Card Game

The Card Game has gone through a lot of development, and a lot of changes in the core mechanics. The problem with it is just that it isn't attempting to be just a card game, but attempting to be a card game that represents a Real Time Strategy game, or Turn Based Strategy game.

One of the big features that the game mechanic was geared around is the concept of needing to capture territory cards. The idea is fairly complex, because then you have to keep track of whose Territory card it is (literally who owns that card) versus who is currently controlling that card... and you may have six cards to keep track of, or thirty.

See: Board Game

I mention that even though I have not actually written anything for the Board Game yet; however the Board Game is basically a variant gameplay for the Card Game, alternative to territory cards.

It felt like the Territory Card idea was slightly unbalanced enough that I had tried dropping the idea. Except what ended up dropping the Territory card in favor of made the game just as complex, and I had to change a majority of the cards.

Then this idea came along. Still have the Territory Cards, just drop the necessity to capture them. To take advantage of the Territory Card you just need a unit card on it at the beginning of your turn, if you don't have a unit card on it then you don't get the benefits. Much more simple and it still makes use of the original idea of Territory Cards.

Then this other bonus idea came along. Which is still on the possibility to implement as a cool idea, but also maybe not implement it so we don't add another step. Using dice with the cards. Instead of just having two cards in a combat, one attacking and one defending, and the card that is strongest wins. Now, our game has always made heavy use of equipment cards so you are not just stuck with the base line stats of the cards. Additionally, Tactical Cards, quick use cards, that can make the ready change to how a combat is played out. But in additional to this, roll a d5 and add it to the attack.

Now, the possibilities on it could be potentially annoying, an added complexity that takes away from the simplicity that a card game is supposed to be built around. On the other hand, it adds more factor of chance; okay, a 3/3 card is still more likely to kill the 1/1, but maybe the 1/1 rolls good and the 3/3 rolls bad and things do not happen as planned. Alea Iacta Est.

See: Strategy Game Mk.II

Another future article that is also related to these dice rolls. The idea was actually originally suggested on the Strategy Game, then it kinda crossed backwards compatibility into the Card Game. Everything plays together?