The pig merchant is definitely my favourite of the ones you've shown. With a character like him, anyone with a little experience with something like BG&E will probably more easily recognize the "galactic marketplace" part of the setting without making the characters too outlandish.
My immediate thought when talking about the difficulty of the vampire theme was to make her a kid. That way you can get away with the vampire being a whimsical style character and like “aww isn’t it so cute, she’s performing a blood sacrifice” type thing I really like the non human merchants. I think it’s important to not have them all humans I love the last robot engineers screwdriver arm. It’d be sweet if he can swap his arm for various tools, as just a flavor thing, or potentially a game mechanic? I think another potential way to improve synergy within a type could be by adding an option, rather than strictly better. Like deal 5 damage could combo to allow an option to deal 2 or 3 damage twice to potentially different things
Loving the idea for carrying currency to the next turn. It gives that sense of anticipation for new players cashing in them fat cheques to afford this badass looking weapon, but also adds a subtle and high cap strategy element where people will be debating what is the most efficient way to use your money and when. Also, I've seen someone comment this already but I'm bumping it because it sounds really cool, potential thief cards that can take small bits of money from your opponent's bank or can siphon away a percentage of what they cash in next turn. Also, with the day night cycle (which I think is a brilliant idea), it's probably far easier to make things that would benefit from the night cycles as they kind of stand out more (were-wolf, thief, necromancer etc). So you've gotta make sure you balance the day cycle and ensure that it doesn't just become that you only do things every other turn because it's more efficient or something. You could add classes like Paladins or Clerics that get some kind of damage bonuses during the day time. You could have the merchant have some kind of "rush hour" card that doubles or triples the money they'll gain that day. You could have a class like the folk hero who gets a bonus for killing monsters during the day because people are around to watch him. All just ideas for you to consider, Noodle. I'm really glad with the strides you've taken with the game so far and I commend you for giving yourself this kind of work load. When the going gets tough, you don't ask for a lighter burden, you ask for broader shoulders.
If you do go along with the "saving currency at end of turn" mechanic, it would open a lot of design space for interaction. Stealing saved money, thief monsters maybe? Maybe thiefs come out at night? If not, the saved money idea might work well for a class identity such as pirate or banker/investory(might be too close to merchant) Just my quick thoughts. Can't wait for next update. -Guy in cloud9 hoodie from GP Oakland
I like this. There could also be like a Taxes so you are actually are forced to spend money on less optimal cards because otherwise it just goes away so you cant just save up money for big cards forever.
Maybe you dont get money automatically. But you get interest on your bank account. And you can upgrade your account with spare money to get more interest over the next turns. Idk might be a too complicated system. Just a thought.
@@JamesB00n That is a good idea, taxes on savings over a certain amount. This would act as a sort of catch up mechanic to allow the less wealthy player not to get snowballed out of the shop/game.
Oh tax is a good idea. My initial thought was you would need some kind of wipe mechanic to stop hoarding, but taxes acting like a soft cap seems like a good solution.
i dont feel like taxes should be the system, but more like using your spare gold to upgrade the bank. so if you decide to not buy a card and play a slower game, you can invest it to increase the gold you get by 1 per turn after spending x amount on the bank. maybe even have cards that provide a +1 gold every round after pulling of a 3x alchemie combo. taxes in generall seem to be to snowball effect like. at least thats how it feels for me playing dota autochess. everyone generally pushes for the 50 gold to create as much income as possible, which is not really interesting since it becomes kind of a mandatory thing to do. @@pootie3181
With the Werewolf character, I would try to make the human side of the character more timid in nature, as to add duality to the character, and it would fit more thematicly if you are playing off of a character that changes playstyle based around the day and night cycle.
One of the most important aspects of synergy is that there is a certain balance to it - it isn't always better to pick up another card that synergizes with your deck in a certain way, because you might not need it. Consider a deck like the alien archetype from yugioh. There are some cards that generate this resource called A-counters, and some cards which utilize the A-counters for more powerful effects. Although it is clear that all the alien cards work together, the proportion of resource generators to utilizers is very unclear until you start playing with them. Moreover, there are slower A-counter generators and faster ones that offer less value over time, and the cards that utilize A-counters can have a variety of different effects. Therefore, depending on the overall deck's strategy, you might want to run faster generators to kill your opponent quicker, or maybe you're going for a long haul with more valuable utilizing cards. Thus, despite the alien archetype only adding a single new resource / mechanic to work with, there are multiple different ways the archetype can play out, and many different board states that it will generate, making the game feel different and fresh despite playing around with the same archetype. Perhaps the most important consequence of this type of archetype is that, in a deckbuilding format, *it isn't always optimal to pick the alien card offered to you, or even to pick the objectively best alien card on the table* , since it may not synergize with the overall strategy of your deck. Now, it might not be feasible or maybe even desirable in the Bazaar to create a bunch of sub-strategies within a single archetype / mechanic, but even having a split between resource generators and utilizers I think adds a significant amount of depth to the game. That mechanic you mentioned of adding burns or debuffs I think has the potential to become a wonderful mechanics for this very reason.
The 'saving coins you didnt spend' and the 'double click to purchase' ideas both sound great. One or the other or a combination of both would probably work really well.
Setting up the card drop rules regarding what cards can appear when for 800 individual cards seems like it is going to be a huge time sink, and while that system should feel good if it's done really well, mistakes will be felt and what is actually happening might not be obvious to the players. I would consider splitting the game into some number of phases, and organizing when cards appear by phase. With less granularity cards won't start/stop appearing exactly where you want them to, but this type of system is much more accessible to the players. The information could be conveyed by something as simple as a small graphic that appears when you mouse over a card. This should make the imperfections in the system tolerable, and perhaps even strategic, because players understand why they are happening. A phase system could also be used to help tell the story of the game. There doesn't seem to be any established reason why the characters in the bazaar are fighting, but phases could be used to create that narrative. As a systemic change that will add complexity to the game, especially alongside a day/night cycle, I can understand why this might not be a good idea. But if you could find a way to make a phase system feel organic to the game, I believe it would both save development time and make the gameplay more interesting. Thanks for taking the time to create these videos and read through our comments, I can't wait for the release of the bazaar!
I really liked the last robot with one eye, but i think he'd be much more awesome on one wheel instead of legs. I imagined like a BB-8 and Wall-E mixture, rushing around fixing things.
Absolutely love seeing these update videos, not just as entertainment and information about a game I'm looking forward to, but also as someone who is working on a deckbuilding game myself. Its fascinating seeing which ideas we've both tried out and tested, and the differences between using the digital medium and working with physical limitations. Obviously the scale is very different comparing The Bazaar to my little barely a year old project, but I've been having that sense of scope dawn on me these last couple months too. Its crazy how much designs change over time, and its daunting thinking about how many more changes are going to come in the future, but at the same time its so exciting seeing a project shape itself and grow along with you. I cannot wait to see (and more importantly, play) the final product! Looking forward to the next update! :D
The artist that did the Pig merchant is a down right genius. Perfectly encapsulates what an intergalactic merchant should look like. The symbolism of the pig and greed coupled with the fact that its a large character eludes to multiple other merchant esq characters in popular films/games/etc. It almost feels like while he is a merchant, he is somewhat of a crime boss as well, which further solidifies his place as the "merchant" where you can get anything you need (even if it is illegal). Really interesting video as always!
some sort of a "greedy merchant" would be cool like looks really sketchy, maybe has ton of coins around his/her neck and i think the idea of a non human character is really solid, the pig merchant stood out a lot
Hey reynoodle, how about the neutral monsters getting weaker as days go by, which in turn also lessens the reward for killing them? This could also lead to them being replaced by other mobs after a couple of days, should neither player want their drops, just a quick thought though. Loving the art and theme so far, hope it'll all come together just the way you want it. :)
Its awesome to see how the whole process evolving from the creator perspective. I cant recall a behind the scenes look this indepth before for a developed product. Im enjoying it, thank you. I look forward to the monthly updates.
