Post Playtest Report + a new friend

So today, I had a fairly brief, but thought-provoking playtest with Jesse.

He offered a lot of advice, but one part in particular sticks out in my mind.

Jesse: Why are there six of this card in the deck?

Me: This card has the Common keyword, that means you can have up to six.

Jesse: Oh... well, that's retarded.

And really... he was right.

With cards like Potion being common, the first battle lasted about 10 minutes, and really, that's a hell of a long time for one battle. 6 Potion and 6 phoenix down cards were the main culprit, we nearly decked...

So, I've tried to come up with a fairly simple and elegant solution to both problems.

-Your regular deck is a minimum of 40 cards. (Character deck will have a higher minimum , this is touched on in the comments of a previous post)

-No more than 3 of each card (Rare cards still exist however, Summons and such)
-If you deck, you lose the battle.

-At the end of the round, only your discarded characters are added to the doomed pile, normal cards are re-shuffled into your deck to begin the next battle at full strength.

Having a 40 card regular deck lets you get your needed cards easier, however you run the risk of decking quickly. You can have as many cards as you like, maybe in hopes to protect against decking, but without the security blanket of 6x Ether, you run the risk of a watered down deck. (Vivi, why can't you remember your spells!?)

This ruling also opens the door for one new card, and adds effectiveness to another.
~~~~~~~~~~


(Yeah, the art screams 'meh' here, don't worry though, there is no lack of quality Rinoa fan-art on the web, I just had this done quick because Rinoa was integral to this post.)

After the composite offered by Matt, and my own rundown of the FFVIII script, I ended up with this card for mid to endgame Rinoa. After Rinoa discovers her Sorceress origin, she gains access to 'Angel Wing' where she sprouts wings and goes Berserk with magic power, as she cannot control it fully. I tried to reflect this in the card. Rinoa isn't a mage proper, she doesn't benefit from the innate magic defense while standing that the Black and White skills grant, though she gets to turn a select spell into a full-powered one-shot. Of course by dooming the Spell, you lose the ability to use it in subsequent rounds. Hopefully this will cause you to weigh your options a bit.
~~~~~~~~~~
Also, the decking aspect adds a little umph to our new warrior accessory...



To any curious of the origins of this card, the character pictured is a Warrior from the FFXI online game. (Hey, it's a true Final Fantasy, of course it's going to be included.)
Warriors in FFXI for any familiar with MMORPGs, are the basic tank class of the game. Basically they take the heat off your DPS at they backstab or nuke the crap out of your enemy.

DPS classes tend to be squishy, so they need this guy to keep the enemies attention.

So here we are in FFTCG, where you can hopefully do something similar. When a fighter puts this on, you better ignore Rinoa for one more round, or kiss 1/8th of your deck goodbye.
This can also get fun if the attached fighter has Counter, or even better, more than 1600 DEF and Counter (good luck with that though)

Hey dudes

Well, most of the equipment is up. I'm binging away on Super Street Fighter, so here's a short list of the new stuff. Also, some of the numbering has changed, and the cards haven't reflected this yet. However, this only effects the equipment section of the set (like #37-51)

Aegis Shield
Black Robe
Greatsword
Koutetsu
Warrior's Mantle
Wild Chocobo
Zephyr Cape

Feel free to post your thoughts. And of course, the art will change. Equipment isn't the highest priority as far as fan-art goes right now :).

I'll probably do a more in-depth post later.

Auto Includes

Just a quick question for you guys.

After I wrote the last entry, I sat down and tried to actually build a deck.

Do you guys see any auto-include cards? Matt had mentioned Aeris, and I'm inclined to agree.

At this point in time, for me? Top 3:

1. Aeris
2. Auron
3. Kain

With Vivi as an honorable mention in 4th.

Thoughts?

Expanding the card pool

For the sake of playtesting I'm going to add some more cards with official art to the card pool. Like I mentioned, the art will be replaced with fan-artists as I find them, but lets fine tune the game in the meantime.

The descriptors are kind of in disarray, some characters have a bare 2, some closer to 6. I'll work on tweaking and balancing those later, but first, lets talk about some of the new cards.



Tifa is one of my favorite cards in design. Getting to stand on a whim is just asking for broken combos, but hopefully, the card drawback will keep Tifa's ability on a short leash. You'll get to have fun with potentially broken stuff, but only for a limited time :)



Whoo! My favorite character in FFVIII! Laguna always kind of reminded me of Vash the Stampede. Refreshingly simple, yet extremely dangerous with a little dumb luck thrown in. What other character do you know who does things like toss a grenade into the fray, and follow it on a grappling hook with one hand blind-firing with a machine gun, and yet, can't talk to girls because he gets cramps in his leg when he does?

Anyway, Laguna is going to make heads roll. He can cancel an ability at... the cost of *down*ing all of your characters? Yeah, Laguna and his crew might be clumsy (oops! brought the wrong map!) but they get the job done. Of course the cost might not even be an issue, "all of your characters" might be one character up. And straight up cancelling an ability on a card is huge. Anything with a bolded title is an ability, this means Laguna can cancel anything except for skills, base actions, and summons. Anything!



Hopefully in the game, Kimahri will be true to form. He's designed to be versatile, and he's designed to be your leader's best friend. He lets you use an action your Leader initiates via *down*, and takes the *down* for your leader. This could be their unique ability, moving, attacking, what have you. There's some tricky stuff in there if you think about it. Think about the way this is worded, and think about the way Laguna is worded... SAVE SOME FOR KIMAHRI!



