#card game dev

[crunchetime]

ME AND SOME FRIENDS MADE A CARD GAME

and I'd appreciate if you checked it out, especially if you like games like Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh or even D&D, but want an easy to learn out-of-the-box experience with some absolutely unhinged characters.

You can order physical copies of the game's first 100-card deck, as well as the new stand-alone expansion deck Wacky Waters, via TheGameCrafter.

Learn more at our Carrd site below!

I've been the creative lead on BBT for the past 6 years, ever since we started it as a TERRIBLE game using index cards with hand-drawn illustrations by yours truly.

In the distant future, we've now released the first deck as well as our first expansion, Wacky Waters, which is themed around pirates and sea monsters. And it's actually fun to play! We have testimonials! It's award-winning!

I've been cagey about BBT and my online presence colliding for some time, but I'm super excited for y'all to sink your teeth into this labor of love!

[boxsocialgames]

This game is a culmination of years of trial and error with making a drinking game to play with not only huge nerd-dorks such as myself, but casual observers as well. I wanted a pick-up-and-play version of King's Cup where you don't need to spend 10 minutes deciding the rules before you start, and that allows great variation and chance between each game. Also, I wanted to get rid of waterfall.

Link Below:

https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/1656565414/the-demons-head-a-drinking-game

[calvincell]

Critical PSA to Balatro or Mahjong or general Roguelike Deckbuilder Lovers for the amazing looking upcoming game ULTIMAHJONG!

ULTIMAHJONG is in the exact spirit of the likes of Balatro, Bingle Bingle & other casino/gambling-based roguelikes/deckbuilders that have been inundating the indie gaming scene recently and which I’ve personally been happily drowning in! In this case the base game is Mahjong & it’s straight up Riichi Mahjong based thankfully rather than the deluge of puzzle solitaire tile matching games that overwhelm Steam

Currently has playable demo on top of being Wishlistable. The dev predicts a release this year & I’m absolutely purchasing it on day one if for nothing else than to reward a halfway legitimate Mahjong game!

Speaking of the dev, they themselves ran through a few rounds of the early game to show it off:

Don’t know how many this post will reach but I’m happy to do my part to raise the population of Mahjong Enthusiasts out here on top of supporting innovative indie devs & their projects!

EDIT:

My luck finding out about these types of personally niche games seems to remain at an all time high because I’m obliged to update this post with a 2nd Roguelike Mahjong Deckbuilder on the horizon: AOTENJO

Similar to ULTIMAHJONG in intent but with its own distinct style & also has a free demo on Steam to try out.

One of AOTENJO’s major features is the inclusion of multiple regional mahjong variants to enrich the variety of the play experience!

Unlike in the case of ULTIMAHJONG, AOTENJO’s developer XO Cat’s YT channel (under the moniker NonToxicEel), lacks a similar in-depth breakdown of the game’s demo but does have a few videos attempting speedruns of the demo and are still a recommended watch to get the game flow & feel they’re aiming for:

Once again, I’m happy for the Mahjong renaissance we seem to be getting in the realm of gaming post-Mahjong Soul & Balatro!

[reachartwork]

we're making an indie tcg boys

and we're looking for playtesters

<wip title> Project Card Souls is a TCG with an emphasis on tactics, positioning, resource management, and BLOOD. Summon forth an army of horrendous dark fantasy creatures, mind-destroying outer gods, or rag-tag peasants simply doing what they can to survive. destroy your enemies with a thousand wild boar attacks.

once it's done i will release it for free probably on itch.io since i don't really have the infrastructure to, like, make booster packs.

yet

[redspringstudio]

Welcome to the Amaryllis District! The most fun you’ll ever have in your life, assuming you survive the night 😉

[jennifercrowart]

I got to draw art for a virtual card game my brother is making! Excitingly, he had a few rat-themed cards for me to draw 😂 Rat, and Rat Attack!!!

[tearwolfe]

contrary to popular belief, i work on other things that aren't ruikasa...

this past semester i've been working as the artist for a game called "coffee for cthulhu"!! i joined a team of two other people, our game designer + programmer, who had an idea to make a cozy coffee shop game that combined elderich horrors.. that are cute?

i've been grinding away at the art, and we finally released the game today!! it's on steam (windows pc) for $3.99, we've been working pretty hard on it, it's a cute and short game to play through.

it's our capstone project for our major, the first video game to come out of our specific program! super cool.

[chocodile]

Some character-based face cards for the Cheat/Bullshit card minigame I programmed for Wishbone. It'll be playable in the next public beta, which I hope to put out at the end of first quarter 2024.

[thessaralka]

you know what's always frustrated me about dragon age tho

the religions

they're built on shaky (or zero) foundations.

all major real world religions have SOME kind of powerful reason that people choose to believe in them - they're all deeply rooted in occult metaphysics, NDEs and cosmic mystical events, secret esoteric knowledge, human history, myth, generations upon generations of human blood and ritual and ceremony.

andrastianism is basically catholicism but we don't know why people believe in the maker. we just know that they do.

people believe in jesus christ as the son of god because there is powerful evidence of him existing, powerful spiritual truths there, powerful legends prophesying his existence, and powerful history (it's of course deeper than that but this isn't a post about christianity).

it's understandable why people believe in anrdraste as a goddess-figure, as she has a powerful legend.

people believe in "god/ the universe/ source/ brahman/ allah/ 'the force'" (different names for the same concept) because spirituality is an inherent part of existence, it is a foundational truth of our reality that can only be experienced individually and not (yet, quite) proven by science (unless you get into quantum mechanics and einstein's theories and so on). it requires faith, and faith only comes from experiencing "knowing" directly. it cannot be taught, and it cannot be measured.

