First pseudo play test last night. I call it pseudo because it was more cutting out black and white test cards than it was testing, and it was against myself… obviously taking it with a grain of salt, but, here’s some first thoughts…

DODGE!

I think I might need to add some kind of dodge mechanic, but I’m not sure in what form yet. Something doesn’t feel quite right and I’m not quite sure what it is. It feels like when you’re attacked you kind of have no recourse, it’s just like, “oh, well, I guess that guy’s dead.” I think having some way to fend off an attack would make the other player feel like they have a little more agency, but it could also make games take too long. I’m also not sure exactly how to implement it/what the mechanic would be. I have a few ideas.

Fate Roll

When a player attacks, they roll four fate dice. This gets added/subtracted from their attack points (this is how the game currently works). The player being attacked then rolls four fate dice and adds the positive dice to their defense. If that is over the other player’s attack roll, they dodge.

Dodge Numbers

In an RPG format I made to play with some friends a bunch of years back, you got ‘dodge numbers,’ which were numbers 2-12. When you were attacked, you’d roll D6x2, and if it landed on any of your dodge numbers, you dodge the attack. The more agile your character was, based on class/race/points assignments, the more dodge numbers you had. I could put a new icon on the cards that showed what you had to roll for that card to dodge.

Counterattack

When you’re attacked, you have an opportunity to attack the opponent back. So the two are engaged in combat rather than one just slapping the other.

Balancing

Honestly this was a lot better than I thought it would be. I figured everything would be too strong or too weak and it was going to be a huge task to balance all the cards. It turned out, in my very limited playtest, things felt mostly fine. Honestly, the only card that felt broken was the chicken, whose template I had copied from an orc and whose damage I think I forgot to change. So right now the chicken does as much damage as the Orc Warrior. That’s sort of a problem, but it’s also kind of funny so I might leave it. Overall, there were no cards that felt super overpowered. One of the wizards needs to be buffed a little.

Movement Mechanics

I hadn’t considered the importance of moving cards around during the game, but it was immediately clear that there needs to be a mechanic for that. Maybe you move a card and that exhaust them? That would be fine.

More to Come

Going to do some actual playtesting this weekend and report back. Stay tuned.