M.A. Devlogs: Game Components pt.3

The board games I naturally gravitate to tend to be deck or engine-building and so all the games I’ve tried to make in the past included deck-building in some way.

Today I’d like to introduce some cards from Minibots Arena, and the decks that they belong to.

As the game stands right now, players will start with the same deck and attempt to gain  cards that match their play-style.

Here’s the starter hand that we generally use during this edition’s playtests:

 

 

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A starter hand has 4 Minibots, 4 Starter Junk, 1 Starter Handgun, 1 Starter Sword, 2 Speed Burst and 2 Starter Walls.

Something important to me is keeping the game balanced, but soon I’d like to play-test these cards – which represent color advantages rather than factions:

 

 

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Friends setting up for a game would have the option to play with or without these. Not advised on the 1st play however, as the gameplay is still a bit long to grasp on the first few turns for new players.

So the game has started, and you’re looking to make your Minibots more powerful. Every turn, new cards from the Printer deck will be revealed for players to purchase and permanently add to their deck. Here’s a peek at some of the cards found:

 

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This should give you a really good insight on the game and spawn a lot of questions (and hopefully curiosity).

At the top-right corner is the price to pay (or the amount of “Pla” needed to “Print” the cards) but I’m still experiencing with different mechanics.

What I really like at the moment with how the game stands is that different players already have different goals and styles of play. I like to buy A LOT of cards from the Printer and sell permanently when I get better stuff, while most other players are very conservative with their Pla.

The 2nd deck in the game is the Loot deck, and you draw from it when you successfully loot a Drop box on the battlefield. Have a look:

 

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Generally speaking, the Loot deck has more powerful, funkier stuff, but the cards tend to be Single Usage and unpredictable. Players have had a lot of fun drawing from that deck and it seems to be what makes the game the most fun at the time.

I’ve had players completely ignore the Printer deck and combat to solely chase Loot, looking for that perfect card.

There are also Location cards that affect the battlefield or create actual mini-buildings and Neutral units that I haven’t revealed yet. At the moment I’m thinking of how I can add “rubber-band” cards to help losing players get back in the game.

There’s a 3rd deck that we will cover another time – the deck that runs the events, drops loot in the arena or turns specific colored grids into kill zones or charging stations.

The one thing I’m struggling with at the moment is the amount of down-time between turns for new players (the ones that need to get hooked) but I’ll keep play-testing as it is for the moment and see how people react to it.

The most important thing I need to change is how one scores victory points. Simple death-matches tend to slow down the game a lot as players use very defensive tactics.

See you on the next devlog!