FissureVerse: 6 more cards

Six more cards get the new layout!

Click please.

I increased Tearmen's Sword stat to 3, an changed the special text from “(Sword)+2 as Defense” to

“(Sword)-1 as Offense. (Sword)+2 as Defense.” I did that with previous cards as well, which mathematically comes out the same, but with the tokens, it costs more for the player.

Rally becomes very different, because I'm now using Spikers as a major mechanic. Originally you pick up three cards always, but now that it's dependent on Spikers, you'll pick up more as the game goes on. The interesting thing, I wonder, is if that clogs your hand with Crusaders late game when you can't really afford a clogged hand, especially a hand full of Converts you really don't know how to play with (and that might be too weak in Endurance for you).

Similar to Vermin and The Expired in the last post, Nomads gets a “would be” instead of “is.” However, I am still strongly considering fixing that back, so that a Location Card still gets flipped when it's Killed.

I gave Miracle a Spiker requirement of 2-6, to suggest that Miracles aren't possible in the 'normal' universe, but become possible only once the fabric of spacetime breaks and allows miracles to pass through. But there comes a point when there's too much, and the universe can no longer sustain a Miracle.

The art for Red Skies is too wide for the card, like Excursion is. Unfortunately a very interesting detail gets lost, but I wonder if maybe in the future I can use the other half for another card, to make a fun little Easter egg for the observant.

FissureVerse: 8 more cards

Yet eight more cards to post. I seem to go through them quick enough to warrant a lot of posts in quick succession.

Click and stuff.

I changed Bravery's Attack stat from -1 to +0, both because it fits with the theme and because it evens out the card. Other cards in this line will get similar treatment.

I always flip flop on the flavor text of Servants of the Noise. I considered adding “THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT BUT THIS ONE IS MINE,” but that would be overkill, and The Noise don't really know how to form sentences that long.

I'm debating about whether to make a change to the stats bar of Through the Mud, like adding +1 Torment. Unfortunately I think that, although it would thematically work, it would make it far too powerful. I should instead give it negative attributes, but I think all that would overly complicate the card, especially with such a big special rule.

The Expired gets its wording slightly changed from “If this is Killed” to “If this would be Killed”, because that keeps a Location from triggering. I may change it back.

Crystalline Tower loses its special text, of course. I think Defense winning ties when Crusading by Reason might make a good mechanic somewhere else, so I'll have to keep it in mind. Probably not a Spiker, however.

FissureVerse: 13 cards and a back

On my last post, I forgot to give Lifters and Lugubrious the Crusade Icon. Fixed now in the Google drive.

Clicky clicky.

I decided that the artwork of Mirage, the Desert Castle looked more like a church or a temple, so I opted to rename the card. Goes more with the religious theme of the game, than of a medieval fantasy.

Seedling (and Starving previously) get their special rules text updated to be more clear. Seedling sounds grammatically correct, but Starving never seems quite right.

Sermon gets a lot of its wording changed, considering it is no longer a Conditional Rogation. It loses a little bit of its theme by removing the whole “place in the Field” aspect, but that's okay enough, I suppose. The tricky bit was to word it in such a way as to take up as little room as possible, so I could keep the flavor text. I think they kind of run into each other a little bit, but hopefully the split is noticeable to the eye.

I'm not just fixing the fronts of cards, of course, but the backs as well. I've decided to make the Location Card backing similar to the front in terms of the title bar and border. I keep the Location icon so there's no chance of confusion whatsoever. I think I'll probably do something similar (just rotated) for player deck cards (though I don't know what icon I could give them, apart from the 'cracked disc' icon, though I don't like that idea).

I keep forgetting A Child's Imagination is a Green card. Makes them rather devious, I think, and only sounds out of character if you're not paying attention.

I updated the text of The Derelict to match Earthlings (and also changed Earthlings to match The Derelict). Still unsure about these, but at least for The Derelict, there's the bonus of being not pathetic in Endurance.

Similar to how Lifters is great as a Red card, I think Respectators is great a a Blue card. A Blue player might want Respectators in their deck and protect it at all costs, so they have a fighting chance at conversion by Torment.