The FFX gang is pretty much all here! Lulu is a card for combo lovers. Players who would rather get some elaborate combo going off than actually win the game. Not to say she doesn't have practical use, she does... but set-up correctly, she may be most dangerous thing your opponent comes against. Get those Gold Hairpins ready!

There are a few other cards up in the margin that you should check out, namely Edward, Bio, Haste, Shiva, and Shuriken. Hopefully you guys get a little more customization with these. Any comments? Requests? Thoughts about the descriptor issue? Let me know, guys.

Secrets Revealed!

Here's a fun one.

Thanks to Juri for letting me use this piece, and for replying so quickly! I love how true Juri is to Amano's rendition of Relm in this piece. The colors are great, totally vibrant and clean, and I mean, really... there isn't anything remotely dark or emo about Relm, so it's a great style to draw her in. I've really gotta stress visiting Juri's deviantart, if you consider yourself a gamer, (especially if you consider yourself a niche gamer) check out the fanart section. There's even some Guilty Gear in there, how cool is that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Relm brings a new mechanic and a new wording to the table.

The first is "revealing in your reserves". If you'll remember, the reserves is a face-down pile of characters that you are free to play from. To reveal from your reserves, just turn the character face-up. The potential downside is, this gives your opponent a look at what you'll be playing in the next couple of turns, so they can plan around it. Implementing this means that when characters return to your reserves (say, through the leader card), they return face up as well.
These abilities tend to be really good, so this helps keep the mechanic under control.

So let's take a look at Relm, shall we?
Yeah, she's pretty stacked. Gameplay-wise, she was the strongest mage in FFVI, and that shows here, she's got some serious versatility. Playing characters from you or your opponents discard always looks killer on paper, but it IS a little bit situational. Especially when you are only allowed to pull from your opponent's pile. Early game, this makes Relm a little less of a bomb, however, mid-battle is where she shines, especially if your opponent doesn't know she's coming up. (I'm gonna paint your portrait Uncle Umaro!)

The only catch, is you'll notice the bottom line "...this character is bound to Relm." This is a concise way of saying, "When Relm leaves play, discard this card from play." You'll notice the term "bound" showing up in summon cards as well, once I update them. Of course this means, when Relm has Umaro backing her up, you need only take care of Relm to take him down. And Relm has the combat presence of a bowl of cereal, so if you catch her without a recover ability, or with the Throw skill, momentum should immediately shift back in your favor.

Dear diary...

You guys are in for a treat.

What a killer piece of Kain art. I don't know why, but I couldn't find suitable art for Kain, and I'd been looking since I started the game. Of course, I look recently, and Maiji uploads this awesome piece, which is not only suitable, but absolutely awesome. Watercolor is slowly becoming one of my favorite mediums, this is something I'd want to put on my wall!

Maiji also went above and beyond to get me the right to post it (the piece was a commission). I also wanted to thank the owner of the piece for allowing me to use it. Thanks so much you guys!

Check out Maiji's deviantart and site here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like I said, kind of weird right? Kain is a really popular character, and there isn't a lot of fan-art for him... how paradoxical.

Also, how is it that Kain is among the most badass characters in Final Fantasy, and yet... he's the most emo by a landslide. Kain is just full of paradoxes.

I tried to design Kain, similar to Amarant, where he is usable by all types of card game players.

For the thematic players, I hope I've captured the essence of Kain. Once he's in the field, he loses -400 ATT for each Baron character out. This is to illustrate his game-long love triangle with Rosa and Cecil. Yeah, with the Red Wings out in full force, he isn't going to be able to do too much but close the door and cry in the dark. This is great if Kain is your opponent, because this works on both sides of the field. Also note, that Kain affects himself. How's that for self-loathing?

For the combo players, yeah, Kain has this irritating drawback, but what if there was a way to suppress his ability? If you can manage, Kain is swinging for 1800 in your regular field, yeah, Auron can do this too, but Kain doesn't end up in your doomed pile after you win, plus Kain has the Jump skill.

For the power players, Kain is an 1800 attack one-shot. In case you forgot, the Jump ability is:
"After character is played from your reserves *down* it to immediately take a Fight action against an opposing character in play using your character's printed ATT. Jump cannot be countered." He's pretty much surgical removal for any problem you'll have on the board, and if you have the leader card, or generally some way to bounce him back and forth, he can get pretty nasty.

Whew, anyway, hope you like the card. It's time for bed.

Come on, let's go! Bodyguard!

So here is a character you guys may have been waiting to see for awhile, and hopefully, she wont disappoint.

The art here is really cool, Charlene used mixed media to create it, (specifically watercolor and colored pencils) which is something that I hear only really talented artists can pull off. I don't know if you guys can tell, but the resolution on the card is really low, I've asked for a higher resolution pic if she can provide it, but man, for a low res pic, it still looks really good.

Check out Charlene's deviantart if you can. Her work is great, even photo-realistic. I'm pretty sure she sells prints also.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As far as I can tell, Aeris is going to be a staple card. She's pretty much a portable cure. If you can keep her protected, people are going to hate you. ("Edgar! You're such a gentleman!")

I remember playing Game of Thrones, and there was a card that pissed my friend off so bad, he grabbed it off our other friend's field and bit right through it.

This is that card.

Keep in mind, Aeris can cast White Magic in addition, and that Cure doesn't require you to *down*. Irritating? Maybe a little more than that when you can use Protect and Shell.

Of course she's not invincible, as I alluded to, she can't use it on herself, so if she doesn't have other means to cure herself, (cure,potion) she's pretty easy to get rid of. Also she "recovers", the direct definition of recover is to protect from being discarded, so she can't do anything about effects that doom her, or others. Regardless, I would have my thieves at the ready to pull your opponents recovery cards out of their hand before they can lock you down with this.