I've noticed that there's a tendency to give cards a bunch of different effects, and I get the feeling that it gets really hard to keep track of really fast. I've tried my hand at custom MTG sets before, and while this isn't quite the same, I think I somewhat know how to make the player experience better/smoother.
With that in mind, I have a few guidelines for future cards:
1) Minimize visual clutter on the card. This is what I tried to do with the "stroke count in the P/T box", as the hope is that it communicates the information with minimal space and a lot of flexibility. You don't even need the word "strokes" because that's always where the stroke count goes.
2) Incorporate keywords.This kind of requires us to all agree on a certain set of keywords, which might be hard with a lot of card creators. But if we have a bunch of cards with well-known keywords, the process becomes much easier for the player.
I haven't combed through all the cards, but I think we can agree on:
Stay - This card remains on the field after being defeated.
Defend - Face the next card twice.
As for this keyword:
Baluart(?) - Face this card twice.
What does the word "baluart" mean? I looked it up and got... a software company? I'd probably want something like:
Repeat N - Face this card an additional N time(s). (Repeat 1 = twice ; Repeat 2 = three times, etc.)
3) The less your player has to keep track of things, the better. Stay cards are interesting, but if all of them have additional effects on the field then that's a lot more to keep track of. I'd suggest treating this by either adding cards that remove things from the field (for example "Choose a card in play to discard and add its base stroke count to this card") or by reducing the number of Stay cards that have their own persistent effects. Ideally I would have some cards that Stay, and cards without Stay that interact with the field, but that's just me.
4) Unrelated to the actual gameplay experience, but try your best to source your images where possible. I personally try to find the artist name (even if it's in Japanese) and put it in the Artist field, and copy-paste the URL to the original artwork in the "card notes" section in case I need to retrieve it later.
Anyway, I'm glad to see more activity here! This is a fun concept.
(and nobody's forced to listen to me - I'm just throwing my ideas in
)
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