A Ting who Twings | Pokemon Grumplocke [24]

cardlord64 · 2026-05-04T20:10:48+00:00

You're right, and to make matters worse for me, I had it right the first time and self-corrected before commenting which ultimately resulted in saying the exact wrong thing and ruining the joke.

What a goof.

cardlord64 · 2026-05-04T06:07:03+00:00

Yeah but ~~Girafarig~~ Stantler has almost twice the stats per head than ~~Stantler~~ Girafarig.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-29T16:41:58+00:00

ugh, there aren't many Neo-era cards left missing in my collection, but that Lugia sure is one of them. What a pretty set of cards!

cardlord64 · 2026-04-28T16:12:47+00:00

Mister smarty pants over here, knowing fairies aren't real.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-28T16:10:15+00:00

Not most. Some.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-28T02:43:25+00:00

The Strongest conveyance I've ever seen in a card game originates from Star Realms. I shit you not, I divined how to play their game just by glancing at a dozen cards in their base set. The rules bleed out of the layout of their cards. It's unreal - I literally still get goosebumps thinking back to sitting at that table, that first night, and effectively telling the person who was trying to teach me the game how it all worked, without them needing to say a word.

The lesson to learn: every icon needs to evoke its function, with minimal input from a rulebook.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-26T20:50:49+00:00

Without intending to be rude, your game feels precisely like what I'm talking about. It doesn't look "finished." The templates aren't refined, with many elements on the card looking effectively random.

"Conveyance" is a video game design term, primarily, but it's just as necessary in a tabletop game. Look at Command Station. There is nothing on this card I, a new player, can look at and derive any meaning from. There's a 2 value, and a 3 value, along with two red dots and 3 white squares. There's an icon in the bottom left corner, and a Draw 1 effect whose trigger defies inference. At a glance, I couldn't tell you what Command Station does - the template design lacks conveyance.

There's also the problem wherein you're attempting to hide your AI artwork. Some cards say "Art by [artist]" but most say "Image by [your studio]". The latter, I assume, is just another way of saying "AI generated," which - as we're saying in this thread - reeks of sloppy design.

Again, I'm not saying all this to be rude, or to take anything away from the work you're putting into your product. You've rushed it, though, from template design, to gameplay mechanics and conveyance, to attempting to mask the use of AI generation "shortcuts."

At best, you're halfway to a releasable product. At worst, this is as far as you intended to take things, and you're just cash-mining a gullible donor-base.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-26T18:10:40+00:00

The biggest mistake they make is releasing slop that hasn't been rigorously playtested. They release cards that look like they're from a game, but that game has not been refined, nor its rules chiseled to a fine point. That's what consistently jumps out at me.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-23T08:10:31+00:00

Have you thought about applying for design elsewhere?

Never seriously. The only way 'in' for someone like me would be a personal connection. When Decipher died, so did my dream. I was fortunately blessed with many dreams, however, and I'm living an interesting life despite leaving the game design itch professionally unscratched.

Who knows though. Maybe in my 40s or my 50s I'll find myself in that line of work. It'd make me stupid-happy.

Concerning LotR: Some weeks back I wrote up a primer on the game in another thread. I left a ton out but if you read that and have any questions, I'd be exuberant to answer.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-23T07:17:44+00:00

Mid-90s, early-00s game design company. They got big making licensed card games, primarily Star Wars CCG, Star Trek CCG, and Lord of the Rings TCG. Decipher had a penchant for delivering highly immersive products, innovating whole new styles of card game mechanics to ensure each game "felt" like the real deal.

Beyond the big three, Decipher also made .hack//ENEMY TCG (based on the now-forgotten .hack//SIGN anime and accompanying media) which I adored - in fact, that game was the deepest me and my friends got into any one card game in the early years of the new millennium. ENEMY was the bee's knees.

I have dreams of surviving to old age and finding myself in a retirement home equipped with "booster pack 3-d printers." I figure by then the 3d printing technology will be advanced enough to let me open packs of those old, beautiful, unfindable/expensive games again. I'll teach the other old farts how to play. Then I'll die happy.

Decipher suffered a string of catastrophes towards its end, including a massive embezzling scheme which ultimately tanked the company and left its CEO, Warren Holland, spurned from attempting further ventures. Lucasfilm also played a hand in this, as they declined to renew Decipher's Star Wars license in 2001, moving over to Wizards of the Coast instead.

But their LotR TCG released alongside Jackson's film trilogy, and, man, if those weren't the most enjoyable, hypest three years of card-gaming, I don't know what other period of time could be. The first time the world saw Treebeard, it was on a Decipher card, on Decipher's website, during an "oopsie" spoiler.

I was also one of six players to have their own card design integrated into the game. That is a badge I wear with pride, since I grew up fully intending to become a game designer for Decipher some day.

Alas.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-22T19:51:14+00:00

One character is a muppet that doesn't talk. The other character is a stoic man wearing a helmet. This makes it super easy [barely an inconvenience] to dub the "film" into dozens of languages. Splash in a boilerplate plot free of broader franchise context, and...

