Hey, Alchemists!
We're coming up to the end of the Next Fest demo, but don't worry – Moonstone Island will be out this Summer, so you won't have long to wait for the full game (and we won't boot you out after two weeks, either!)
Today, we wanted to show off some of the cards in our game. We're really influenced by games like Slay the Spire, where individual cards can make or break a deck, but you can also create decks that center around one particular mechanic.
Turns out deckbuilding is really hard! You have to focus on balance and creating mechanics and systems that tie into each other in a really satisfying way. We like it a lot, though, and we're really proud of the cards we've created. We know that not all cozy gamers are versed at card-games, so let's break down our cards:
Title: The name of the card! If it has a little + next to it, it's the upgraded version.
Type: Skill or Attack. Pretty self-explanatory!
Element: This matches the type of the Spirit it belongs to. If the enemy Spirits are weak to it, it does extra damage and removes their Armor!
Cost: How many of your Energy points the card costs. Some are free, others cost all your Energy!
Rarity: This rating tells you how rare and also how powerful a card is. The rarity scale goes up to 9!
Description: Tells you what the card does.
So, this card is called Calm Spirit, and it's not very rare at all. It costs 1 Energy, as you can see in the top-left corner, and it has three effects: it draws one card, removes one Armor, and inflicts Calm on the Spirit, which stops it from playing Attack cards for one turn.
Here, you can see three Tackle cards, each doing different damage based on the Spirit's Attack stat, and whether or not the card is upgraded. Tackle cards are the basic cards that all Spirits have, along with Bash cards, which reduce Armor. You can get rid of these cards if you want, but we hear there are cards out there that work well with a Tackle-filled deck...
Here's a slightly rarer card – it's Burgloon's 'Flip Switch', which costs 2 Energy, and deals 8 Electric damage, three times. Combine this with the Attack-boosting Charge buff, and take the Armor off the enemy, and you could be doing massive amounts of damage, because Charge increases the damage of each attack. Instead of hitting for 8 damage, you could be hitting for 15 damage... three times.
We can't wait to hear what kind of decks and strategies you've figured out! The exciting part of making a deck builder is that the power is in the player's hands – there are combos out there that we don't even know about!
~ Kate, community Manager, and Card Shark