{"id":888,"date":"2021-11-07T16:45:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T15:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norsefolkgame.com\/?page_id=888"},"modified":"2021-11-07T18:58:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-07T17:58:02","slug":"2-card-mechanics-and-design","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/norsefolkgame.com\/index.php\/2-card-mechanics-and-design\/","title":{"rendered":"#2 – Card Mechanics and Design"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Edtior’s note:<\/strong> Many of the pictures featured in this article contain placeholder art which I do not own. Since they are from quite a long time ago it’s sometimes been difficult to track the source and artist down, but a lot of them have been borrowed from Magic the Gathering. They have been used solely for private prototyping purposes and for educational purposes in this article. If you own any of the images please contact me and I’ll credit you \/ take the images down.<\/em><\/p>

#1:\u00a0 Actions, Reactions and Upgrades<\/h2>

Goal and Vision<\/h3>

A lot of inspiration came from Terraforming Mars, Magic the Gathering and Spirit Island. Spirit Island has a wonderful way to use assets (presence) on the map as requirements for using cards. E.g. a card’s effect can only target lands adjacent to lands where you are present. In Terraforming Mars a lot of passive upgrades are used in conjunction to create an engine to drive your strategy forward. And in Magic the Gathering you have cards which allow you to instantly react to what your oppononets are doing.<\/p>

I wanted to create a game which had the synergy and deck building feel of Terraforming Mars, the card playing mechanics of Spirit Island and the reactionary nature of Magic the Gathering.<\/p>

Implementation<\/h3>

The three types of units which existed, and have actually lasted until the final versions, were Warriors, Shamans and Buildings. Depending on the type of unit the cards had different flavours. Warriors were all about fighting and brute force, Shamans about area control and Buildings about economy and growth. I wanted this to be a central part of the cards and thus required different sources to be able to play a card. Sometimes you needed 2 warriors and at other times a shaman.<\/p>

Action cards<\/strong> were cards you played during your turn and cost a certain amount of resources. They were used to move your troops around, fight in areas, recruit more troops, build buildings, deal damage or had utility effects. The way actions were played have varied between versions but in general they have always been played during a player’s own turn.<\/p>

Reaction cards<\/strong> were cards which could only be played under certain circumstances. As their name implies they were for reacting to something, e.g. a troop which died, or an enemy who recruited a unit. The reaction cards also followed the same pattern of having a source requirement and a cast range.<\/p>

Upgrade cards<\/strong> were cards which provided a passive ability to a player once they were played. It could be that they boosted all Warriors’ health by 1, or you could move extra troops every time you moved your troops.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Each player started with a specific deck depending on their chosen race. When a card was played it was put in a discard pile and once you had no more cards on hand you picked your discard pile back up again. The wording was often terrible and all over the place as can be seen in the card above.<\/p>

When playing an action card the player always had the option of either paying for the card, or discarding the card and pay for a standard action instead. The standard actions were:<\/p>