Maybe you can have cards activate strong combo abilities if you played BOTH fire and ice spells (as an example) encouraging a player to draft both types. Maybe even require some to have 3 or more card types to activate a really powerful combo effect
that's exactly what I was thinking. Also, some "factions" could specialize in combining with other colors and some could have a big payoff for going all in. So for the wizard example, an "arcane" faction could excel at combining with other colors and a "frost" faction could have a very powerful effect that needs like 3-4 other frost cards. ALSO, there could be external incentives for diversity, like if there's a wizard in the game there could be monsters added to the pool of possible monsters that are week to different elements, like a wooden scarecrow that's week to fire and a water monster that's week to frost. (that last idea works best if the monsters cycle themselves somehow. if they stick around forever you could just draft like 1 frost spell to kill that water monster eventually, which doesn't incentivize being able to adapt)
Having the community involved in the evolution of the game directly could really reduce the divide players feel like there is between the community and activision-blizzard.
Some ways to do synergy off the top of my head: Fire Archetype > Aggro > Powerful but cheap early game cards that are consumed on use (removed from deck) Synergizes with other cards that care about deck size > Cards that grow in strength through repeated castings; eg. Deal XX damage where X is the number of times this card has been cast this game > Cards that care about the number of cards left in your hand or deck > Cards that count the number of cards burned this turn/game Ice Archetype > Control > Incremental advantage represented by building frost > Cards that build frost that come with an upside; eg. Draw a card, Build 1 Frost > Cards that increase in power based on frost breakpoints; eg. Draw a card, Frostbite 3: Draw 2 cards instead > Cards that can be kicked by spending frost; eg. Freeze a card in the market, Thaw 2: Freeze 2 cards instead Cross-Synergies > Fire/Ice > Cards that increment frost when consumed; eg. Consume: Build 3 Frost > Card that cost frost that deal damage; eg. You may Thaw X rather than pay this card's cost: Deal 3 damage > Powerful cards that temporarily remove themselves from your deck after use; eg. Do X, Freeze this card
Thanks for the Update reynad! I guess we all like the way how you show us, what is needed to create a game. It makes a lot of fun to watch the way! Just waiting for the alpha already! + I like the 3rd robot a lot too.
As someone trying to design my own deckbuilding game, I find this video fascinating. Thank you for posting this. It's really encouriging knowing that you're struggling with similar issues to mine. Kepe up the good work!
i REALLY REALLY REALLY apreciate that you take feedback, i dont know if it was directly from peopple like me or internal thought progress, but the fact that there was a change on the game on something i pointed to you through twitter (the neutral creature thing) its amazing lots of love noodle! and hopes for the best
I think a cool way to add synergy while not encouraging people to buy all of the same "factions" or "tribes" would be by making things have synergies with different factions or tribes. ie. You cast a storm type card called "Thunderstorm" that says "lightning bolts strike all around deal # damage to your opponent; if you've cast an ice type card this turn also cast Hailstorm" where "Hailstorm" is an ice type card that deals a smaller amount of damage or freezes the opponent or something. Also, I put this on another video and I kind of saw it implemented in this video but I think you definitely should have a different rope animation for every board, the bomb for the pirate board and like maybe something sinking in quicksand for the jungle board... stuff like that. Anyway looks great so far raynad, keep working hard on it man, I can't wait to play!!!
Hi Reynad! Thanks for being awesome. Love watching these problem videos, keeps me entertained and thinking. Hope this inspires anything :) Okay, there are a few things that don’t feel good so far with the Bazaar that you may want to consider changing. Buying cards is fun. It adds something to your deck, and there is thinking and strategies involved in selecting the right card for your situation. What doesn’t feel good is attacking and resource management. It's boring to just draw your cards, get attack and money, and use them. You get to decide what to buy (again, good), but getting your money for the turn involves 0 brain cells and 9 times out of 10 the attack will be obvious. I’m not sure what the rewards are from the neutral monsters, but deciding to invest 5 or more attack into them as opposed to lowering the opponent’s life total seems a bit...yeah, just boring or lazy. Is the reward good enough? Yes? Okay then I’ll do it. No? Okay, Face. Here’s my proposal. Turns should start by drawing your cards, then offering players the decision to either attack, or buy. Right off the bat, players need to decide something based on a limited amount of information. In the event of buying, you are shown your shop. That would stay relatively the same as you have it. The interesting change would be in attacking. You’d be presented with 3 enemies to choose from. The monsters are part of a monster deck that either player can add to, but monsters are chosen at random from the deck for each player’s attack phase. Bare with me here, but this is how you address your economy issue also. It’s only through killing monsters that you gain capital to buy things. In this way, players are more incentivized to NOT attack the opponent’s face until they can stack enough damage, or their deck is good enough to ‘face race’ their opponent. You build a compelling end game in this way. The tension of knowing your opponent can start smacking face at any time would be exciting. Dominion has this in the race for victory points that ends up happening most of the time. To go into more details regarding economy, monsters should give two resources. Ore and Gold. Gold is used to buy any new card that will be added to either your deck, or the monster deck. Fun mechanics and counterplay options here would be things like adding armor to specific monster types, or increasing the attack by 1 for all monsters. Ore is used to upgrade any armor or weapon card in your deck. Your ability to kill monsters depends on your gear. Both players start with base gear which can be upgraded (as one of the shown cards in the shop every shopping phase). Both gold and ore are persistent across turns. Now, the idea of having three monsters does add some complexity and decision making options that need to be discussed further. Each enemy has an attack and health stat, similar to players. If a player cannot kill an enemy in one hit, the enemy attacks, detracting from the player’s life total. The fight continues until either you or your enemy dies. So early on, a player has to decide whether a giant sum of materials is worth sacrificing a large portion or their life to get. This offers much replay-ability early on for new players. I realize this makes balancing the game much more difficult, but ultimately I think this system has more merits than negatives. If this is just too out there to implement, then I do have a few basic changes that could help. -Neutral minions should ‘block’ players during the night phase. This resolves the issue of mindlessly attacking and forcing the player to decide whether or not to attack. -Interacting with the neutral minions. Perhaps you can enchant the minions so they attack your opponent every few turns. This will incentivize players to kill neutral minions. -Making your resource pool static. You can have the coin playing every turn if you’d like, but make the coins add to a pool that adds up over multiple turns. Obviously, all purchasable items would need to have their costs adjusted accordingly, but this lets you more readily decide whether to buy cheap stuff, or try to hold out for expensive stuff. -Buying or Attacking. I don’t think you should be able to do both each turn. Maybe a card could let that happen, but restricting actions means more decisions, and it’s a simple way to do that. In Dominion for instance, you get 1 buy, 1 action, and 1 draw. Cards add to that, strategies revolve around that, and should be simple enough to implement. -Hedging. Interesting mechanic idea perhaps. You can choose what you think your opponent will do next turn. If your opponent decides to do what you chose anyway, you are rewarded. The problem with many deckbuilders is not enough counterplay. Any interaction with your opponent is good, and your team should be looking for more ways to do so. I prefer the idea of a shared deck (like the monster deck I referred to previously), but hedging is a cheap and easy way to introduce quick counterplay. -Passive hero abilities Hope any of this helps, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you ultimately land on! Best of luck.
Hey Reynad, great video as always! I've never had a problem with your more ramble-y videos personally, just keep them coming! I loved the bounty mechanic you described for neutral monsters, and to me it seems like a natural integration into the day and night cycle. Maybe the bounty starts at 1 or 2 gold and increases by 1 each new day the monster is "on the loose"! It seems thematic and increases the reward for defeating monsters that are clogging up gameplay, then maybe you wouldn't need to have them refresh "artificially". Thanks again for the content and thanks for reading the comments!
