It's presently t-16 hours before the jam and I'm getting things in place to make a children's card game.

Hi, I'm Talia, and I'm one of two game designers for team Quintessence for this jam.  Our goal: Make an analogue card game for the jam, starting with two (2) structured starter decks with 15 unique cards each and a game manual, our actual goal for the jam, and expanding outward, first to three (3) additional decks and then to an actual whole set.  

By an astonishing coincidence, both of the decks we're using, as well as a third, have a healing subtheme to support huge, multi-HP creatures.  That's the theme covered!

This involves a LOT of art, and I'm glad we've got some great artists - QuodVide, Dr. Nemesis, MakioKuta, and Cerise, along with Bii doing layout work.

We'll probably make a Tabletop Simulator mod with the help of Silly Rookie, who made the Strike Engine we're using for the card chassis.  We'll be playtesting more or less continuously.

I've got the art document and a rough skeleton of every card in the five starter decks.  I've got Magic Set Editor, and am installing the Strike Engine mod.

I think we're ready for this.

Update.  Made proxies for 15 cards and 3 tokens.  Going to make the other 15+3 proxies tomorrow.

The art team assures me that they'll have some stuff this weekend; a lot of them were celebrating Canada Day yesterday, or are working.

Did another proxy deck today, including some art by QV.  Keep in mind the frames are a work in progress and not final.

From top to bottom: 

• Cost in Essence, threshold (you need to have this many Assets of that Essence to play this card, but don't need to spend Essence specifically from those assets: this costs 2 Essence and needs one Numinous Asset), card name, subtitle, set marker (currently on the default, Strike Engine).
• Art and typeline.  This is a Monster, indicated by the typeline and the heart symbol.
• Rules text.  This creature is Flying, which makes it impossible to attack unless it attacks first, and a Sentinel, which makes it ready up after attacking so it can block.  For this reason, it's a bit understatted for the cost (by default, monsters have about double it's cost in stats and one HP).  Note also the Asset marker - in the final card, this will be upside-down and on the bottom of the card, but you can play any card as an Asset of the Quintessence required to play it.  If there was room, I'd add lore text beneath this in italics.
• Statline and subtypes.  Final card may move up the subtypes, but it's also fine as an extension of the lore text.  Attack and defense work the way you think they do from Power and Toughness in MtG, but when a monster loses a fight (would be destroyed in MtG), it takes a Wound instead, marked with a counter.  If it has as many wounds as it has Hit Points (lower right), then it's Knocked Out and placed in the discard.

Working on the rulebook but this is essentially ready for playtesting next week.

Originally I was going to push for this update yesterday, but, well, it seemed tastless given the circumstances.  I gave everyone an extra day, including myself.

Today, I started on the manual and did proxies for both decks, including the new art.  I'm passing these on to our graphic artist Bii to turn into more final cards, and will talk with the Strike Engine discord about doing a Tabletop Simulator set for playtesting.

Playtest proxies and rules should be ready sometime in the middle of next week.

Update!

Card game fans, could you look over this rulebook and tell me if anything seems not to make sense or is missing?

Read the comments, too, some of those are meant to be in-character asides that will be included in the final rulebook.

We're working on final proxies that we're sending to graphic designer Bii!  Once that's done, she'll make playtest-ready cards.

Art is as done as it's going to get for the jam and we made a comprehensive database of cards that we've sent to Bii.  First, quick and dirty printable proxies; then a proper deck!  With three days to spare I like our chances.

We have the playtest materials ready!

Come on down, try it out, and please - take video of it, give us feedback.  There are known issues with the manual.

For now, we're all taking a break from the hard work, and letting our graphic designer celebrate her birthday today.

After the jam, we iterate.

Game Jam Playtest Edition 0.1

Known issues:

• Assets are not properly placed upside down on the bottom of the card.  Sorry!  It's a limitation of Magic Set Editor. 
• Some cards have CARDNAME instead of their name or "this creature."
• Some cards refer to Units instead of Creatures; treat them as saying Creatures
• The manual does not number the parts of a card or have numbered example cards, yet
• The manual does not yet list keyworded abilities, which I'll be doing here.
• Per-card artists credits are missing; the Strike Engine proxy template has no room for them.

Keyworded Abilities so far:

• Asset - as a resource, this card produces this Rune and 1 essence when exhausted.  Every non-token card has this.
• Flying - only flying and ranged creatures can directly attack this creature.  (Other creatures can BLOCK it just fine.)
  
• Ranged - this creature can attack flying creatures directly.
• Sentinel - this creature Readies after attacking.
• Crisis - this creature gets +2/+2 for each Wound it bears.
• Reinforce - choose: either heal one Wound from target creature (removing it), or give that creature a +1/+1 counter.