Hm, in this case I suppose the anime version of Yu-Gi-Oh with virtual worlds and waking up in a cylinder, yes could be a greater source of inspiration. The movie also has incredible technology (I’m a manga purist on this one, although I do like some moments of the movie, so to me Yu-Gi-Oh is mostly about coming-of-age and friendship (a common point with Vanguard), crazy strategies using unwritten rules, respecting the game and one’s opponents, and a variety of games including tabletop RPG (my first contact with the genre) and some weird occult real-time combat game with unit management where your soul gets sucked in a jar if you lose.
But mostly meeting a friend at the very beginning, discovering a game and Cross x Engage made me think more about Vanguard (in Yu-Gi-Oh, the protagonist is an enthusiastic analog gamer to start with, then card games come later).
I see the weird things that can happen due to the limit of 3 actions each turn. In fact, for the final fight I tried to lose but it was just as hard as winning. Ending with a draw was, oddly, the easiest thanks for the card that hits both players. So yes, the fact you either hit or fully defend (not just divide damage by two) makes it pretty hard not to just win or stale once you start getting the advantage.
I found a serious short one in the meantime, exorcist killing lie! https://itch.io/jam/baf-jam-2023/rate/2112516 It uses a one-shot format, taking a key event in a bigger world, that includes some character evolution. Maybe I could do that next time. I realize I didn’t write my character evolutions properly though, so it was impossible in Spirit Link.