If it hasn't been mentioned, maybe a mechanic where you draw "x" amount of cards cards, discard "y" amount cards from your hand. You could then make cards that also serve up benefits when they're discarded instead of just losing out on the abilities/powers from the cards. It would help with cycling, and has the potential for both upside and downside to possessing cards of that nature.
I like the idea of a small robot. One idea is a team for a character/class; A pack of Werewolves or a trio of Robot Engineers with different personalities that might lead towards different archetypes.
I don't know if my comment will even be read, but here's my humble opinion: A "bank" system for money sounds very nice, and not losing the money at the end of the turn makes sense (that's how banks work). You could also experiment with other "realistic" aspects of a bank, for example, when the bank gives you money, you have to pay the bank back so that the bank gives you a larger "loan" next time. The longer you take to pay back, the largest the amount you will owe the bank, and then explore a bit inside these concepts. About character design, one thing that always pops into my head when I hear you talk about the game is that "hero powers" feel too much "Hearthstony". It is a good mechanic, but honestly it keeps making me feel like this game is trying to be "a better Hearthstone". I would love to see at least some attempts to insert in the game other mechanics that give each class their identity. Maybe the way the cards relate to each other, maybe the way the classes relate to the money in the game, the way they relate to the neutral and class monsters and items, etc. Well, that's it. I hope I could help in some way.
Basic card abilities, placeholder names - Hold: The player could chose to hold onto the card for another turn (possibly more than one turn). Quickdraw: Has an increased effect if the card is the first card played out of your hand OR, combined with the 'Hold' idea, the card would have the strongest effect on the first turn it was drawn and then gets weaker each turn it is held. Latebloomer: The card would become stronger each turn it was cycled through the deck without being played OR, combined with the 'Hold' idea, the card would have the weakest effect the first the turn its drawn and then it gets stronger each turn it is held.
The clue with synergies, is that you don't want to overdo it. If a faction contains too many cards, than indeed you risk the fact that you only will pick "fire" cards, once you go that route. But having only a few "fire" cards for example, means that you can pick those up once presented to you, but you still have to pick up other ones that have no synergy with each other, or just from another faction. This could allow you to combine certain factions instead of just playing one faction every game. One game you could play the "fire" archetype combined with the "water" and "storm" archetype, and the next game you could play "fire" combined with "ice" and "night" for example. Even though you play "fire" twice, it would still feel as a completely different experience.
I’ve played a ton of deck builders and the idea of ditching coin cards altogether is super intriguing. They become such burdens by the end of the game and many times the only way to work around them is to either buy cards that draw more cards or cards that burn/destroy cards in your hand or discard pile. But if you were able to count on a few coins per turn automatically and then some of the card you buy add coins to the purse OR if monsters gave you coins that would add to your purse that could be very interesting. Anyhow, I love hearing how you are processing this and really trying to make the digital aspect of this work in ways tabletop never could. This will be what makes your game distinctive. Love that you want to be the hearthstone of deck builders. Good luck and can’t wait to play this game!
Thanks for the update man, super interesting. I think the idea of taking advantage of custom card creation from the community is a good idea that seems like a no-brainer idea that almost no companies utilize. As for the "saving money" idea I think that if you go down that path it will REALLY change the feel of the traditional deck builder that many players love, and while not necessarily a bad idea if done right, there could be a nice in-between you could implement, which is making the merchant have a theme of saving money past turns so he really feels like he's saving up for a big purchase. An example of this could just be a keyword like "Frugal" or "Thrifty" that when played allows you to save all unused currency for the next turn before emptying like usual.
killing baddies to get gold is definitely a good idea. it's kind of like a bounty system. which, similarly, might also be a good idea. I know you just said to not add new mechanics, but i think this one will barely qualify: add a gold to an baddie (i.e. neutral monster) card for every full day that it's been sitting there. This also encourages people to actually try to kill them after a while, naturally cycling them and rewarding the players at the same time. I would take this one step further, but probably not worth getting into ATM. However, in general, i would think this is a much better solution then the way you've currently chosen (auto-rotation), since it allows more flexibility with monster health (so "stolen kills" are a potentially smaller problem -- or at least a more tactical problem) and amount of turns it can be on the board in general. as for a somewhat similar idea but also regarding your want to make use of the digital space, how about a "discount / on sale / clearance / whatever you want to call it" system wherein cards that show up later cost less -- either by a fixed price, by the difference between its optimal play round and current (late) round, or something else. I imagine this kind of thing working best for the merchant. Cards that are reasonably good early on, but you actually hope to get them later so as to profit from the discount. of course, this leads to both a problem and solution and problem: (maybe you've already discussed it, please ignore if you have) having specific draw timings needs to be player-facing. If a card can only be drawn from rounds 1-6, that should be made pretty obvious to someone new to the game. One quick and well trodden way would be to use different decks for each type of card that can be draw. For example, in Through the Ages (if you haven't played this, go pick it up on steam, it's got a great digital version) there 4 decks that are used one after another that represent the titular "ages" of the game. In the 'I' age you'll find basic buildings and early leaders such as Socrates; later ages, such as 'III' will have Churchill and the Eiffel Tower. The segmentation helped me quickly understand that not only are the cards i'm using not always going to stay the same and the tactics involved on a individual game level, but also that, to play well, i'll need to take the time to learn the progression (and that there even was one) to truly master the strategic element to the game. i feel like i didn't explain that all that well, but hopefully it doesn't ring completely hollow. finally, i don't think the burn card in the opponent's deck is the best design path for that kind of status effect, especially in a digital-first game. maybe if there was some quirk to it, for example, adding the effect to an opponent's card and having a unique effect when purchased (e.g., dealing damage, increasing the cost, applying the "burn" status to that player, etc.), rather than being it's own card. I'm not sure of other alternatives, and i think there are better out there, but just felt like i should give my 2-cent, snowflake perspective. P.S. this game looks dope and as "somewhat of an artist myself" i'm really enjoying this BTS view of your and your team's process (obviously i wouldn't write a goddamn text wall otherwise). keep it up, por favor
One cool way to do tribes is by giving you bonuses for having them at all, like having 5 unique fire cards unlocks something. That way you can encourage going for tribes while you can still chose whatever 5 fire type cards you want. The good part is that you can give any bonus, perhaps something like a gold bonus or unlocking upgraded versions of cards in the shop?
One thing about synergies, I think it's actually a good idea to have a few easy to grasp but non-optimal synergies for newer players. With a complex game, you want to spread out the learning moments, and having simple to grasp synergies is a nice way to let people learn about that aspect of the game at a time when they probably aren't thinking about more subtle interactions. It also prompts them to search for these more subtle and complex synergies if they realize they exist from the simple ones. In regards to the economy and cards. games like dominion allow you to buy coins which are worth more, and suualy have cards you can purchase that let you remove the smaller coins from your deck and give you a benefit. Something like the bank you mentioned might work too. As for discarding your hand, the deck builder I designed allowed you to keep cards in your hand over multiple turns, you just always drew to 5 cards (so you if kept 2 cards then at the end of your turn you'd draw 3). This worked out pretty well when we playtested it.
I love the concept of getting it of the coins in the main deck. I play tons of deck building games with my friends and we all agree that it is the worst part of the game. The fact that you have to sink resources into getting money seems dreadful when I can be buying cool weapons to kill giant monsters! The Hearthstone mana system has always been my favorite system out of all card games. The fact that everyone is always guaranteed the same amount of mana at the same time feels fair and fun. So incorporating that with your money system seems like a fantastic idea. I also love the Pig merchant design! Something about a giant, rough, hearty, pig dealing out weapons just feels right. Also the second robot of the designs looks the cutest, in my opinion. The werewolf design reminds me of of the Disney character Princess Merida from Brave. It think that is a wonderful choice of the three and has great potential to be a fan favorite. Thank you for all that you are doing for the community! The fact that you are looking to us for our opinion makes me look forward to this game even more! When a company cares about its players and wants to provide a healthy, fun environment for playing their game means that it is going to be a good one. I look forward for more update videos and to play the game!
