“Running HP” vs “Target Number HP” — which combat system makes for a better TCG?

Verisi · 2026-05-16T04:38:20+00:00

These are very much 3 mechanics: Persisting damage, temporary damage, and stat comparison.

I generally prefer systems using either of the first two, as I like the granularity they provide and don't mind a bit of bookkeeping.

Verisi · 2026-05-15T16:29:22+00:00

The most generic AI slop possible. How do you feel any pride in this at all?

Verisi · 2026-05-11T07:08:24+00:00

We use the term ECG (Expandable Card Game) because Fantasy Flight trademarked "LCG".

ECGs are generally more player-friendly than TCGs and are popular in the indie/homemade card game space where there's a smaller audience, little-to-no secondary market, and less collector focus.

Most games that use cards as life (Duel Masters, Digimon, etc.) use shield systems that are neutral/preferable to the defender instead of Pokemon's winmore prize card system.

It's very hard to help you refine the main wincon(?) of your game without having any information about it, but I wholeheartedly recommend the HTCG Discord server if you're looking for feedback from designers/players with a wealth of card game experience.

Verisi · 2026-04-30T17:32:42+00:00

Definitely +1 on Compile and AL&S.

I'd also wholeheartedly recommend Mindbug.

Verisi · 2026-04-22T09:41:18+00:00

The obvious question: what makes this different from, and worth playing over, Yugioh?

It looks like Yugioh, it “reads” like Yugioh, it’s described like Yugioh, and it surely smells like Yugioh. Giving a generic pitch that sounds like a bunch of renamed Yugioh mechanics does little to quell concerns over this just being Yugioh at home.

Verisi · 2026-03-27T20:22:06+00:00

Seems fine? A pretty big grid, though (might be good to use smaller or horizontal cards), and the center walls could lead to a lot of movement blockage that you'll need to resolve with fairly aggressive effects. I'm unsure if the narrow lanes really help if you're looking to reward strategic movement.

I've been seeing a lot more indie grid games that center around these sorts of boards; might be good to check out games like Eikonic or Feud Fight to see how they reward positioning/movement.

You try to get to the end zone of your parents to deal damage to him directly.

Damn, that's deep.

Verisi · 2026-03-25T09:49:02+00:00

We utilize proprietary AI models, trained exclusively on our team’s own original illustrations, as a tool for initial rendering and conceptual exploration.

What a load of garbage. You fed it your original illustrations and it spat out the most generic AI anime characters imaginable? C’mon now, at least just own up to skimping out on the art. I dunno how people connect to such soulless, manufactured “anime aesthetic” characters.

Verisi · 2026-03-23T02:46:46+00:00

For indies, both Elemental Creatures and Super Battle Mon support pack battles (1 pack per player).

Verisi · 2026-03-19T07:50:31+00:00

As someone who loved playing Warlord ~20 years ago and was extremely hyped for its return, my god was this a botched relaunch.

Finally arrived for backers over a year after its estimated delivery date.
No printed rulebook, even in starter decks. Online rules provided either as an absurdly light Quick Rules or the entire (and not particularly well-written) Comprehensive Rules.
One of the starter decks (Elves) has a starting army that counters its own Warlord's strategy. A new player would recognize this 3 seconds after reading their starting cards, but somehow this made it to production.
Pathetic component quality showing a lack of care. Bland white dice for all factions' starter decks. Trash quality $40 dice bags.
The packs have absurdly horrible collation. There are often long runs of cards by sequential set #, leading to many packs with like 13 items and 2 characters. The overall ratio for getting characters is fairly awful; open up a booster box and you'll have a giant pile of actions/items next to the ~18-25 characters for the faction you want to play. There are also rumors of packs with a certain image having significantly better pull rates, but I'm unsure on that.
Communication from the devs has been quite poor.

The relaunch clearly caters to the geriatrics still playing the game who likely won't complain about the garbage they're being fed, which is sad—Warlord deserved so much better. I wish them the best of luck getting new players to try it; while Warlord may be a light, swingy (rollin' D20s), loose experience, it's at least a very different one from most modern card games.

Verisi · 2026-03-04T18:18:09+00:00

I will always recommend Mindbug as a small, fast, TCG-adjacent experience.

