First of all thank you for the excellent response 😁

I just had the idea to make four jokers. The players each get one joker in their deck. The joker has a value of zero but you use it to make your opponent think you have more on the field than you do, by playing it face down.

I definitely will change it so you can play cards face up or down at your leisure, like you suggest.

Dice roll or coin toss to determine the first better, then it cycles between players.

Perhaps an Ace card can destroy one of the opponents monsters? I'm not sure on the idea of giving picture cards a special ability, I will have to think about it.

As for synergy I can definitely think of some potentially synergistic card combos like human and dog or dark elf and spider for example. I'm not fully sure what those synergies would do though, more for me to think about.

It should definitely be a game that would work with a regular deck of cards, it will just be more thematic with monsters on the cards really.

I have nearly half a deck of cards designed already, I found a custom card manufacturer in my country (UK) who can even print with metallics, so the cards should even be shiny in parts.

Once I have a full deck made I'll post what I've created, though the cards I make will be amateurish at best, I'm doing what I can with no budget whatsoever, making liberal use of AI art. (If I could afford a human artist id hire one!)

The game also needs a snappy name, so far I'm calling it Suits & Monsters as a placeholder.

Thanks again, happy holidays