I changed Coded's Endurance stat from -1 to +0. On a pure numbers standpoint, it evens out the stats and perhaps makes such Frenzies more likely to be used, but also I felt that thematically it worked better. Similar Frenzies will probably get a similar change.

For a card like Scribes, with no special rules, I wonder about the blank space. On the one hand, he's diligently writing in silence. On the other hand, that blank space is very conspicuous. I'm considering a “Shh...” as the flavor text, just to put something there. But then, I'd have to do that for lots of other cards I intentionally leave blank.

I gave Whispers a Spiker requirement of 0-6, suggesting it's a possible action in all but the most dire circumstances, when the universe is reaching its conclusion and Reinforcements cannot arrive in time.

Just like Coded, I modified Love Potion's stats to be more even, in this case changing Torment from -1 to +0.

FissureVerse: 14 more refreshed cards!

On a roll now...

I won't talk about every card, just ones that got more than a simple refresh or I have a concern about. The rest I'll just post here so you can see how the new version looks without comment.

Click to view the cards in this post like a slideshow!

Lugubrious may be a bit tricky. I wonder how useful it would be, and perhaps it needs an extra Endurance to bring it up to snuff.

I removed the special rules from both of these Locations. Spikers for special rules are definitely the way to go. However, removing the special text from Bottom of the Universe left a bit of a problem, since there was no flavor text on it to begin with. I tried lowering the black bar on the bottom, but it didn't look right being too far down, so I opted for some flavor text instead. My original idea for Bottom of the Universe was a bar similar to the Mos Eisley cantina, but once I got this art for it, I decided to expand on that and suggest a city or perhaps a whole planet called the Bottom of the Universe. In this regard, it might be something like Grime or Plains of Filth. So I think the flavor text here helps bring that idea a little closer.

I never noticed the flying fish of the background of the art of Mystics before! It seems to be a recurring theme with this game...

The artwork for Excursion is such a beautiful wide panorama that even with all the room on the new layout, there still wasn't enough room to show the whole thing. I came up with a longer bit of flavor text just so the ratio of width to height on the area of the picture would be closer to the ratio of the art, and there's still so much I cut off of it. Well, at least it's far better than the original layout, where I could barely fit anything.

I gave Rapture the same Spiker requirement as Pestilence, since it's the same thing, but for Zealots instead of Devotees.

For Slowpokes, I removed the part in the special rules about how you can't Frenzy it or Crusade with it. I think not being able to Reinforce with it is enough of a problem. Adding not being able to Frenzy or Crusade would just make it near impossible to play, in that no Player would ever choose it for their deck. This gives it a fighting chance to act as bit of a shield.

I messed up in a previous post when I said the title text could support “Servants of the Infinite” comfortably. Oh well, I hope the shrinking of the text here isn't too noticeable.

I really like that Lifters is a Red card. This card would be most useful as a Red card, and I bet any Red player would love to have this in their deck and protect it at all costs. Though, perhaps it might make Red cards become a target for conversion by Green now, rather than Red being to dumb to be converted...

FissureVerse: 8 More Refreshed Cards

Yet eight more refreshed cards! The train keeps on rollin'...

Click to see bigger if you wanna.

Twister loses the funny way I put the text in the previous version (looking like a twister itself), but it gains clarity in the picture, and now you can see a lot better that there's two little people huddled by the twister! Also, I reduced the Endurance stat on it by one. I think of the rules text as a good thing for Red and a bad thing for his opponent, although there are particular circumstances where it would be beneficial for the Opponent to discard a card. In any case, the total of an average card with no flavor text is eight (Servants, for instance), so I usually lower the stats on a Crusader with a good bonus. This probably won't hold true forever, especially with some rules being subjective in how good they are, and not all the stats are quite created equal in the first place (you'd want to avoid Killing when you can, and be very careful when Tormenting).

