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alexissara · 2 years

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My Experience With TCGs

Card games are one of my favorite mediums for games, I've always loved cards and collected all sorts as a kid, Digimon, Neopets, Pokemon, Yugioh and more. I've also always been designing card games, generally the rules were just something for me and my siblings to enjoy our big mix of cards or custom cards I made by cutting out art from magazines and instruction manuals for games. So now I am working on designing a game that is actually playable and fun for everyone, Soul Of The Hero. I've been working on this for years and It's changed formats a few times over that. However, with it's current design I do think it has the legs to finally do everything I want it to do. To get to this point I did a ton of card game research, I've looked at dead and alive card games, games I play all the time and games I'd never play competitively to really get to the heart of what makes them fun, special, and great.

Yugioh

Yu-gi-oh is a game I played competitively for years and have kept up with for most the time even after I quit playing competitively. There has been little blank spots but it's a game I am deeply familiar with. Which is why in studying yugioh, I found not a lot to learn from in a positive way, it was mostly a lot of what not to do. Yugioh has been improving as a game since they left behind anime tie ins and focused on making the competitive game it's own thing. However, the game is a bit of a mess, a fun mess but it doesn't really feel like something that I want to emulate.

Still that is an important part of the process of making something and I am sure years of playing Yu-gi-oh will somehow show in the final production of Soul Of The Hero. I love Yu-gi-oh, I just also think it's a mess and probably not worth diving into ATM.

Cardfight!! Vangaurd

This game is one that fascinates me always. It always felt like this might be the best designed card game around. Until the D series every card was a resource in such a perfect way that truly made Vanguard stand out from every other card game. There wasn't a lot of dead cards, there was less useful cards but thanks to shield values and boost every card can do something, every card is an important resource.

This is a game haunted by terrible management which really holds back it's potential to soar but when I am working on card games, I think about how this games so tightly designed. Having cards all have multiple uses means your players are never drawing a card and utterly dreading it, they might not prefer it, it might mean their going to lose, but especially in the early game every card can be used for something.

Digimon

This game has one of the most fascinating resource systems. You have a rather wide pool of resources you can use but the more you use the more your opponent gets for free. It's a genuine travesty that this game is utterly fucked for Color Blind players. artistically this game really is top shelf which is really impressive given Digimon's previous TCG outings were some of the ugliest games ever printed. The actual flow of play is also really great, it really captures Digimon as a series while making an engaging set of gameplay. It's a perfect use of Digimon for a game.

The biggest thing the Digimon TCG inspires me about is trying to bring out a unique identity through mechanics, to have mechanics that simply scream, this is my game, the simple act of using them is recreating the essence of it.

Pokémon

The Pokémon TCG is a strange and unique beast. I've played it a few times in my life and I've grow to really appreciate the game more as it's improved over time. The card games ability to draw massive amounts of cards, do big time disruptions and has totally unique mechanics. I love how it has a lot of mechanics each of which can give a bit more character to each creature. It's a card game that really makes use of every inch of space of it's design to give every card a unique essence.

Something I found enrapturing and I am taking into consideration is the Rapid Strike mechanic. It was just printed on the card art, like a little stamp and it becomes this key symbol and something that there is a lot of support built around. It's not something for so early in game design but it might be a better way of doing like Archetype titles then having every card be called "Darkest Warrior Knight" then name or whatever the fuck. I also really love how able you are to dive into your resources and think that is such a fun point of design.

Sentinels Of The Multiverse

I love playing co-op and this game is one I've sunk upwards of 300 hours on. This is a game I just a blast to play despite it many of problems. This is the game that got me thinking about two v two card games in a serious way and not as a tacked on extra mode.

It's team based play is also something I am looking to when I am looking at making a purely co-op mode for my game because I think it clearly does a lot really well in making fun challenges for a team to fight with creative decks.

Fire Emblem Cipher

This game really pushed me and inspired my design further. Fire Emblem Cipher's actual card design is just, gosh, breath taking in the way it communicates so much visually about characters very quickly and how those things about the character can then be brought back into the mechanics. A lot of games have lots of little flavor information about cards that sometimes get used as mechanics but this is so quickly visually communicated all while being colorblind accessible.

It's a shame this game never got a non Japanese release and that it died shortly after Three Houses release. I have not got a lot of play experience because of that but just reading translated cards and seeing the design is a major design inspiration.

Magic The Gathering

This is the classic TCG but it is also one I think is lacking to me. The act of playing down Mana, it simply does not jell with me. The methodical play of MTG is clearly a ton of people's thing but it is not mine. What I can appreciate is the modern exploration of aesthetics and themes they've been delving into. The mish mash of settings and styles makes the game instantly a bit more captivating.

I think Magic is another game where what I'm taking from it is mostly "what not to do". Like don't sell proxy packs for tons of money but also like just design stuff I don't really jell with. That is one of the best ways to learn afterall.

Wixoss

Sometimes something that looks bad can inspire you. I've not played this game but it just, really doesn't look like a game I'd enjoy, maybe I Would but until there is some kind of digital way to play I probably won't bother. I love girls and playing all girl decks but it seems maybe a bit too horny vibes with young characters to be a thing I wouldn't really wanna touch without some assurance about the game overall.

I have no idea how Piece cards work in Wixoss but what I can say is just the vibe of the piece cards inspired a whole new mechanic for me. Sometimes the vibes are strong enough.

Weiss Schwarz

I wish this game was more exciting but it is painfully boring for the concept of "a bunch of random ass licenses fighting against each other". The games far too limited in deck building with ugly ass screen shots and promotional arts used to make the cards. It simply is terrible only worsened by the like terrible clash of some of the IPs.

However, the concept of a bunch of clashing universe has always appealed to me from like the first time I played X-men vs Street Fighter on the playstation one and this card game reaffirmed it is possible to do it and get people to want to check it out.

Shadowverse

The app had fallen onto my phone several times but it wasn't until I played the game on my phone that I started to really understand Shadowverse. The game could be called anime Hearthstone but even if that was at it was it would be way better then that game cuz it's so ugly, I much prefer the art style of Shadowverse.

The gameplay however has a really exciting Evolve mechanic that stands out among all the card games. The ability to buff any card even if for some it is just a stat boost as a core mechanic is just super cool. I think it shows that there is so many dynamic ways to make cards variable resources.

Legends Of Runeterra

Who would have expected to fall in love with this game so hard. This might be the most interactive card game ever created. This game is strictly digital and it would be impossible to work into a physical game in any good way but that's great, it's using the medium it's in to it's fullest. Creating cards, adding keywords, the push and pull of the more you do the more your foe can do, it's a really really intensely fascinating card game.

I think the champion system is where I am really looking at the game for what I could pull from what I am doing. I think having conditions to unlock a stronger version of a card that a deck can centralize around is really neat. I don't know if that literally will work in what I am doing but I think I am at least looking at the heart.

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If you enjoyed my little card game thoughts, you can follow me here, I'll probably talk about card games more on here and it'll keep you tunned in for when I am releasing my own card game in the far future.

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