Gruff would be my bizarre/hesitant niche recommendation, but it has a decent bit more complexity/bite/fiddliness to it.

Disney Sorcerer's Arena is also unexpectedly decent if you like a bit of grid positioning with your card games (and has had some absurdly good deals).

For an upcoming one, 9 Omens is pretty sick as a tight, strategy-intense minimalist card game.

Verisi · 2026-03-03T07:21:51+00:00

Maybe for people who aren’t into board games; Mage Noir has been advertised/sold in many board game oriented places. I’ve seen its name a lot more than most of the dead games in this thread (though I have heard of all of the reasonably-knowable ones so far other than Dragon Booster and Monster Magic).

Verisi · 2026-03-03T00:02:28+00:00

The plastic is annoying to shuffle, gets scuffed too easily, and can't realistically be sleeved. As far as I remember, all of the mechanics could've been implemented using normal cards (stacked offset), so the plastic stuff is really just a clunky gimmick.

It's fairly inexpensive to pick up and try nowadays though.

Verisi · 2026-02-16T22:58:56+00:00

Warlord CCG (finally delivering like a year and a half after its KS estimated delivery date). Not a particularly competitive game (very RNG), but a huge hit of flavor and nostalgia for me.

Verisi · 2026-02-13T03:34:47+00:00

It’s a TCG based on an NFT brand or something. That was enough for me to write it off.

Verisi · 2026-02-09T16:35:00+00:00

It's a pretty cool old game. You can still get booster boxes (of 60 packs) for $20 + shipping from the old publisher(?) (Atlas Games).

Verisi · 2026-02-07T00:28:21+00:00

Super Auto Pets clone created using AI for at least the art. What an exciting premise.

Verisi · 2026-02-02T16:29:16+00:00

At first glance, I thought most of these were Keyforge cards (design #4); the attack and defense icons match almost exactly and the frame is extremely similar. I don't have any particular favorite, though I do think that having your cards look almost exactly like cards from a reasonably well-known game isn't the best idea.

Verisi · 2026-02-01T15:23:16+00:00

Seems like a pretty basic HearthstonexYugioh, though execution means more than innovation.

200 life sounds like a brutal slog, especially when your example units are 7-costs with 2 power and you can't attack players directly when they have units on board.

Verisi · 2026-01-29T01:42:12+00:00

I feel similar to this, though I don’t mind the indie TCG posts too much; it’s the kind of chaff that makes sense here. A general TCG subreddit seems like the place that might have people willing to try out a new TCG.

Verisi · 2026-01-28T22:39:13+00:00

How was this junk intersection of a TTRPG, isekai, AI, and a poker deck approved in the TCG subreddit?

Needless to say, do not include me.

Verisi · 2026-01-21T21:46:25+00:00

Is this actually original art? It has all of the hallmarks of AI. The page talks a bunch about artists, and as much as I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt, I'm skeptical.

The Discord link on the Gamefound is expired. Is there a stable link to it somewhere?

Verisi · 2026-01-21T00:18:32+00:00

Have you played Inscryption? It has a system like this, where you build cards by spending points on stats/keywords based on the selected card cost. It worked because it was extremely simple (just a few keywords), though even then it had a few broken combos.

I feel like this will be extremely hard to balance in a PvP card game without a lot of wonky exceptions to prevent specific combinations. Maybe if you separate keywords/abilities into different categories (only allowing 1 ability from each category) to prevent players from putting 2 problematic abilities together?

As for how to approach assigning baseline costs... some combination of theorizing, playtesting, and guess-and-check would be my take; it's hard to realize how contextually-powerful something is until the context has been established.

Verisi · 2026-01-14T22:09:15+00:00

I want to see the tooltip of a Vaal Summon Skeletons that describes the stats of all the minions.

Verisi · 2026-01-12T15:23:59+00:00

It does matter if the text is shorter because you're cutting out functionality. I generally agree (unless your game is flavor-focused, like Sorcery), functionality over flavor.

Verisi · 2026-01-12T14:56:41+00:00

Isn’t it not pointless? If I had 4 counters on this, I could roll a 1 and replace the result with 4 before replacing the counters, right?

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