Originally special rules text that made you pay attention in odd instances had the text color altered, so since Starving requires players to play attention when Enlisting, the text color was green. The text color might not be noticeable to color-blind players, it looked ugly, and green is a faction color, so there was plenty to be confused about. I didn't want to have a keyword like Magic: The Gathering does for common rules, so I've instead opted for a new icon. The icon on Starving in the rules text shows a card being drawn off a deck, which is precisely what Enlistment is, so it works. Hopefully the icon is large enough to catch a player's attention, but playtesting will see to that.

With the Fishes and Path of the Righteous get simple refreshes. Nothing to report except that I'm happy Location card art gets so much more room to shine.

Similarly, Prophet of Prophets gets a new icon for when to pay attention to it. Originally red text meant to pay attention during a Crusade, so now I've made that a winged sword. Crusades, like Rogations, are kind of difficult to come up with an icon for, so hopefully that makes sense. I also upped the Endurance stat of Prophet of Prophets by one. I think it's important to give the card a hair of longevity if you're going to try to play it, so giving it a chance to survive a round is important, at least long enough for a Frenzy to get stuck on it.

Earthlings was quite difficult to get the text just right (and I don't think it is; it's pretty clumsy, much like this sentence). I opted to remove the Solidity icon from the special rules and just put the word 'Solidity' instead. This card is also particularly tough to balance. A card that becomes more powerful in another player's Field is a tricky card to even desire to play, but I kind of think I want that to be a theme of Yellow, in fact that already is the theme of Yellow on other cards. Crusaders actively flee Yellow, and thematically, and in a story sense, that's pretty neat. But we'll see how playability factors into things.

Dichotomous and Cavernous get simple refreshes. I feel like Dichotomous is particularly powerful, and Cavernous is particularly weak, but I guess it all depends on the Frenzy that gets used with it. I can't wait to playtest this stuff.

FissureVerse: 8 More Refreshed Cards

Eight more cards get a refresh!

Click to embiggen if you wanna.

Abductors gets a simple refresh. A basic, even card that likely comes out more powerful than it appears on the surface because the two powerful stats are the ones that hurt the most, and the weaker stats are the ones players (now) aim to avoid going against, since they might accidentally kill Abductors and flip a Location (bringing doom nearer).

Fountain gets its wording changed to be similar to that of Steel, and its stats get altered as well. On the surface it looks like Fountain is purely better than Steel, but I think that won't necessarily be the case, since they have different uses, and one of the big tricks of Frenzies is to make Crusaders underperform, which can cause all sorts of interesting tricks.

I should point out here, perhaps, that I make sure to put extra rules texts close to the stats bar, while I put flavor text close to the picture, whether there is both present or not. I hope it works stylistically. One reason I do this is because I want players to be able to cover card art if they want to with a Frenzy without hiding important information, but they can cover flavor text so they don't keep reading it when other stuff matters.

The Noisemaker remains exactly as before. I considered the idea that this being a ship, it might do to have it be more powerful than your average crusader (particularly on the Killing front), but I also always like the 1-2-3-4-ness of it, so I'll leave it as-is for now and see how it plays. It might need something to boost it, since not being able to hide its Frenzy is (what I think is) such a drawback.

Of the Sea has had its text reworded to shrink it, which was nice because I could add a line of flavor text.

Wedding also has simplified text, and I put the caveat of required Crusaders first, just like I would for any other strange requirement. I am figuring out the required number of Spikers for each Rogation, and I want it to be both thematically and mechanically relevant. Pestilence, for instance (which I changed from 4-8 to 4-7, because the eighth Spiker ends the game), is a powerful card, so it should go later, but thematically it is also a godly act, while Wedding is a human act, and it's more of a way to allow Players to not get swamped by Crusades, so this would be especially useful early game.

Hysteria gets a simple refresh with no significant changes. I think the new card layouts flatter the art a lot more, and this one I think looks especially good.

Locations have a slight alteration: like the title bar, the bottom black area made for flavor text is editable, in that it can be moved slightly up or down to accommodate more text or more picture. This fixed an issue on previous cards with a bit of empty space, and gave room for me to fit the Trail of Emptiness flavor text in three lines without needing to shrink it, rendering the text nearly unreadable.