I'm glad that you like the direction it's going! There is a lot of value in getting the community involved early. One day after posting this video, for example, I've realized that we should go in on the pig merchant. If we kept everything under wraps, we would have gone in a different direction.
Hey Reynad! One of the biggest reasons that there are coins in deck building games is because you need to have cards in the starter deck that aren't just blanks or really good starting cards. The reason you need to have those cards is because if you don't, it's too easy for someone to assemble a deck that always draws all of its cards and does the same thing every turn, aka it enables combo decks way too easily or if your early cards are too good well the games are too quick. What I would like to suggest, is to allow "ramp" by paying let's say 3 coins to remove a coin from your deck and simply always gain that 1 coin, like a mana system, every turn afterwards. This removes the "buying doesn't matter later on" and makes you draw less coins. Though I fear that that mechanic would be too strong without the constant threat of aggressive moves, and it removes one of ramp's traditional weaknesses which is running out of cards since you'd be more likely to draw gas. Anyways, food for thought. Thanks for the video as always!
Removing cards from your deck is always fun because it allows players to optimize their deck faster. For the vampire/werewolf, you could have cards that require you to eat one of the cards in your hand from the game in order to use them, like a suck/consume mechanic as part of their flavor. And you could create crypt cards that do something positive every time one of your cards is removed, and you could make zombie cards that say "when they are removed from the game, get this slightly more fallen apart zombie to replace it."
Its possible youve mentioned this in an episode here, but a great source of inspiration for synergies is slay the spire. None of the cards really directly say 'hey if you have card A, card B is better' but logically theyve made cards that have cohesive innate synergies. Cheap card that you can play twice? Great with the card that does damage for every other card you've played. Though that same card can be strong in other decks, like ones that build strength and such. This also allows for outside the box more loose synergies, and combinations where you go. "Maybe I should do a block and poison deck" instead of just "am I doing a poison deck, a combo deck, or a block deck"
The Pig Merchant was definitely my favorite of the merchants! It's just very unique compared to a lot of other games and really shows the creativity in the game. The 3rd robot engineer you showed was my favorite of the engineers - they just have that look that I would expect an engineer to have. Cant wait for this game!
I'm an avid Dominion player and one of favourite things about the game is how it plays so differently depending on what cards are available to buy, my favourite situation is when both players recognize the win condition is to build the fattest deck possible and then a few copies of a card that gives victory points based off of how big your deck is. I think especially for deckbuilding games there should be mechanics that relate to how small/big your deck is and have cards that also add/remove cards from you deck. A cool card to combat the situation I mentioned above would to "jail" an opponent's card so that it doesn't count towards his deck total. I think straight up removing the card would be too strong and I'm not sure how you would target this card, maybe select one that was played/purchased last turn. A "jailed" card could still be drawn and played, just count as 0 towards the player's deck total. Maybe after you play a jailed card it "breaks free" and will count towards the deck total again.
@reynad one possible way to add synergies while stopping the game from just being "all in on that synergy from now on" is to combine these 4 factors: -1- introduce a need for the player to buy certain cards regardless of synergy. for example in Slay the Spire players need to acquire new defense or attack cards, or they will die.Sometimes they'll randomly have to get the one out of their synergy so they find their deck has branches into a new synergy. also still in slay the spire -2- players need to balance the amount of attack cards and block cards, as well as energy and card draw.not only this reinforces point 1, but also asks them to buy different kind of cards, and you can design the entire class so that cards of a certain type have a different spreads of synergies; -3- diminishing returns.your example with the burn card was good.it's very hard to stop a player from acquiring cards of a certain synergy as every copy increase the chance he'll draw them all in the same hand, but by punishing a player for drawing too many of them in the same hand, or, more casual friendly, removing the upside of having a lot of them, he'll be forced to strive for a certain balance, which can get quite creative. the best way to do it might be to have cards create a condition that last across many turns ( or even the entire game), just like your burn card idea.i think it's worth as a base mechanic. -4- cards with multiple synergies.this alone doesn't do much, but if other factors force the player to pick up cards outside their favourite archetype, they can become an opportunity to branch out naturally into another synergy.i know that you know how to design cards with 2 synergies that are not a wall of text as my comment written at 2 AM. love.
Excited to be included in part of the design process, these videos keep me excited and I have a lot of appreciation for the hard work that goes into making a game, keep going noodle, I’ve been playing primarily card games for a very long time, HS since Naxx, and there’s something so riveting about using resources in anticipation of what your opponent might have that at its core is just super enjoyable, keep up the great work
several ideas * Monsters should change out at the start of night(or whatever is opposite to when the shop swaps). Makes every turn have something new. * Have more cross synergy or multi synergy cards: An ice card that benefits from burns, say. Have the player decide between trying to go pure fire, or a fire ice hybrid. * If the above does happen, make sure there are different cards that benefit from going a 'pure' archetype, either directly(Deal less damage if you have an ice spell) or indirectly (+1 Damage for every fire spell you have) * Midgame cards strong enough to warrant an archetype shift mid-game. * Maybe a card that 'buys' a card for your opponent, putting it into their discard. Potentially messes with synergies, at the cost of giving them a card for free. * Requiring that you discard a card (or more than one) of a certain archetype to play a card. Probably only for late game powerhouses. Alternatively, requiring you to delete a card. Deck thinner+effect.
Getting rid of the basic "coin" is a very good idea; they're never fun to play and whenever you see them late-game it always just feels bad. However, if you remove the basic coin, what do you put in the starting deck? On one hand, you want the cards you purchase to matter the starting deck has a clear power cap, but if the cards are too weak, then they might just feel as bad to play as the coins do, even if they can be a little more thematically appropriate. Small but unique-ish cantrip-type effects are probably what you would use, but then what those effects could be and the decision of how many different cards exist in your starting deck become issues to ponder, especially if you want the starting deck to vary by class. If you want the idea of "saving" cash to be a key skill, then I think maybe a static allowance that doesn't ramp-up (at least significantly) may be the best option. One of my favorite mechanics from deck-building games are "deck-purifying" mechanics; I think a healthy ecosystem of shuffling bad cards into your opponents deck and them having the ability to remove those cards with cards of their own is a fun thing to have. Deck-filtering can also exist as a soft fix to the issues of coins being boring and not fun. Good luck with this issue; I hope you find a proper solution.
Status effects are definitely a good idea, classic rpg stuff. Poisoned, burning, frozen, enraged and so on. Could have different flavors for different classes.
