Eureka!

Last night, fleshing out design ideas with some old shoddy cards, I finally realized how I want the first draft of the resource system in my CCG to work.

All of those little details you forget, all of those little details you simply don't notice when playing a card game, such as how to get started, how many cards in hand, how and when to mulligan...it's quite a task to do so from scratch. I mean, certainly I'm templating certain decisions based on prior experience with other CCGs, but that comes with the territory.

Now there are still some important decisions left, but I really like how things are going right now. My reasoning is: "If it requires a design decision, make it simple." In order to hook players on a game, you want it to be simple but fun. Complex but easy to learn. Simple brings Foundation, and Foundation bridges toward Design Possibilities, particularly in the case of expansions.

Nevertheless, I am very excited that I can now move forward and focus on game changing effects and character development. I believe for a world to truly come alive you'll need to do your research and flesh it out completely, so part of the next few weeks is to create the pieces to make that work. This will be a challenge and an ever-evolving one, as playtesting will quickly show what sucks, what works, and will certainly bring the question of "What the fuck was I thinking" before its over, I'm sure.

Lastly I'm thinking of doing incremental updates from now on, instead of the one-post-per-day rule for me. While it is quite a bit simpler, I run into little stuff all the time and would like to show it to you as well as comment on it. Look for some of these later today or tomorrow.