One more, this time with red.
And yeah I'm defaulting to a level of 3 every time cause I have no clue how balance works, forgive me.
Oh I love this! Really interesting actions here :0
Also yeah I don't even know what the balance is lol the best I can say is level 0s can be played no cost and you get 1 free Level 1 so the higher the level the harder it'll be to get on the board but also the better it can afford to be? So we'll see lol
I think there's an element of getting exponentially better as you increase levels. Like, a 3 on the Richter scale for earthquakes might be comparable to a semi truck driving by, but a 4 can shatter your windows.
As a player, If I take 2 turns to get out 2 level 1 cards, when I sacrifice them, I lose their abilities, so I want my level 2 card to have an ability that is worth the trade-off. I don't think this has to be a set-in-stone design principle, but without it, there isn't really a reason to not just have decks that are >90% levels 0-1 beyond other people's deck gimmicks.
Yeah it does seem like it'd be hard to escalate levels while still having more than one card in play, which is what would be needed for combos and just fun interactions in general. Exponential power is a good idea. Mechanics that let you play certain cards, like ygo (I don't play it so I don't really know tbh) ie. "(Backup): if this dies, you may play up to two level 1 cards." would help. Also 0-level cards can also serve as single use action cards (like instants or spells or something) so those can also be used to bring out more cards from your hand, ie. "(Cast): when this enters play, you may discard this card along with another from your hand and play a level 2 card."
hm yeah I might mess around and make some basic utility cards!
I saw on twitter someone was making cards that mess with the Materials mechanic (where you can play a card facedown and turn it into a blank, can't have actions, level 1 sacrifice token) and I think that's a good direction! I know I built this game with more Yu-Gi-Oh in mind than, say, MTG lol
That sounds like it'd work well. Other cards could use that mechanic to convert in-play cards to materials or vice versa.
This game gives me Dvorak and 1000 Blank White Cards vibes because of how community driven the card making is, which is a great thing. If anyone needs inspiration, there are Dvorak decks online which are a treasure trove of neat mechanics and ideas (try http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/index.php/Infinite_Dvorak_deck).