Best value I can add at this late stage is probably on making game easier on new players learning. To that end: First Scenario -- back arrow to tutorial messages -- Example: I was told that there were two ways to see details of a card. While I was trying one out the tutorial moved ahead to next message. Now there is no obvious way to back up and read that message. Perhaps arrows in the message box. --might want to guide the player a bit more on what card to play etc -- but then you are probably not trying to lock down the tutorial yet Actually having started to play I 2nd your approach. Having choices rather than mindless following instructions has already gotten me more engaged. -- the key enemy mage in 1st scenario is hidden behind the message bar --objectification of effects -- like seeing fire effect as counter on the enemies, is very nice --order of play - I am confused as to why I seemed to get to play but one card (fireball) and then my opponent got to move three lizard man. Is it one card per a phase? One card per a character? I'm sure this will become clear but it is confusing at this early stage and feels 'unfair'. --arc lighting -said I choose up to 3 targets. Instead I chose 1 target and then it picked the other two. --passive vs active -- maybe cards that cannot be actively played should be dimmed when one deciding on an action (e.g. blocking cards).. or playable are broughtly slightly forward --add default hotkey to card positions - i.e. 1 selects first card etc so can select cards faster. Treasure Afterward: -- cards flee me -- when I hover my mouse over my helmet on my paper 'doll' the cards it represent appear but I cannot right click them to look at them and they vanish back to their places to quickly when I try to for me to figure out which they were. Maybe if you click a paper doll element not only are its cards brought up but they are selected in the deckbelow until something else is clicked. Positive Praise -- you've heard it all already but this game has great spirit. It is so fresh while being nostalgic. Well done. The design feels clean. The card modularity plus tactical map play is a great combination. You guys are going to be very successful! Well done.
Enemies that are part of the same group all get to move when they play a move card. To counter this, enemies that are part of a group can only perform one non-move action per turn per minion. So Gary played one move card and then it was your turn again. When cards have only one viable target they automatically activate, you may have noticed. In the case of multi target attacks with less than or equal to the max number of targets in range, it still asks you to choose the primary target for some reason, and then automatically activates the rest, unless I am mistaken. I support this idea Right click on the piece of equipment to show what cards are on it in greater detail.
How would this work in practice? Example Turn 1 Draw Warrior Move Card - 1 Attack Card - 2 Attack Card -3 Wizard Move Card - 4 Magic Card - 5 Magic Card - 6 Cleric Move Card - 7 Magic Card - 8 Attack Card - 9 Are you saying that cards 1 - 9 in this case are allocated a key, say 1-9? Turn 1 Play Warrior Move Card - 1 - 2 Attack Card -3 Wizard Move Card - 4 - 5 - 6 Cleric - 7 Magic Card - 8 Attack Card - 9 Are the slots 2 / 5 / 6 / 7 empty or null? Turn 2 Draw Warrior Move Card - 1 - 2 Attack Card -3 Draws a move card by default and an attack card, where do they go? In you hand it would now look like NEW CARD / NEW CARD / Card 1 / Card 3 Wizard Move Card - 4 - 5 - 6 Draws a move card by default and a Trait card, where do they go? What happens to the card drawn after the Trait is played? Cleric - 7 Magic Card - 8 Attack Card - 9 Draws a move card by default and a Parry where do they go? What happens when you make your Parry and you get to draw a card? Etc., etc.
Thanks for replies. Thoughts on the above after an evening's play: -- group move -- this was explained later in the tutorial, so maybe ok it is confusing at first (only so much can be communicated early on) -- right click to keep icons from fleeing -- this I stumbled across too and is logical but wasn't "obvious." This one might be good to work into tutorial because that first treasure screen when you see your cards and equipment is very overwhelming and without the right click to see all the piece of equipment associated icons expanded becomes hard to process/control/understand. -- auto play -- very nice feature. Strangely, it seemed 'on' during tutorial (hence the select one and then others auto selected) but then was 'off' later when started normal campaign. Don't recall turning it off but was very glad when I turned it back on -- playable cards brought forward or highlighted (or non playable dimmed) -- still would like this after an evening's play -- hotkeys -- the hotkeys are tied to the positions not to the cards. So first characters first n card slots always get assigned numeric hot keys 1 to n. What card fills a given slot at given time is up to the game engine. But this still permits me to look down...see the card I want and hit the number key rather than drag my mouse over. However, you example is sophisticated, and I don't have game in front of me so I am probably being obtuse. Just to repeat I am only suggesting that numeric hotkeys are tied to fixed spatial card locations... seems like that could work but again probably missing something -- card game vs tactical rpg -- on a side note one interesting 'learning curve' thing I am noticing is that I approached the game as an rpg with cards as tactical mechanisms. This got me in trouble because I was not thinking about it as a 'deck building' game. So I got too much armor, for example, and clogged my hand with blocks and armor at the expense of any attacks (by and large). So now I am realizing it is of course both a tactical rpg using cards as mechanisms but also a deck builder. Interesting and of course obvious in retrospect. The take away is simply that I imagine there will be two kind of learning curves for players based on their backgrounds: 1) tactical person doesn't grasp deckbuilding right off the bat -- I play a lot of tactical games (wargames, turn based rogue games etc). 2) deck building person doesn't get it is a spatial tactical game -- speculating here. Deck building background person might have an easier learning curve because the tactical is so forced on them. Intriguing game.
Party member 1 card hotkeys: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Party member 2 card hotkeys: q, w, e, r, t, y, u, i Party member 3 card hotkeys: a, s, d, f, g, h, j, k Downside is that you could easily screw yourself by fatfingering the wrong card, since you can't cancel every card. Of course, that's a possibility in a lot of games, so...
My main problem is that cards slide along the characters hand due to age, etc., and so will not stay attached to the 'right' key. What once was q is now r for example, and so a great amount of 'hunt and peck' will ensue to find the right key, I think. Plus your hand size can be >10, too.
Another suggestion could be 1-0 (as 10), shift+ 1-0 for second character, and alt+ 1-0 for third. I wouldn't use that - but guess it wouldn't hurt or even be to hard to implement.
