Comments on: Dev Diary #6 – Exploring Deck Building

By: Zalka

Zalka — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:47:39 +0000

I realy love the ideas you guys have with the game system. Alot of cool stuff. I cant wait for it to come out.

So realese it soon guys *poke* *poke* on the devs.

Thumbs up for the game and good reading in the blog.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 03:55:23 +0000

@Derek: lots of interesting ideas there. You didn’t quite hit what I was thinking of, though your guess #5 comes close. The thing is, when I said “black cards”, I wasn’t actually talking strictly about drawback cards. I realise that is also probably pretty opaque, but I will explain further soon.

Your point #3 is pretty a pretty accurate description of the sequence in which these kinds of cards must be played.

By: Derek

Derek — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:44:47 +0000

Jon wrote: “There’s also at least one other special rule associated with those black cards that I will get to in a later diary.”

Now I have to try and guess what that special rule is!

Some possibilities:

1. Drawback cards ignore all other card text
In other words, they cannot be countered or mitigated directly. For example, if there was a card that read, “For each card you discard, perform X,” then that could potentially turn a Dropped Guard into a powerful card. While some of these interactions are interesting, in this type of game, there are too many possibilities of turning drawbacks into advantages, and if the design intent is for drawbacks to always be a negative or a restriction, then disallowing interactions with would ensure that intent is preserved. A player, of course, as mentioned, could still limit the liability such a card presents by clever deckbuilding.

2. If you draw multiple Drawbacks in the same action (draw phase or action), only one must be played. This prevents a case where a player is unlucky and draws too many drawbacks in a row.

3. If you draw multiple Drawbacks in the same action (draw phase or action), you choose the order in which they are played. Similar to #2, this simply gives the player a little more control over how things play out when they are hit that way.

4. If you draw a Drawback card as part of an action, the action resolves first. So for a card like Inspirational Thinking, you would have the opportunity to discard them. Another way of saying this would be that drawbacks put into your hand must be played immediately and in a case like Inspirational Thinking, they don’t go into the hand until the action is completed.

5. Whenever a Drawback card is played, you draw a card. Cards are valuable. More importantly, draws are valuable. Picking up a drawback card is a negative, obviously, but there’s a hidden negative here – you just lost a draw! This rule makes the drawback action itself the negative, without making it a double whammy on the player by taxing them a draw as well.

Ok, I will leave it at that for now. Very excited for this game!

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:00:07 +0000

Good point Tim. We prototyped the game using real cards and this part was a real pain to manage. On the computer though, it’s easy.

The computer’s access to hidden information is also critical to another part of the game that I’ll discuss soon.

By: Tim Stellmach

Tim Stellmach — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:16:04 +0000

The thing that’s particularly interesting about this is that it leverages the strengths of the digital format. It’s a deckbuilding rule that you haven’t seen done before because you *couldn’t* do it in a paper game. Can you imagine trying to enforce it?

But in this case, the player couldn’t build a non-conforming deck if they tried.

By: deepPlay

deepPlay — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:19:40 +0000

I’m so pumped for this game. I’m keen to hear about what else, in addition to equipment, maketh the character/deck (if anything). Will there be character class suites? Race? Religion? Special quirks you can throw in at character creation time?

By: zipdrive

zipdrive — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:33:04 +0000

@mordenkien – the drawbacks do not preclude people with more resources having better decks. While certain (maybe all?) weapons have drawbacks, it is still possible for a certain weapon to be plain better (have less drawbacks or a better +/- balance) than another. And if one can buy a lot of card packs…

By: mordenkien

mordenkien — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:03:28 +0000

much happier with the black cards and deck building ..having been slaughtered by mtg decks built by players with unlimited card resources it will be nice to know my deck oppptions even IF limited have beeen earnt as have my opponents

By: demonic tutor

demonic tutor — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:36:33 +0000

@IQpierce @jon
please read my post again, it is not as pessimistic as you think!! its true that i posted a rather concerned comment last week. but again: only because i was expecting something different. you have to understand that when an old magic player reads ccg, deckbuilding and richard garfield on the same page, expectations go in a pretty clear direction.

im very interested in this game and will play it without hesitation. i think it will be a huge success and i hope you devs make good money from your hard work.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:41:59 +0000

@IQpierce: that’s a good question about the drawback cards. There is indeed a special rule that says that they must be played. There’s also at least one other special rule associated with those black cards that I will get to in a later diary.