I have also decided, for now, to eliminate special rules on Location cards. This is definitely necessary for Locations where Players could get stuck there, like Holiday, given that a Crusader needs to die to flip the Location. Some cards like Forsaken, which simply gave all Crusaders +1 Torment, were fairly harmless as far as consequences go, so perhaps in the future I might apply that kind of special rule back. I'm thinking Spikers' special rules (if they have any) will likely be more devastating, though it might be fun to have little things like Forsaken's old rules apply, as well. We'll see.

FissureVerse: New layouts, icons, and art – redux, with rules and mechanics

My two main inspirations for FissureVerse have been Dominion, a game I was until recently obsessed with, and Magic: The Gathering, a game which I have not played in years, but have nostalgia for. But both of these games have similar card layouts, and my original designs for Crusaders, Frenzies, and Rogations was based on those two card games, with Locations being practically no more than a sideways version.

I felt rather 'meh' about my layout designs after a while, and knew they were bland, and graphically-challenged, considering I am no graphic designer. So now I'm taking another stab at the card layouts, trying to care about both form and function, eliminating clutter, and leaving as much room for art as possible.

Click to see all the new awesomesauce.

Firstly, cards are now primarily black (with a 'vortex' icon faded in the background), to give a better impression of space, with only a border showing the color of the faction. The faction icon is now big and bold, lifted from the bottom-center to the top-left. The card title is right-aligned, and enlarged to make it more obvious. (It's still small enough to fit "Servants of the Infinite" perfectly, which I believe is my longest card name.) Title text (as well as the text at the bottom of the card, and stat text) is a sans-serif font, to give a more spacey vibe, while the special rules and flavor text (and artist name) are a serif font for readability.

The stats have been pushed far up, since I think they're more important than being pushed down to the middle of the card. They're also highlighted with a grey bar to also help catch your attention.

The special rules and flavor text have been lifted above the art to be directly under the stats bar, so the eye can go straight from one to another without a jump. The special rules and flavor text also have variable font size to take up more space so there's not so much emptiness above. There are certainly some unavoidable instances of empty space, but it should be less noticeable.

Also, considering the (somewhat) recent mechanic of paying Tokens equal to the number you're Crusading with, I've had to redesign some cards to be more Token-friendly. Dripping and Numerologist, for instance, have a similar mechanic, but they fix things so you aren't over-paying and the card balances out. You only pay the amount stated in the stats bar, not the special rules text, so you'll pay 3 if Crusading by Reason with the Numerologist, regardless of whether you're against a Devotee or Zealot. Makes the math easier, too.

The art has been moved down from near the top, yet it is far more prominent than it was before, due to the art being far larger now. By minimizing the borders I was able to embiggen the art.

Finally, at the bottom, I removed the card type and faction name (since both are redundant due to the faction/card type icon that's now at the top), but because I had a bit of room, I added the name of the game, and a subtitle with an icon ("The End Is Beginning", with a 'cracked disc'). I know I want a bunch of expansions for this game, so I struggled a lot with a subtitle and icon to the original vanilla set (if I even wanted either of those at all). I considered actually putting "Vanilla" and having an ice cream cone as the icon, but I figured I would wait on the humor for future expansions and not ruin the mood I'm going for yet.

Locations have got a massive revamp as well, giving tons of space for the art, and looking rather shiny and providing more information all at once.

Like with Crusaders, the top left has an icon, and this one being a black-and-white vista as the Location icon. The Turn Order icons flow down from the top like a totem. Kept in the top left is also the title, but it's surrounded by a bar that can shift its size to the size of the title (once again, perfectly sized for the longest title, "Trenches of Otherworldly Sorrows").

The art is now so large I can see details I never knew before, like the little girl in Blue Blazes! (See below.) However, unlike with normal cards, where the art is simply enlarged, the aspect ratio of this art has significantly changed, so I am forced to remove some art and replace it. You will notice that Earth actually has the Battlefield art, which I have to do because the Earth art simply won't fit right in this new aspect. In the meantime, Earth gets Battlefield's art, and Battlefield will be getting some new art.

