More for my use than anything to keep track of development but also hold myself accountable.  Please feel free to comment, iterate, suggest, or challenge.  

I'm developing a gameplay loop that has two distinct phases.

1. School phase - The card layout represents the ever changing physical and psychological landscape of the the psychic school.  Similar to Hogwarts, the rooms shift and change and you might find fascinating things you were not expecting.  This will use one oracle to drive the school day.
   1. Tension comes in normal school variety - Social anxiety, trying to stay on top of studies.
   2. The risk is not dying, but washing out of school early
   3. The exploration is from the studies and learning new powers (not sure if these will manifest into specific powers or just be power as a resource).
2. Battle Sim phase - This is similar to Ender's game, but unlike Ender, you are not special and you will not win.  I almost want this to be roguelike in that you keep losing until you are powerful enough to win.  The loop would be go to school, try not to wash out, gain more power to sometime be able to win in the battle sim.  Maybe that's like graduating.
   1. Tension is more combat and psychic.  There is still social anxiety in that you are part of a "team" and maybe will get blamed for losing or another member doesn't like you.  [I feel like all my old school anxieties are coming out in this...]
   2. Exploration should be how to use your power to manipulate the room/game to finally win.

In between each of those you will update stats, gaining resources during the school phase, challenging those resources during the battle phase.

And because I procrastinate more than anything, a doodle that might develop into the cover image...

The main mechanic that will act as Stress is going to be "Study" (or Scholarship, something like that).  This is a game about trying to make it through Psychic school alive.  This game will be a lot more forgiving than Dead Belt, first you cannot die in it (though you can "wash out"  of school), second running out of gas (or study in this case) results in a failed semester, but doesn't fail you altogether.  You start at an "A" and if you get to "D" average overall, then you wash out (untested...just the first idea).  Your GPA will be one of the trackers on your character sheet.

Unrelated side note:  Stardew or Sun Haven as a BotB style game might be awesome.  I wonder if you could keep some cards in the same area (like your home plot) but let others change each game.  Not going to work on that, but just thinking on that idea.  I like the idea of some cards being persistent in the world.

Part of design is culling things that won't work.  I initially wanted a gameplay loop that cycled between school and battle sim.  I'm considering just focusing on the school part (at least for the gamejam).  If i can get that working well, then maybe I can add the additional gameplay.  I always bite off more than I can choose.

School Supplies List

Please obtain and bring the following materials to the first day of class this semester:

1. A set of 52 Psychic Slates (or a deck of regular playing cards)
2. Six Sided Randomization Cubes
3. Tokens
4. A holographic tracking sheet (or printed is fine if your holodeck is being repaired)

Maybe I should change this to Cybersecurity since that is my day job and about all I have time for these days.  I have made some progress on the oracles, trying to make the results thematic to school tensions between social and scholastic, with some weird events thrown in just for a bit of strangeness.

I'm also playing around with building the map as you go, so that if it's 11 cards, you lay those out as you explore them and the value dictates if it is next to the previous or if it's perpendicular.  I want it to feel like Hogwarts where the staircases move around and there's new secrets around every corner.

Current Gas (for this project): 4...getting risky.