Whatever money system you end up using make sure that the sound when you spend money is really crisp and satisfying like the sound it would make if youd drop a sack of gold coins on a wooden table or something. I think it will make the game so much more fun if something you do every turn feels really good
Most of these could be checked against your opponent or your own deck. Deck count synergy: if your deck has more or less cards in it. Discard pile is a seperate synergy. Early shuffle or discard X amount of cards to help this mechanic. When the deck has X amount of the cards or the draw pile has more cards than the discard. Top deck synergy: if the next card is type A then do something. Deck consistency synergy: If more “Red” cards are in the deck the deck reflects that by having a red tint or glow. Picking a “Blue” card works better when the deck is “Red” but picking too many “Blue” cards will change the deck color. Day/Night synergy: Card work better if night or day. Health Synergy: Cards work better when you or the opponent have more health or less health. “Potential Energy” Synergy: “Dead”/unplayed cards the previous turn makes the card more powerful. Monster Slayer Synergy: The more Monsters slain the more powerful or weaker cards become. Coin Synergy: Instead of Buying an item it powers the card
Positives +Idea of saving money between turns in a bank or such (We do not need another CurveStone™) +Are there going to be mechanics to add more coins to your decks? If so, personally I like keeping the coins as part of your deck vs some other mechanic. (Bank lending money or whatever). What if a coin auto-plays and then draws a new card (or not draw)? This could promote some sort of economy/build play style (at the cost of card advantage) (ramp?) (Merchant?) +Can you please implement a chess style turn timer. Shorter turns, but leftover time is carried over in a pool to following turns. No roping for 75 seconds every turn. +If you have some kind of a debuff system? Why not a buff system? Shuffle buffs into your own deck? They can auto cast when played and draw you a new card if need be. +Synergies: Don't create synergies between the same 'archetype' create synergies between DIFFERENT archetypes? i.e Shuffle a 'Faint Mist' buff (water/frost) card into your deck, when drawn increases lightning damage you deal this turn. etc. (or even anti-synergies. Water and Fire.) Negatives -De-buff System: I don't even like the debuff systems in RPG's. Often you get spammed and you barely notice or track them. "Oh i'm burnt, does this change the way I play?". Debuff's are best if they promote synergy AND counter-play. I prefer the burn (debuff) cards just sit in the deck rather than fill up the UI. A player can just check the cards in his (or his opponents) deck anytime anyway right? This is a deck building game, I would make mechanics as much about the decks as possible as that is your Core. Last minute thought: I would even consider putting one day and/or one night card in each players deck, making the night/day cycle somewhat random instead of fixed. When played refreshes the stores etc. Your werewolf could even have a mechanic to shuffle more night cards into his deck, making it more likely to be night for longer pushing his advantages/synergies.
Saving money for the next turn would be a great way to open up fast/slow strategies. The problem I see with it is the balancing for what turn the more expensive cards appear. If you are able to save money then you will be able to afford expensive cards much sooner, so how would this affect the spawning of expensive cards for when you're not saving up your money? Or would the balancing of spawn rate just be based on the money you happen to have that turn? Either way, I love the focus on "fun" game design. Seriously looking forward to it.
Some high level ideas: * Coins could be autocast ("when drawn, gain 1 gold"), and perhaps also draw another card (or maybe those are advanced coins that you have to buy). * If monsters give bounties, perhaps there could just be trivial to kill monsters that give a bunch of gold when attacked. * In that case to, increase money, there could be cards to increase the bounties of these or of all monsters. * In dominion copper also has the important role of serving as a kind of curse that fills up the deck, there are even cards to give your opponent copper. In dominion it is usually a good thing to remove copper from your deck if you can from the mid-game onward (either explicitly removing it, or investing in discard or transform effects that recycle the cards). * If it feels like later on you don't have enough money, then you should have invested more in card draw/card selection, bigger coins and other ways of gaining gold. * If burns deal 1 damage when drawn, you could have a synergistic effect trigger off of that ("whenever an opponent takes damage during their turn/from a card in their deck/exactly one damage/if your opponent took damage last turn"). * More generally, if a certain archetype is good in a particular thing, try to use that as a trigger. Things like adding things to the enemy deck, adding things to your deck, playing many spells, many weapons, attacking a lot, or having single big cards. In general fire cards might be good at X, so a card that reads "has +1 attack for every X" is good in a fire deck, but you could have a particular ice deck that is also good X so where that card is better than usual. * The trick is to be not too specific as to be trivial ("played a fire card") but not so generic that it is always the case ("played any card") * More ways to synergize with burn cards: "opponents take 1 extra damage from their cards next turn", "duplicate a curse card in your opponent's deck" * There could also be ways to distinguish archetype cards without the card explicitly saying "deal fire damage". Maybe the fire cards are those that deal 1 damage at a time, while ice cards directly reduce HP without attacks. * If the debuff effects like "burning" do not stack, but stick around for only limited time, then the optimal strategy is actually not to have a deck build around putting out as much burn as possible. Rather, you want to have enough burn so that the debuff is almost continuously applied, and then cards that take advantage of it. And if there is still room in your deck, then maybe you can fit in a second debuff effect/archetype. * A good balance might be if an average deck can support 1.5 archetypes, so that there is an advantage for dabbling in other stuff, but you can't just throw everything in. * You could make cards that explicitly reward diversity ("gain +1 attack for each different type of spell you played", "deal 1 damage for every burn, draw a card if the opponent is frozen", "gain 1 gold for every different debuff the opponent has"). This is a heavy-handed way to force a player into considering cards from other archetypes, and actually 'diversity/multi-mage' could be an archetype of its own with just a few support cards. There is then a risk that this becomes the only archetype. * Is there currently a way to have 'enchantment' type (semi)permanent effects? I think there is a huge amount of design space there. Or there could be effects that last until your next turn/for the rest of the day. Debuffs are one side of this, and buffs for yourself are the other side. * If you want to stick to the mechanics of a deck building game, these would just be cards that only affect other cards played that turn. But what I said before about not stacking still applies. So if you have "if you played a fire card this turn, gain +2 attack", or "if your deck has at least 3 fire cards, do stuff", or "if your opponent took damage during their turn, gain 1 gold", then at a certain point adding more fire cards doesn't actually help. * Not directly related to this game, but for slay the spire, players classify cards by their effect. There is single target damage, aoe damage, defense, damage scaling (cards that get better over time or that improve other cards), defense scaling, card selection/draw. A good deck needs some of each. There can be archetypes within certain categories and ones that span multiple categories. So your fire attack card might have synergy with a fire attack scaling card, but it doesn't help with defense. Or there can be a '0 cost card' archetype, which has cards for each of the categories. Of course there most be multiple ways to get good decks with respect to any of the categories, otherwise games are always the same. So there are 0 cost draw cards, self damage draw cards, exhaust synergy draw cards, power based draw cards, etc. Ideally your deck synergizes a lot with itself, but sometimes you just need (say) card draw, so you take a card draw card even though there is an attack card available that synergizes with your deck.
I think it would be cool to have combo cards that have bonuses for multiple sub-types that gives a certain bonus for each type or just strictly better even. If would introduce more decisions by having you choose if you want to "splash" the type or branch out into 3 or more sub-type decks.
