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Keys to making a good card game

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pilgrim14:
I am making a Sci-fi card game, and I was wondering, what do you think are the keys to a good card game? Costs vs effect? Good turn structure? Diversity in strategy?

Thank you for the advice,
Pilgrim

ChristianSoldier:
I have studied this much, since I love designing games, and much of my information comes from Mark Rosewater's Making Magic Column on the Magic: the Gathering site and the TV tropes So You Want To Make A Collectable Card Game page. But from memory I'm going to list several important things:

1) Don't go against human nature: Basically don't make your players do something they don't want to do. Let them make their own choices: make sure that your strategies aren't too prebuilt.

2) Make sure your players can interact. This one seems obvious, but especially if you include variable player goals, make sure that every avenue of winning is something that can be stopped under the right circumstances.

3) Multiple Paths to Victory: Even if you only have one victory condition (like Redemption is only won by redeeming lost souls), but it's good to have different strategies used to get that.

4) Pacing: Make sure your games pacing is feel right, if the game goes too fast it can get old quickly, if it's too slow it can get boring.

5) A way to comeback from losing: This one is important because it really stinks to be losing and having no way to come back from it.

I'm sure there's more that I'm missing, but these are the things that came to mind.

pilgrim14:
For number 2, would winning first be stopping the opponent? for example in MTG you lose if you deck out, but, if you kill the opponent when you have 1 card left, you still win.

ChristianSoldier:

--- Quote from: pilgrim14 on July 13, 2015, 07:35:17 PM ---For number 2, would winning first be stopping the opponent? for example in MTG you lose if you deck out, but, if you kill the opponent when you have 1 card left, you still win.

--- End quote ---

Sort of... MtG's primary win condition is being brought down to 0 life, usually by being attacked. You can stop them from achieving that by blocking creatures. I suppose not every win condition needs to be as stoppable, especially if they come up less often. The decking out is a rarity and isn't always caused by an opponent, unless your opponent is using cards to run your deck out, being able to stop it isn't really relevant, but not being able to interact with opponents attempts to win the game can be a problem.

kerfluffle:
I think good card art/design is something that draws people to a card game (it's definitely something I appreciate). There are some people who won't play Yugioh because it has terrible card design. Also I personally don't like how in some card games decking out means you lose. I think that the only way to lose should be a way within the rules of the game rather than the technicalities of it. Finally, don't make deck building rules strict/rigid. Give people lots of freedom to build their own unique deck.

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