Card Goals
One of the things I’ve done to help guide myself is set some targets for the game, in terms of what kinds of cards will be in the final deck. I have set some card goals, which I’ll list below. This will likely change through playtest, but they are good guiding star for which cards I should write.
I want the game to have 96 cards total. This fits a size of box on The Game Crafter quite well.
I want the game to be 5 player, so that’s 5 reference cards and 15 Discipline cards.
I want to have 20 Prophecies, which means the main deck of cards needs to have 56 cards.
With those 56 cards I have certain targets I want to hit, based on attributes of each card. They are
- Discipline: Blood Magic, Necromancy, or Demonology
- Power: Each card has a power number, from 1 to 3
- Complexity: How much mental load the card requires. I score them as Simple, Medium, or Complex
- Type: Cards can be either Boons (permanent buffs), Curses (temporary debuffs), or Actions (instant effects)
- Tag: Cards can have either the Item, Spell, or Creature tag
With these in mind, I give each of them a goal. For example I want 45% of the cards to be Actions, so I need to have 25 Action cards. I want 33% of the cards to be Necromancy, so that’s 18. I want 20% of the cards to be Complex, so that’s 11.
With those targets, I can look at a breakdown in my spreadsheet and know where my gaps are.
I did a playtest yesterday with a new set of cards. I haven’t met all my goals yet, but the game was still good.
Feb 10th Live Playtest Notes
“If you have 5 or more cards in hand” => Does the card that says this count?
So far I have seen a few cards that allow me to ready a card, but not enough cards that care about cards being ready for that to matter. Either the “ready a card” needs to be reduced, or the “exhaust a card” needs to be increased.
Draw a card effects for Boons that are Start of Turn slow the game down. It’s probably worth switching them back to End of Turn, even if it means that not all boons trigger in the same phase.
A symbol for Start of Turn and End of Turn would be nice. Dawn and Dusk somehow? Sun and Moon?
His Approach Will Soil the Feather and Power Will Flow In Cracks both do essentially the same thing. Cut one.
The Prophecies that require you have level 3 in a Discipline are quite daunting to get early game.
The Prophecy that lets you store a random card from hand on it is fun.
I had a Curse that is removed if the player advances their Necromancy. It was a fun decision to wait to play that card until their Necromancy was higher, so that it would be harder for them to meet that requirement.
The Prophecy that triggers when you discard a card from hand seems like it’d be hard to pull off consistently.
A card’s discipline should match its popper. Some cool cards would be neutral types that have 2 or more poppers.
Condemned Rune needs to have more power. It shouldn’t be exhaustable by another player. And maybe as a free action you can exhaust it to ready another card?
I feel the pressure of not being able to afford to advance my disciplines due to too few cards. More cards that draw cards might be good. Perhaps more as actions than as Boons.
The She Who Cries Will Sleep prophecy that gives you 1 stored card for every 2 Boons is cool. Having a breakpoint (2) is fun.
Might need to have more Prophecy cards in the game.
The Prophecy cards could be printed horizontally, with a section on one side for cards to be stored vertically and on top of the Prophecy. This would be instead of tucking them under. I think this will make adding new cards easier, and counting stored cards easier.
Blood Will Flow as Milk doesn’t need the arrow in it. “You may store a card from hand here.”
Effect idea: return stored cards from Prophecies to the Prophecy owners’ hand.
The cards with tough poppers that let you store on each of your Prophecies feel really fun to pull off. Maybe the requirement should be something more malleable, something that could change from turn to turn.
The cards need a better design. Something like the Shards of Infinity sections would probably be good.
Graves Shall Blossom might need to be fewer cards.
Post Game Feedback
Cards on completed Prophecies should be discarded.
Not a ton of cursing going on. More curse cards?
“I could curse you, but I have these actions that make me stronger.”
Demonology’s bonus could be curse focused. “You may play one Curse as free action per turn.”