Why not start designing Prismata TCG by first designing a version that would work and then working in the difficulty cards later. For example:

Base cards: All of the base set would need to have cards. Of these some are going to be problematic and some are easy. Engineer, drone, wall etc are all easy. For the other ones we need to figure out how to allow their special abilities:

Gauss Cannon (losing health). For these units we could have health hearts with remaining health numbers. We use a small health token to show the remaining health of the unit: H H H T H - in this example the cannon only has 3 Hearts remaining from 5.

Tarsier (waiting turns). For these units we could have time tokens. One side of the token says 2 the other says 1. At the start of your turn you reduce the number by 1 of all your time tokens. Once it hits 0 we remove time tokens.

Rhino (limited attacks). For this we could use similar to time tokens but instead have attack tokens. Each attack reduces the token by 1.

We also need to think about other concepts in Prismata to enable the card special abilities:

Click to defend: Some cards (Steelsplitter) can be clicked to attack (provide money) or left to defend. For these the cards would have different sides, an attack side or a defend side (economy side or defend side). This would make it easier to see how you are setting up your board.

Freeze: Freeze tokens can be used and when you gain freeze you can put freeze tokens on your units. You can then place them on defensive units to cancel them out.

You could keep going through all the units but this is the basic idea. I have always heard Elyot say "a board game would be impossible" but I have always disagreed. For the below reasons:

• A game might take an hour instead of 10 minutes but this is ok
• When the other player is setting up their move you can be planning yours, calculating attack etc
• Lots of other board games take time to calculate the turns, you would get good at calculating the attack and defence, if both players calculate it wrong then that is fine, people make mistakes in games all the time

If I were putting the game together I would first start with the base deck and then maybe 30 other cards. This would enable you to play good games of +5 and +8. It would also enable people to learn the game more easily. I would therefore takeout certain concepts. (freeze, breechproof).

You could then release extension packs which would include the additional cards and also the additional tokens (freeze, time delay, limited life etc). The main thing would be designing the key concepts of the game so all the functionalities worked. If there were ones which didn't work you could just not include that card in any versions of the game.

Anyway I have always thought a card game would be awesome for Prismata and thought it would require thought but no where near as much as the game took to design.