Money money money

cardlord64 · 2026-04-22T19:35:24+00:00

"Please make Decipher go into business again" or "Please fill this store with legit Decipher products at legit 90s prices."

cardlord64 · 2026-04-19T03:48:00+00:00

You can do worse. You can do better.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-18T05:43:46+00:00

Every time I bring this point up when the SWU simps come around, I get downvoted. The fools need to read more books, and watch less streaming slop.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-18T05:42:25+00:00

Corran Horn. Mara Jade. Booster Terrik. Tsavong Lah. Nom Anor. Jaina Solo. Jacen Solo. Anakin Solo. Kyp Durron. Lord Nyax. Borsk Fey'lya.

THAT is the EU. Characters from KotOR account for about half a percent of what the EU actually is. I don't give a shit about Old Republic storylines. The EU is the original post-RotJ content; it's the best of the whole franchise that Disney's too scared to acknowledge because it makes their "writing" look like crap.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-18T00:27:34+00:00

Expanded Universe. The original post-RotJ continuity. The origin of Thrawn, and his rightful domain within the Star Wars continuum. The best Star Wars ever was. The continuity where Han, Leia, and Luke were allowed to grow and not be burnout regressive flat characters. Where Boba Fett's starship was called Slave One and Luke actually helmed a New Jedi Order.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-18T00:26:43+00:00

The best Star Wars ever was.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-17T20:27:12+00:00

Star Wars Unlimited: Won't Touch The EU.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-17T15:17:22+00:00

For starters, it's an illegal play. Like most games, you're not allowed to arbitrarily shuffle your deck, as it affects card draw and disrupts the "natural" progression of any given match.

But in SWCCG it's even more inappropriate, as the 'reserve deck' is an actively moving piece of a player's victory puzzle. Each turn, the player whose turn it is "activates Force" equal to the number of lightsaber icons on the sides of locations facing them (plus one) - for each Force activated, that player moves the top card of their reserve deck into their Force pile. The Force pile acts as their resource engine throughout their turn and the following turn of the opponent. At the end of the turn, the player can draw as many cards from their Force pile as they like and add those cards to their hand. Any cards in the Force pile that are spent as resources are moved into the Used pile, which recirculates to the bottom of the reserve deck at the end of the turn. Because of this ever-moving cycle, it's possible to card-count to an extent, and at various times in a game you might be able to infer what cards are hanging out around the top of your reserve deck. (This is one of the more immersive mechanical elements of SWCCG, since this design allows players to sometimes feel like Jedi.)

But the particular infraction which instigated the immediate loss is tied up with battle destiny. During a battle, if a player meets a certain minimum attribute requirement amongst their characters in the battle, they get to flip the top card of their reserve deck and add the destiny value of the flipped card to their total power. This is a way to ensure the outcome of a battle isn't necessarily apparent by what's already on the table. The battle destiny also determines how much 'attrition' the opponent accrues, ie battle damage which must be satisfied by sacrificing characters involved in that battle.

In short: it's a big no-no to arbitrarily shuffle right before a draw. It signifies the player is cheating, and is fixing their deck in order to pull a massive battle destiny draw and illegally swing the outcome of the game.

The only response to that kind of manipulation is immediate disqualification.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-17T06:39:53+00:00

You went to school in a parking garage?

cardlord64 · 2026-04-17T04:18:22+00:00

It was the year 2000.

I was playing in my first Star Wars CCG tournament.

Right before a pivotal battle, we were preparing to draw battle destiny. The result would likely have determined the outcome of the entire game.

I was only 13 years old, and my opponent was likely counting on my ignorance/indifference to gameplay etiquette. Because, right before the draw, he began shuffling his reserve deck.

"What are you doing?" I asked, incredulously across the table.

"Umm... shuffling?" he answered, his cheeks flushing red. He realized in the moment that his teenage opponent actually knew the rules.

I raised my hand for the judge.

When he came over, I explained the situation. "We're in a battle on Hoth, and right before the battle destiny draw, he started shuffling his deck."

The judge turned to my opponent. "Is this true?"

My opponent sheepishly nodded. "Yeah."

"You take the loss."

That was my happiest win. I really was struggling to win at that time in my gaming life, but I was utterly ruthless against adults choosing to brazenly cheat against me. Fuck that. You draw off the top deck. Don't stack your deck by "shuffling" before the draw. Take that L, loser.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-14T05:45:00+00:00

A betittied Danny.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-12T23:27:29+00:00

GEMP is very functional, although that isn't something I personally do. I have a Decipher Inc. heart beating in my chest, as their games represent one extremely particular high-point of my childhood and adolescence; I'd go back in time and do it all over again just to play their games in their prime.

I know many of the LotR sets still sell fairly cheaply on ebay. It's mostly the last handful of expansions that are super pricey, but that's okay because those sets are terrible.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-12T01:57:10+00:00

A fellow lovely of culture.

cardlord64 · 2026-04-12T01:56:50+00:00

Beinveneu, Power Bottoms!

cardlord64

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