Let's Analyze the Cards!

Blowing it up does nothing, pardner. You can't uncover information that ain't there.

 

Nice new card today:



As a fan of healers, I'm pumped to see the "Heal" command--it looks nice and straightforward. Also pretty excited to see hints at other priest options: buffing, debuffing, and the interesting "more aggressive focus" hinted in the dev diary post.

Also fascinating, the text "6th Circle Charm" so either there are going to be 5 or 6 levels of charms below this (if 0th Circle is used) or I'm reading too much into this.

Finally, the way holy magic is written on there seems to indicate there will be different magic by types--I wonder what ones?

 

Now to go . . . in reverse order!

And there will be Holy, Arcane, Electrical, and Sarcastic. (I'm being sarcastic. With that last one.)

That could be true, or there are various scenarios where it could not. For one: "The 6th Circle" may be a specific group or concept, and there is no such thing as a "numbering" system.

Also, saying that there are tons of levels around/above/below this one is problematic in light of your first/my final point:

Yes, it's straightforward. To the point that I'm furrowing my brow here. This doesn't seem right, and I hope there's something I'm missing.

This game has no card called "Stab"; instead, there's "Predictable Stab" and a whole string of others above it. This game has no card called "Thrust"; instead, there's "Simple Thrust" and a whole string of others above it. Then there's "Teleport Other" which strongly implies still more cards that say "Teleport X"; at a minimum some sort of "Teleport Self."

But healing? Oh, there's "Heal." Yeah. That's your healing card. I doubt that "5 or 6 levels of charms below this" exist; but if they do, they won't have any healing powers in them other than "Heal"! The devs just told us they don't have a "healing theme"!

Follow me? The problems are twofold: firstly, you shouldn't call your cards something as simple as "Heal." It's basically shooting yourself in the foot if you ever want to expand the cardography (I just made that term up) to have a "healing theme," because you neglected to lay the linguistic groundwork. You've broken the pattern.

And, secondly, suppose you invent the "theme" later. Like, I dunno, with boring names like "Greater Heal." Do this and you'll annoy people who want to talk about the cards: "Hey, do you have any heals in your deck?" "Yeah, I got my Heals." "So what are your heals?" "Heals! I told you!"

So this was a long essay to say that I hope there are great big Healing Plans out there I don't know. Something to make the "Heal" card name be anything other than a bad idea. And if there are no plans . . . then for crying out loud, rename "Heal"!

 

Oh wow--I was so pleased with the heal command I rather overlooked the "Heal" name and it's implications! It can't be that generic, can it? Maybe the different circles will denote the potency of the heals? Although, I don't know how they would scale down if the 6th circle heal only heals for 4 (unless fractions are getting involved). Nevertheless, the circles possibly being the way to denote different heals is still less artful than the comparative stab lines, though...

 

Remember that the text "6th Circle Charm" is where the card comes from - it's just the name of the equipment. There may, in fact, be a "5th Circle Charm" but it may have 1x Heal, while "6th Circle Charm has 2x Heal, but I would guess there won't be a "5th Circle Charm."

 

Ah, great point. I think I was thinking too hard to try to piece apart the magic system here >.<

 

I'm not sure what to call this kind of design principle, but it has a lot to do with communication (see my "Heal cards" dialogue).

It also has to do with how you approach the game. Games that are "complete in-box" with no card collection aspect tend to have cards that fulfill general roles: there's "Heal," "Invisibility," "Fireball," and so forth. Games that go on and on through randomized game packs and expansions have lots more specificity in the cards: "Fireball" becomes "Hellfire," "Magma Burst," and "Solar Flare," all of which have different details and in-game story. By being less general, they allow the creators more room to develop more ideas.

You know this, else you wouldn't have "Predictable Stab" and so on. If this card is simply "the Heal card," then there's nothing more to say. It's "Heal."

 

Using 'Heal' as a base doesn't preclude variances and shades, I think. Greater / Lesser Heals still fit the cardography as they are named in relation to the basic, vanilla 'Heal' etc. Having a 'Heal Elf' or 'Heal Serious Wound' are also fair game as they add a specific that sets it against a basic 'Heal'.