Warning - Long comment coming through: First off let me just say that I LOVE the idea of the pig-merchant (at 7:26), for some reason it just feels right to have a greedy-merchant-banker guy be a pig. (bazaar piercing is also pretty cool) As for the engineer/builder the third one you showcased (the one you said you liked the most) looks by far the most unique, but I kind of miss the cogwheel that the second one (and a lot of the humanoid ones) had. Putting a cogwheel and a wrench somewhere on a character is the easist way to show that their thing is to build shit and it's something that everyone can recognize. (I also really like the screw-arm that the third one has though, could in theory make it so that he swap his arm-tool around and that each robot would require you to have X arm-tool to build them - May be a ''feature-creep'' but it just sounded cool) A way to build the economy system would be to make it income based with money carrying over between turns (kind of like auto-chess), for example: Round 0: You get 1 gold. (like you start the game with 1) Round 1: You get 2 gold. Round 2: You get another 2 gold. Round 3+: You get 3 gold. What this would let you do would be to create ''economy cards'', for example you could have a monster card read along the lines of: Hungry Bear // Bee Farm: Hungry bear would be a monster like any other monster card in the game, but the reward would be that you aquire the ''John's Bee Farm'' card which would add X to your income each turn. - Investing weapons/attacks to gain money over time. Another example of a ''economy card'' could be something like: Jerry's Banana Farm: Costs X gold and adds X to your income. - Investing money to gain more money over time. This way players can either spend their recources on trying to rush down their opponent (spending all that they can on damage), on getting stronger at the current point of the game (buying powerful or killing monsters to get strong spells/weapons) or make a investment (like killing Hungry bear) You would ofc have to find a way to display the income on the board so that the players wouldn't have to remeber it. - Could be done by having a treasure chest/other cosmetic with 2 coins in (one with your current gold and one with your income) or by having something clickable that would show you all of your economy cards. (also make sense thematicly since you're essentially setting up/buying shops in the Bazaar and having the people that you save/hire work for you) This could also work with the Merchant mechanic that you talked about where if his deck reaches X size he wins the game, but instead make it be if the Merchant owns X amount of shops he would win. (so it's kind of like him buying the market and then telling the other hero ''hey, you can't buy anything here anymore so you lose'') - This would also be cool since it could create more different ways of building Merchant, you could have 1. The Economy guy that tries to buy shops to increase his income to buy more shops and eventually own X-amount of the market or 2. The ''Monster Slayer'' guy that tries to kill monsters to get weapons/shops to kill more monsters/buy more weapons. - There's probably other ways to do these things too, but this was the best thing I could come up with after thinking for a bit. (and again, Pig-man is awesome)
I think that there are a lot of people like me who would like to help generate ideas, but aren’t totally sure what you’re looking for in terms of general design. Your idea of creating a community tool to help with this sounds absolutely fantastic, but I also think that it would also be valuable to make a video detailing exactly what you’re looking for from the community. Also, I agree with what most of the other comments are saying... the Pig Merchant is the way to go.
I love these monthly updates!! Will edit with my thoughts when I finish the vid. Edit: I think the merchant should look more wealthy. Some of the merchants looks like aristocrats and I felt it looked off. I like the second werewolf, but make more similarities between her human and wolf form. Removing coins is interesting. I personally like how it feels in Dominion. Interesting to note, in Dominion, money is always relevant until the very end - because the win con is purchasing victory cards. In the bazaar the win con is dealing damage so it makes sense that money becomes less relevant towards the end. What's the point of buying a card if you won't even have time to use it?? That needs to be solved... Maybe the solution is cards go straight into your hand or on top of deck when purchased? I like the idea of spending coins when you click on the item. Maybe you can do the same with damage. But it starts getting very fiddly... Like what if you want to spend specific coins for one item. Regarding getting 2 money per turn, that system feels very slow and boring to me. Especially since the cards get wiped every other turn. It feels very linear to me. I like the excitement of not knowing how much money I'll have to spend. However I think there's something really interesting about changing the way money will work, and you should continue exploring! Also, if playing money feels bad, does playing damage cards feel similarly bad? I like the idea of status cards determining archetype, but I feel like that should only be for one or two characters.
For the money, the classic system does work as a way to balance decks that can thin their decks (so that they are more consistent) vs decks that just go for power plays (but can do them less often). It's true that those cards kind of feel bad in general, and might not be a very elegant solution in a digital space, though (they do also limit how quickly your deck improves, which might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on where you want to take the game). I think an Hearthstone-like system is one that keeps things more balanced between the two players, is easy to understand and is pretty "clean", so among the solutions that remove the basic "money cards", that's probably the best choice. The auto chess system feels like it might allow for some power spikes that are harder to balance.
I think it's great that you want to include the community into part of the crestive process. You could even give an incentive like a small bit of ingame currency in case the idea gets used to make it feel worth the while. And i also like the art direction you are going in. I would love that goofy merchant theme with a frog-type character.
If you choose to keep the coin system then something I could see happening is the coins at the start of the turn all collapsing into 1 card that says "X number of copper", you'd have an animation that plays along with it. The bank system idea would be a good thing to implement but I also think its counter intuitive to have a bank that hands you money in a card game, you want the satisfaction of getting to play the cards you're being given. Alternatively being a digital card game it does give you the space to do something like this because it simplifies it for the user and makes, I would think, a more enjoyable experience when the tedious stuff is just taken care of for you. I guess this would depend on what you value more, the traditional card game feel or user experience.
Here's an idea you could use later: antiquities - special items that appear on rare occasions and have special effects, not game-changing or table-turning ones but certainly impactful. Like let's say a staff for the wizard that boosts wizard's spell effects or a moonstone ring that keeps the werewolf in his transformation during the day for a turn, or a lucky coin/pendant for the merchant that makes him get more coins next turn. Those kind of items would be super rare, and exciting when they appear. This is just an idea u could keep on a side note for later stages of development.
I really love the artist rendering of the different classes. One piece of feedback I would give to them and one thing for you to keep in mind is to keep in mind the race of the humanoids in the game. I know that it's easy to overlook, but make sure to have diversity in representation. I know they were all initial sketches, but the humanoids were all white. In the process of refining your classes, think about how diverse your characters are. I know it may only seem like a small thing, but I think that it'll go a long way. I love what you're doing reynad and really happy to be on board with this project. Keep up the good work!
Perhaps one of the ways to make the game feel a little more unique is that your starting 10 cards can differ from hero to hero. This takes the premise put forth in previous games (Ascension, Star Realsm, etc) and adds to it, making each hero more unique. Perhaps the merchant starts with a few cards that provide extra coin, or the mage starts with some damage spells. If you wanted a completely new system, maybe the starting 10 cards can be pre-chosen by the player playing the game from their personal pool of cards. The cards could be locked by hero so that you couldn't take the same 10 card starting deck into any match. This would be harder to implement, though, and would probably need to go with a rework of how you generate coin per turn. Thanks for the update, your hard work will show in the end product!
Hey Reydad, I had a couple ideas I thought of while watching this: First one might fall in the category of new mechanic and feature creep, and idk if it's already going to be a thing cus u had multiple sketches for the werewolves, but something like a transform mechanic where the werewolf hero changes from human to wolf form depending on the day/night cycle and certain cards gain new synergies based on the form would be pretty cool My second thought was to help deal with the monsters not being cycled, you could add in something like a surprise buff where if its nighttime, the monster takes additional damage when its attacked, so you might be able to kill it quickly and have them cycle that way. I am in no way a game designer so I understand if you don't like my suggestions!
My vote for pig merchant, full of character and really visually iconic. The "Koi" lizard thing gave me immediate vibes of a Lawyer or some kind of Diplomat.
It would be cool if the portraits of the main heroes were animated or changed somehow in the artwork based on what effects are being done to them. So if they’re burning the artwork would reflect that with fire, and different levels of burn could amplify the fire from a glow to a roaring blaze. Just a thought, but either way I think you guys are doing an amazing job, can’t wait to see the final product and play the game.
How about alternate effects to make players choose proper inter-archetypes cards, tied to status effect? Lets say wizard cast fireball, you are now burning. Then Wizard uses waterfall or something. Remove all burns from enemy deck, you gain that much money for this turn. Fireball : Deal 3 damage, add a burn card to your enemy. Deal 5 damage instead if he already has a burn effect. Alt - If your enemy is has frozen card in his deck, you may unfreeze any number of them and refresh your hero power. You gain that much attack power for the turn. Waterfall : Deal 2 damage, freeze one card on the enemy battlefield. Your enemy card cost 1 more on his next turn if you cast another ice spell this turn. Alt : If your enemy has any burn card in his deck, you may remove any number of it and gain that much coin for the turn. Just some ideas on the top of my head.