To continue down the cards:

Below the art is flavor text, and currently I'm debating on special rules text. There's enough room, certainly, but there's a new addition to the rules and a new card type to come that with come with a major change, so I'm debating whether to have the Locations keep their special rules text, or simplify things. As it was, I felt I had too many Locations had special rules (half of them!) so I wanted to cut down on that number anyway.

Frenzies of course have a similar mockup to Crusaders, though I gave them an icon they never had, and changed the color to orange (since Rogations are purple I wanted a bigger difference in color). The icon is a skull with large, chomping teeth, which I want to evoke to Rabies Frenzy. I've also been rethinking the actual effects of cards, making them more useful and desirable, so the negative effects of Steel, for instance, are lessened considerably.

Rogations also get a fun icon, which is far more abstract, but heck, it's tough to come up with something that is a fairly abstract card type itself. In any case, it's something like a ball with lightning on it, which would typically be the result of a spell, and since Rogations are often like ceremonies, spells, and folkways, I figure lightning could be a consequence, particularly with cards like Raindance.

I have left off Rogation type (Immediate, Lasting, and Conditional), and I'm simplifying all Rogations in that regard. Now Rogations can be played any time during or between turns, as long as all conditions are met. Of course one condition is the number of Crusaders in your field (indicated by the teleporting person icon), and an oddly specific condition would be in the special rules text (where it always was in Conditional cards), similar to Magic cards with strange mana costs (like "In addition to this card's mana cost, exile a creature"). It will be laid out in the rules that these conditions must be met when you play the card. This will eliminate all junk like laying down Conditional Rogations facedown, bluffing with Rogations, etc. That was needlessly complex and didn't do much but frustrate me.

The additional icon you see is also a requirement: the minimum and maximum number of Spikers that must be revealed before you can play this. A Spiker is the new card type I alluded to above, and they work with new Location mechanics.

Because I have no Spikers, here are more Locations.

I've always been annoyed by the fact that Locations only last one round, and then a new Location is flipped. I figured there's not enough time to get used to one Location, and that jumps happened to quickly. So the way I figured was that you'd stay at the same Location indefinitely until a Crusader is Killed. Then, and only then, does a new Location card get revealed. (You will notice I changed the special text of Pestilence from the wordy "Send a Devotee (an Opponent's, or your own) to the Vortex" to the far simpler "Kill a Devotee.")

Also, I've eliminated the whole idea of two ways to win. It used to be that you'd either wipe an opponent of their Crusaders, or at the end of the game, you'd count a score. Now, instead, if you flip through all the Locations, the game ends and everybody loses. This, of course, was ripped completely from my basic playing card game Zugzwang. This entirely adds the same element to the game: think you're gonna lose? Why not force everyone else to, as well!

But now, why should the game end, just because you ran out of Locations? Why not shuffle and continue? Well, I want the very theme of the game to come through more powerfully: the universe is being torn apart, and reality is in its last days.

Now, the fun addition I've included is Spikers. Add eight Spiker cards to the Location deck and shuffle. If a Spiker is flipped, instead of being discarded like Locations, it is kept set aside so everyone can count the number of Spikers out. The Rogation requirement is how many Spikers must be in play before you can use it. So for Pestilence, being 4-8 Spikers, that means you must wait to use Pestilence until at least four Spikers are revealed. This will allow more powerful Rogations to be played later, and weaker ones sooner. This will also add strategy to the pregame deck-building, since players wouldn't want to fill their decks with Rogations that are too specific or all towards one end of the game (unless they make that conscious decision).

The one caveat is that when you shuffle the Spikers, you must be sure to keep one (unrevealed) set aside, then shuffle them in with the Locations. Then you put the set-aside Spiker at the bottom of the deck, so the last card drawn is always the final Spiker, bringing doom to the universe.

Spikers might also have special rules text that goes into effect from the moment the Spiker is revealed, to the end of the game, so that's another reason I'm thinking of getting rid of most of the special rules on Location cards.

Anyway, soon enough I'll rewrite the rules (it's tough making so many fixes), and upload more re-created cards.