 

I'm still obsessed with card colors. I see the background of Heal is a sort of silvery grey, which is a color I haven't observed before. My best guess is that it indicates a difference between magic types. Heal is Holy Magic closely associated with Priests; the purple cards have been Arcane Magic (including elemental subsets) thrown around by Wizards. 'Items=card suites' means that individual cards are not limited to any one class, but there are decks more likely to have them than others.

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The real reason I am posting, though, is the Inspirational Thinking card. I can hardly believe that I overlooked this before.

Inspirational Thinking is an Orange card. We've seen that color on another card, too.



When I last speculated about Maze of the Mind, I lumped it into a rather vague category of "status effect ... item abilities." I may have been right to look to D&D precedents life the Confusion spell to guess at its effects, but about card type I could not have been more wrong.

Inspirational Thinking is not any kind of buff or status effect; Superb Tactics is not an item.
This is a deck manipulation card, and it is Orange.

Maze of the Mind quite possibly does produce an effect analogous to Confusion, but it does so using deck mechanics rather than a straight-on debuff. Perhaps it causes the target to forget to draw cards, or automatically discard movement cards. There are very many possibilites, and the underlying thread is that it will be a means to manipulate your opponent's deck/hand. That should be fun whatever it does!

The two black boxes could then represent the penalty imposed on the target, maybe one for the strength of effect and one for the duration. I really don't know for sure.

We do know that cards used to have speed ratings but that system was dropped. Perhaps the star relates to the mysterious new system for determining the order of play?

 

And I go to repeat myself yet again. This game has no card called "Stab"; instead, there's "Predictable Stab" and a whole string of others above it. This game has no card called "Thrust"; instead, there's "Simple Thrust" and a whole string of others above it. They've broken the pattern. If they're explicitly using this pattern to communicate with the audience (which we know to be true), then this name is a failure of communication.

Also, it means the "Heal" names are less interesting than those of other cards. Also also, this particular uninteresting name will lead to an annoying situation that happens in too many games: "Hey, do you have any heals in your deck?" "Yeah, I got my Heals." "So what are your heals?" "Heals! I told you!" Of course I know that "Using 'Heal' as a base doesn't preclude variances"; this is why I'm complaining!

Since Card Hunter is early in development, I wanted to bring it up so that it could change.

 

Yay! Yay yay yay!

 

Personally, I don't feel the need to change the base 'Heal' / 'Stab' / 'Thrust' card names. I can't see how adding 'Simple' to the start of the cards makes it any easier to answer Sir Knights question - "Do you have any Heals in your deck?". I'd be foolish to think that I'd have to work my way through multiple questions to get the number and type:

"Do you have Major Heals?" "Yeah" "How Many?" "Two"
"Got any Simple Heals" "Yeah" "How Many" "Five"
"Got any Lesser Heals?" "Yeah" "How Many?" "Three"
"OK, you got 10 Heals?" "Yeah"

Or if I was asked "Got any heals in your deck?" I'd say, "Yeah, 10, Two Major, Three Lesser."

It makes more sense to me to use Jon's model of base name = standard, all prefixes indicate variance, better / worse or special circumstances. Until we get to see a lot more cards, I don't think we can pre-judge the naming system either way.

Your personal miles may vary, of course.

 

But skip_intro . . . that's not what I said! And your "support" doesn't support your point! I never said anything about going down an itemized list of "Heals" in conversation. And your example there uses the "Simple" prefix that you just said was not necessary. Put those two points together, and I just plain wasn't talking about what you're saying I was.

I already responded to this multiple times:

I am completely aware of this setup being used in game after game. I have played said games. I am just telling you that there's a distinction: "Thrust" is the name of a theme of cards, while "Simple Thrust" is an example. When we suddenly saw a "Heal" card, "Heal" became both the name of a theme and the name of an example. If they separate "themes" from "examples," then it is easier to understand and to communicate. This is inevitable.

I'm saying neither more nor less than that. I am not professing to have the answer to making the One Great Game. I am saying something that is accurate and relevant, even if no one cares about details on this low a level.

In other news, I have a Cassandra Complex.