Umblight Gameplay Guide / Rule book
A detailed guide about what cards are, how card battles and combining cards work in Umblight.
Thanks to @DD23_32 in our discord server for helping out with the initial draft!
Players
Both players have a deck of cards they draw from and shadow coins that they spend to do most actions during gameplay. When drawing a card from the deck, that card will be exhausted from the deck, meaning that it will not be added back after it has been played.
Modifications and the death of cards don’t influence the player’s deck after a battle. Once the battle is over, everything is reverted to its original state.
Both players also have a player card, which shows their HP, Max HP values and any additional abilities that they might have.
Board
The board consists of 3 lanes, where both sides have only one row. Players can only interact with cards on their side of the board.
Turn order
1. Both players get the same amount of shadow coins. This starts at 5 and increases after every 2nd turn by 1.
2. The enemy AI draws cards, places them down etc.
3. The player reacts to the enemy's actions.
4. The player ends the turn and the cards fight eachother.
This turn order repeats until one of the players run out of health (shown on their player card).
Cards
At the top left is the polarity of the card. Cards can eithe be shadow cards or ight cards, and they are easily distinguished by the drastic color change. The number in the bottom left is the power of the card (attack and health). When a card takes damage, its power is reduced by the opposing card’s power.
The number in the bottom right is the cost of the card, which is the amount of shadow coins needed to play that card from your hand. In the middle, right below the art, are the card’s skills, which give a card unique abilities that trigger when certain conditions are met. Beneath that is the tribe of the card, which is used to categorize cards for synergies.
Polarity
A card can either be a Light card or a Shadow card, with each having their differences:
Shadow cards deal overkill damage to the owner of the opposing card. This means that if a 3 power shadow card were to face a card with only 1 power - alongside killing that card - 2 damage would be dealt to the opponent player.,
Light cards gain +1 shield when placed down onto an empty tile, or when they are combined with another card. This shield blocks all overkill damage that comes from shadow cards, while also reducing the incoming damage taken by the value of the shield.
| Light cards gaining shield when placed down. |
| The wild bear on the left dealing 2 overkill damage to the opponent since 5 - 3 power = 2 damage. On the right, two shielded light cards attack eachother. The enemy card loses its shield but doesn't get damaged, while the player's card gets destroyed since power 2 is enough to go through its shield + power. |
Combining cards,
When placing a card on the board, you may place it on an empty tile or place it on top of an already placed card on your side of the board, which combines the two cards.
Combining cards will sum up their power, cost and their skills.
When combining two cards, its polarity will be defined by the card you just placed on top of the other, so combining a shadow card onto a light card will create a shadow card and vice versa. Combining two cards of the same polarity will not change the polarity.
When a card turns into a shadow card through combining, that card’s shield will disappear.
| Light card gets combined onto a shadow card, the resulting card gains +1 shield and becomes a light card |
| Light card gets combined with another light card, so the card on the bottom gains +1 shield and stays a light card |
| Shadow card gets combined with a light card, which erases the shield completely and changes the polarity to a shadow card |
Ending the turn
Upon ending the turn, cards on both sides will clash, with the cards subtracting each other’s power by their own values. There are three variations here:
When there are no cards placed in the lane, nothing happens.,
When only one side has a card, that card attacks the opponent and deals damage equal to its power. The card perishes after dealing damage.,
When both cards are present, the cards attack and subtract power from each other. If one or both cards have less or equal to 0 power after this, the card perishes.,
Coin cards
(player exclusive, separate from the main deck)
Coin cards are supporting free of cost cards the player can draw from their piggy bank. These coins are used to buy cards at shops, but during battles you can take one every turn to combine with other cards. They have 1 power and 0 cost, and the player can have both shadow and light variants of it.
The coin skill prevents it from being placed down, it can only combine with other cards. Once combined with a card, it gets permanently removed from your coins. The coin skill does not transfer over to other cards when combined with.
If you draw a coin card, but don't end up using it, the card will not be removed from your deck.
These coin cards will be upgradable later in the game through special events or via abilities on the player card.
If you have any questions about the game, please join the discord and ask them there!