we know next to nothing about why people would ever be convinced by the maker enough to believe in him/ it as a god.

the elder scrolls does religious lore REALLY well. the aedra and the daedra have a creation myth that goes back to the two primal forces in the universe (anu and padomay - which are basically masculine and feminine primal forces, the yin/ yang of daosim - this ties into real world religions and makes the world of ES feel very real, because we can relate to it).

as far as i know, the only creation myth we get apart from the maker's "he was displeased by his creation and turned his back on it" is from the alamarri/ avaar with korth the mountain-father who created the mountains and provides game (a god worthy of being worshipped, to offer such foundations).

like, what does the maker even do? yeah he "created the golden city" (ehhhh??? not really thoooo????) and got mad at the tevinter magisters (that was just them poking at solas's fade prison too much tho)... and created the veil (that was solas tho). so nothing the maker has done has actually happened, it's the byrpoduct of something the evanuris did. mostly solas.

thedas (particularly with the dalish worship of the evanuris) feels like a post-apocalyptic world that lost its religion and its reasons for believing in religion a long time ago, because they've been continuously decimated by blights/ war/ slavery/ loss/ degradation.

and perhaps that is the truth of it. their faith is bleak, and rootless, because the world of thedas is a post-apocalyptic world that is bleak, and rootless (thanks to solas and the evanuris who created the blight, and sundered the titans from their dreams).

the most honest religions in thedas are, in my opinion, the dwarven religion (which is not a religion at all, and instead a worship of skill and excellence), and the avaar religion, which is based in their communication with the spirit world - which makes sense! because spirits are the energy of an idea or feeling, and that energy is tangibly spiritual and powerful. andrastianism is cool too, except for the part about it being founded on andraste being the bride of the maker, so we're back at square one.

what the fuck do these people even believe in?

[cultofgalaxy]

💖Happy Valentines Day!!💖

Sadly I didn't get to do all the ones I wanted to do but hopefully next year we'll get some starsprirtes in there!

[videogamepolls]

Requested by @finlands-beret

[mikethinkstwice]

Just held playtest #5 of my playing card Weird West Horror game! This time, the theme is REMOVING RULES FROM YOU GAME.

oooOOOoooo spooky I know!

But don't worry, you don't need to be afraid of removing rules. On the contrary, removing rules is a design tool in of itself.

How I learned this lesson was in my quest to improve The GM tools of my game. The tool I was tweaking was this:

Threats and Horrors

As a GM Move, the GM may foreshadow the presence of a Horror (supernatural) or Threat (mundane) in the narrative. When they do, The GM may put a playing card onto a index card labeled with tha Threat or Horror. Threats have their cards placed face-up, while Horrors have their cards placed face-down. When the maximum amount of cards is placed in the pile, the cards are used in my game's conflict resolution system against the Player Characters.

There are two major problems with my original approach:

1. It Takes Too Damn Long

Because each Threat or Horror is a separate pile and which can have a maximum of 3 or 4 cards, the GM found it difficult to naturally advance their presence. Often times we would end sessions with at least 1 Threat or Horror never even reaching its maximum! This would force the GM to work outside the guidelines of the game and just introduce the Threat or Horror's next step anyway.

2. It Kills The Suspense It's Trying to Develop

The main purpose of this system is to illicit suspense. As a player, watching a meter made of face-down cards slowly build up communicates that danger is brewing, but it also doesn't give you a lot of information. But I realized that by labeling each individual Threat or Horror, I was diminishing that suspense. Because.. it's labeled. The Players aren't stupid, they know exactly which Horror or Threat is going to appear when it reaches maximum card capacity.

So What Was the Solution?

Well, the premise of this GM tool definitely works, but the system is getting in the way of the tool's purpose. So something has to go. And I think now that I've written it out it's pretty clear what parts have to go.

Firstly, Threats and Horrors are just going to be a single meter of face-down cards. I'll let the GM choose what Horror or Threat they want to use when the meter hits maximum; whatever makes the most sense in that moment. No need to hand-hold there.

Secondly, let's do away with the labels. This is kinda already done by only have one, generalized meter, but it's worth saying that now the Players will have no clue what will happen when the card meter hits max. They just know that it'll be bad for them.

Conclusion

Don't be afraid to cut away parts of your game that are getting in the way of the narrative experience! But also, don't jump the gun and completely trash a tool. Instead, try to figure out what exactly that tool is supposed to be doing, and then troubleshoot from there.

Until next time!

[boxsocialgames]

G'day,

I've been working on a drinking card game for a few years, and I'm now finally dipping my whole hog into it and launching it as a Kickstarter.

Inspired by King's Cup, it's a deck of 55 cards, each with a unique rule. Link below:

[makiokuta]

I got to do art for a friend's game jam game for pride month, Lesbian Card Battler GEMCARD.

Check it out :3! There's another CG I did, character designs by @itsasooz - and a fun card battler to boot by the wonderful Unity! (of weird and unfortunate fame)

[transmisc2]

SURPRISE! Cabinet of Curiosities, my new party-style mini-TTRPG for two or more players, is now available for free/pay what you want.

Using the booklet and a 52 deck of cards, you and one or more friends play a Collector running a mysterious shop of haunted objects (for which you will pay a terrible price), and (a) Customer(s) chasing their heart's desire. Will you survive the Object, or will you be forced to pay the price?

[ENTER THE MYSTERIOUS SHOP->]

[redspringstudio]

We revealed one of our Kickstarter exclusive rewards yesterday! This is a postcard of our very first test illustration, to symbolize you all being here with us from the beginning 😳

All backers with physical rewards are eligible to receive it!