One possibility for adding new synergy is to introduce cards with effects that span for multiple turns. These could be thought of as “enchantments” that affect game rules in interesting ways, IE money can be spent to gain life this turn or two copies of cards you play this turn are shuffled into your deck. These rules modifiers could be persistent over multiple turns (maybe that coin effect lasts for 3 turns) to help encourage picking different cards from the shop. Modifiers could stack in interesting ways and provide a nonlinear variant on how to evaluate cards. Basically, these cards could be a good contrast to the more linear combo cards. It’s also worth looking into a card time like sagas from MTG, which provide a few different effects over multiple turns. The goal is just that with some persistency making shop decisions gets trickier
A fun way to do synergy between different cards would be to give the different unique powers to consecutive use of spells, for example a fire spell played after a wind spell would give a bonus damage over time effect. But if you were to play the wind spell after the same fire spell then it would have the bonus effect of moving creatures around on the board. I find that whenever I play a card game or game that has a magical aspect I like creating domino effect. it makes the order of card play important and the you feel like the synergy isn’t black and white.
I had a much larger post with a lot of ideas, but I wanted to re-write and summarize since you are reading so many comments Reynad. I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but it really feels like this game would benefit from leaning more towards being the Card version of Auto Chess. It's a very engaging system that forces you to always diversify your strategy, but also balance your bank by knowing when to hold or when to go all in on a strategy and there are many points in the game that allows you to have a huge power spike if your position and strategy allows for it. Now I was never clear with what you're even drawing from the deck itself and why your deck is even cycling. What you're playing from your hands, what you can buy. It's all been very unclear since things have changed so much, but I feel like the flow of the game is still not clear. I had many ideas to just expand on your current ideas, but that main issue just always came down to how am I dealing damage to you and how am I winning the game. Rewatching all your old videos, I don't think you've ever explained how exactly the player is supposed to win since the main resource of your game seems to still be in the process of iteration. I only have one suggestion and that is to fully define your resource system first before continuing to build the game because that's the most important part of the game. The card designs will be forced from that position because cards need to follow or manipulate that one resource. If you a cyber merchant looking to be the richest asshole in the galaxy, make it so you start the first few turns with a set amount of income, turn 1 ~ 1 gold, to a max of 5 gold on turn 5. From there any additional income comes from how much gold you bank, what items generate you more gold and what side objectives you've cleared like every 3 neutral minion may increase your gold generation permanently by 1 which incentivize people to kill them even if the monsters suck. You can buy and build new monsters, weapons to deal damage and armor to resist strategies, for instance if an enemy wants to go with that strategy of placing a burning effect in your deck that consistently burns you, you can build 1 armor to reduce the burn to zero. The enemy can continue to invest in this strategy and you will either be on a clock to beat them or you can just increase your armor to counter the strategy itself. As for the class identities themselves, I also don't think you've actually showed us how that interacts with gameplay, there are a lot of ideas, but in terms of design it's hard to get constructive feedback if we don't fully see how the game should play yet which is why a lot of people are just straight inventing new stuff. I think even playing around with the idea of not even having a traditional deck you draw from would be something fun to investigate. You are buying stuff constantly, you can just continue to buy and combine cards into more powerful cards. Weapons can also be combined into more powerful late game items and equipping them can go into your deck which activates the effect forever and lets your opponent track your strategy or playing them can have your hero consume the effect and remove the card from play itself. Whatever you plan to do though basically depends on what the best strategy to manipulate your resource is so you can start building a game that can best take advantage of that. I'm a huge advocate of a game that doesn't just build a bunch of mechanics on top of itself, but really has a strong core that you can constantly mess with and adding new cards wouldn't necessarily force you to add new mechanics, but just new ideas to manipulate or counter whatever strategy becomes prevalent.
One archetype I love about curse style cards is using them back against the opponent. So what would be viewed as a detriment and hand filler when drawn still reduces options but can then be turned back on the opponent. IE. fire mages take damage from burn curse cards but for each burn card drawn, increase the amount of damage a spell you are holding will inflict. So you run a fine line between victory and death.
To discourage people only drafting one type of spell you could limit how much of a bonus you could get from tribal synergies. One idea would be for the first fire spell to make the second deal +1 damage and the second spell makes the third do +2 damage but if you cast three fire spells in one turn you char the battlefield making it impossible to cast any more fire spells that turn. This way there is a balancing act where you want to draw the tribal cards but a hand full of fire spells is not as useful as a hand of 3 fire 3 arcane. You could also make spells apply a consumable debuff when they are cast. Using a water spell creates a puddle under the target making the next lightning ability do bonus damage but the water is evaporated by the heat leaving no lingering debuff. This would let people chose which extreme they wanted. If you want to stay balanced you build your deck so that you would average 2 fire spells (1 to apply the ignite and 1 to consume it). Or if you want to go all in you could draft to average 4 spells per hand that work together.
The way I could see a lot of synergies working would be something similar to Auto Chess. Basically how some synergies are really good early game but fall off or some are better in the mid to late game but are bad to start off with. This would allow for different synergies to be viable in a single game and knowing when and how to change to a different type. Idk how you would balance this or make it happen but that could just be a school of thought to design synergies around.
In terms of adding additional interesting mechanics, I had an idea for a mechanic that could trigger a drawback for you if too many of that subtype of card have been played in a turn or possibly multiple turns like 1 full day night cycle. For example, the wizard could have an archetype of dark magic where each dark magic item was dangerous and would have the mechanic hazardous. Each card could then have a hazard counter like hazard 3 (if you play three hazard cards this turn you will be affected by a negative effect). This would reduce the incentive to just choose all dark magic items you see even if they are really powerful. Another example of this is that certain fire cards could have a mechanic where if you play too many in one turn you would burn yourself (adding a burn card to your own deck). This could introduce complexity about is it worth it to play all of this at once or continuously buy cards from the same archetype since there would be drawbacks too. However, this type of mechanic may just feel too bad to play with.
Dude merchant sounds like a really cool idea for a class. I can already imagine different mechanics for a merchant class. I think it would help your game stand out to have an original idea for a class like that rather than just wizard, rogue, warrior, etc etc fantasy trope characters like that.
To addressing your "coins feel bad to play" core topic, I think there's some mechanics you can take inspiration from with something like Constructs in Ascension or your Commander in MTG. Playing, buying, and having permanents even if they are heavily situational that have consistent turn by turn presence feel good. My suggestion for your team to explore is what if you started with a simple tent for your booth at the Bazaar and through buying some cards you could upgrade the booth, let's say, to gain more passive income. Maybe what starts in your deck instead of money is a resource that improves your tent in reputation and you need your booth to gain your turn by turn income. This way you can have that Auto Chess like income retention while being able to do more balanced card design. Dealing with small numbers of coin values like 1s and 2s is great for simplicity but tougher to balance both cheap and expensive cards, especially with a mechanic that let's you save up income. Having something like for every 10 rep you add to your shop increases your turn by turn revenue by 1 seems like a system you have way more control over. Also your opponent could maybe interact with your tent by either slowing your income rates or other permanent buffs you put on it. Probably too much of an overhaul and I know you aren't looking for more complexity and a 3rd resource. Just thought I'd give my 2 cents worth ;)
An idea for the money system is to double down on the bounty system. What I mean by that is, have each hero start the game with no money and no money per turn, but they get their money from the monsters right from the get go. So, the wizard starts the game with some weak cards to kill monsters with, the werewolf starts with no cards at all but a weapon equipped (and at night has a free weapon because of their claws perhaps), and the merchant starts with like 2 or 5 initial gold to buy items with right from the first turn which he can use to buy cards to kill monsters with, giving him a slight lead from the beginning, or perhaps he gets 2 gold per turn from his investments instead. The idea here being that basically 100% of gold comes from the monsters themselves, with the merchant able to circumvent that (maybe sell cards too?), and the larger boss monsters come later in the game. I think that aspect of racing the opponent in pve is a really good way to keep the PvP varied and enjoyable, especially if monsters start with certain traits that may give an advantage to one player or something, and especially if that advantage gets passed around between the players so one doesn't snowball too fast.
