a video game.

“What I do is design a game engine,” said Mr. Pierro, which he describes as “the core of the game.” Essentially, Mr. Pierro designs the rules of the game, and then images of any theme can be put on the cards. The engine for “Shelter Island: The Card Game” could be applied to any theme, but in the end, the Shelter Island cards were manufactured.

He took all the pictures himself.

The goal of the game is to put together sets of cards. Each card has either a number one or a number three in the top left-hand corner of the card. That number is on top of the outline of Shelter Island, which is a different color depending on the set. The sets can be identified by their number, Shelter Island color and the content of the photograph on the card. For example, the cards in the “blue-one” set all have photos of sunsets on them, while the cards in the “green-three” set have photos of animals. Other sets include photos of Island buildings, flowers, boats and birds. There is also a “Town Board Ruling” card and a “Local Paper” card that influence the outcome of the game.

(source)