My suggestion for a vampire replacement would be a plant (can't remember if that's already in your roster, but to me it's a much more natural replacement for a vampire). As well as the usual photosynthesis angle, you could take it further and also let players /branch/ into cards which address nocturnal sap flow (storing photosynthetic energy to get nutrients and water at night, when it's not such hard work) or parasitic (smothering, leeching) and carnivorous strategies (trapping and eating in a very PC and bloodless manner). That way the player would feel like they can pick the plant character and not expect the same gimmick to dominate every game. Some other day/night ideas: Solar power cards for the engineer, necromancy cards for the wizard, black market cards for the merchant. An explorer character that can get astronomical cards. This could involve playing star cards that have some tiny effect by themselves, but the card might show a constellation with one star highlighted and when you get a whole constellation, all those stars in your deck turn into the fantastic creature/object summon. You could also take a quest card which has a random set of stars to play in a set order to summon an amazing treasure, so if you decide to go for a constellation and play some other star half way through, you have to start your star quest from the beginning. Some other stuff might be collecting magical meteors, wishing upon a star or predicting (creating) an eclipse, which could mess with daytime based strategies and make it quicker to complete star combos. A humble farmer by day (can grow crops, domesticate enemy creatures, raise pokemons) that gets ninja and/or disco cards at night. You could add nemesis cards to each class, so they get a few special tools that potentially only show up in 1v1s against that class and mess with different strategies. For example, the plant might be able to use the farmer's fertilisers, but the farmer might be able to harvest the plant like its own crops and sell it at the market. A troll character that turns into a restless ghost when it has negative HP, with a different ghost card pool. To defeat it, you'd need to set its HP to exactly 0. At sunrise the troll would be turned to stone, having it's HP multiplied by -1. If it's a ghost at sunset, it would either be multiplied by -1 again and the troll would regenerate and return to life, or (more versatile but more complicated) it could regenerate by a set amount, which might change depending on the cards that you've played (this way unlocks the potential for upkeep kills, which usually feel good in card games). With this kind of idea you can play around with your own health in a way that isn't all negative and doesn't boil down to trying to get really low to unlock some super power without quite dying. Another idea could be if the novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg, at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer - the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main characters are introduced as they enter the salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, who is dying after a series of strokes. Pierre is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad at his father's expense following his mother's death, Pierre is kindhearted but socially awkward, and finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. It is known to everyone at the soirée that Pierre is his father's favorite of all the old count’s illegitimate progeny. Also attending the soirée is Pierre's friend, Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of Lise, a charming society favourite. He is disillusioned with Petersburg society and with married life, feeling that his wife is empty and superficial, he comes to hate her and all women, expressing patently misogynistic views to Pierre when the two are alone. Pierre doesn't quite know what to do with this, and is made uncomfortable witnessing the marital discord. Andrei tells Pierre he has decided to become aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon in order to escape a life he can't stand. The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the more European society of Saint Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances. They have four children. Thirteen-year-old Natasha (Natalia Ilyinichna) believes herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a young man who is about to join the army as an officer. Twenty-year-old Nikolai Ilyich pledges his love to Sonya (Sofia Alexandrovna), his fifteen-year-old cousin, an orphan who has been brought up by the Rostovs. The eldest child, Vera Ilyinichna, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a Russian-German officer, Adolf Karlovich Berg. Petya (Pyotr Ilyich) at nine is the youngest; like his brother, he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei departs for war and leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich and devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya, who refuses to marry the son of a wealthy aristocrat on account of her devotion to her father. The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Schöngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, now an ensign in the Hussars, has his first taste of battle. Boris Drubetskoy introduces him to Prince Andrei, whom Rostov insults in a fit of impetuousness. He is deeply attracted by Tsar Alexander's charisma. Nikolai gambles and socializes with his officer, Vasily Dmitrich Denisov, and befriends the ruthless and perhaps psychopathic Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov. Bolkonsky, Rostov and Denisov are involved in the disastrous Battle of Austerlitz, in which Prince Andrei is badly wounded as he attempts to rescue a Russian standard. The Battle of Austerlitz is a major event in the book. As the battle is about to start, Prince Andrei thinks the approaching "day [will] be his Toulon, or his Arcola",[16] references to Napoleon's early victories. Later in the battle, however, Andrei falls into enemy hands and even meets his hero, Napoleon. But his previous enthusiasm has been shattered; he no longer thinks much of Napoleon, "so petty did his hero with his paltry vanity and delight in victory appear, compared to that lofty, righteous and kindly sky which he had seen and comprehended".[17] Tolstoy portrays Austerlitz as an early test for Russia, one which ended badly because the soldiers fought for irrelevant things like glory or renown rather than the higher virtues which would produce, according to Tolstoy, a victory at Borodino during the 1812 invasion. Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning on leave to Moscow accompanied by his friend Denisov, his officer from his Pavlograd Regiment. He spends an eventful winter at home. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov falls in love with her, proposes marriage but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to marry a wealthy heiress to rescue the family from its dire financial straits, Nikolai refuses. Instead, he promises to marry his childhood sweetheart and orphaned cousin, the dowry-less Sonya. Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the most eligible bachelor in Russian society. Despite knowing that it is wrong, he is convinced into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Hélène (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina). Hélène, who is rumoured to be involved in an incestuous affair with her brother Anatole, tells Pierre that she will never have children with him. Hélène is also rumoured to have an affair with Dolokhov, who mocks Pierre in public. Pierre loses his temper and challenges Dolokhov to a duel. Unexpectedly (because Dolokhov is a seasoned dueller), Pierre wounds Dolokhov. Hélène denies her affair, but Pierre is convinced of her guilt and leaves her. In his moral and spiritual confusion, Pierre joins the Freemasons. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts. He abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note. My plane landed and when I came out, there was a dude who looked like a cop standing there with my name out. I ain't trying to get arrested, I just got here. I sprang with the quickness like lightning, disappeared. I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said 'fresh' and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I can say this cab is rare, but I thought 'Now forget it! Yo homes to Bel Air'! I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie 'Yo homes smell ya later'! I looked at my kingdom; I was finally there, to settle my throne as the Prince of Bel Air.
I think one way to save the tribe system could be to also have synergy between different tribes. First you freeze the opponent, after that the fireball deals extra damage. This way you could pick up one archetype and enable specific cards of other archetypes, thus encouraging branching out of your archetype. Thanks for the update and keep up the work!
While relatively new to the world of game design it sounds to me like the design process and the development process of the actual game has been started a little early before the game concepts have somewhat settled. Of course there is always going to be iterations, polishing and changes to game mechanics as the game progresses, but many of the mechanical issues described sound like they could be fixed with a couple/lot of low-fi wizard of oz type tests where you (Reynad) act as the 'game' while players play with a physical prototype. Feels like this would be one of the primary perks of being the main game designer and holder of the resources that the development process could begin with an almost finalized vision of the product (art and interface excluded) since you have had the time to work on the different mechanics without programmers, artists and a diminishing budget constantly needing management. Regardless I wish the game the best of luck! It's refreshing to follow the process even if updates are only periodic. Cheers!
Hey Reynad, regarding the coin based system. I think its really good idea to have like a bank account, where you get some kind of a salary each turn, but it would be a bank account so you can design a lot of cards dealing with banking system or economy on its own. For example you have the Merchant class, so you could design cards like Monopoly -imposing some cash advantage for you and disadvantage for your opponent, Banking Loan where you get more money but you have to pay back to bank and if you dont, you get some debuffs like Insolvency etc. For battle classes there could be cards like Bank Heist, Extortion etc. giving you some money in advance and having debuff like possiblity of getting exposed by "police" or whatever which would cause some disadvantage. For sorcerers you could have some cards like Telekinesis where the wizard will make money get legs and some coins come to your account by feet etc. I think the "account" system offers a lot regarding card designs helping you with economy. J.
