Doing the Hindu shuffleA tour through digital card game design

OverviewSystem Cards Decks Visuals Tech

System Design

What kind of game?• Card as central play element

• Cards are

• Token (playing piece)

• Action

• Interface

• Exception-based design

Simple but Deep• Easy to grasp

• Simple rules for card use

• Minimise non-card actions

• Add complexity through card rules

• Cards interact with one another

Player Actions• What can players do?

• Play Cards

• Actions caused by cards

• Draw cards, select targets…

• Other actions?

• Attack with creatures, end turn…

Card Effects• Cause one time effects

• Cause enduring effects

• Remain in play

• Have a position

• Can be a resource

• Can react and change

Resource Development• Change of resources during play

• Shapes tension

• Affects deck building

• Affects balancing of cards

Time• Turn-based vs. Realtime

• Consider complexity of board

How much Random?• Randomness can be an equaliser

• Randomness in cards

• Randomness in decks

Card Design

Card Design• Figure out your card aspects

• Cost

• Type

• Rules

• Consider the power curve

Core Cards• Simple basic cards on which to build

• Allow you to play the game

• Help pin down the core power curve

Keywords• Help with card interactions

• With other cards

• With other playing pieces

• Players, status effects…

• Keywords can help with interaction

Deck Design

Deck Building• Requires different skills than playing

• Understanding randomness

• Seeing connections between cards

• Research (homework)

• Provides meaningful influence on game

• Opportunity to be creative

Decision Paralysis• Large Sets make things difficult

• Knowledge of available cards

• Knowledge of the meta game

• Acquiring the appropriate cards

Deck-Size• Depends on design

• Target play duration

• Desired predictability

• Set Size

• And on complexity of cards

Visual Design

The Board• Visual metaphor of “table top”

• Everything relevant needs to be visible

• Complexity depends on

• Amount of cards

• Complexity of cards

Cards as Interface• Cards are action indicators

• Minimise non-card elements

• Make those you have clearly visible

Card Layout• Strong visual hierarchy

• Important things visible first

• Edges & Corners for overlapping

• The image on the card is important

Simple Visuals• Make your animations feel physical

• Cards need a lot of artwork

• Find a style that works in volume

Card Text• Quickly readable

• Easy to be misunderstood

• Use keywords to shorten your text

• Provide way to look up keywords

Technical Design

Card Objects• Ideally somewhere easily to balance

• But complex card effects & interactions

• Our solution:

• We used scriptableObjects and a lot of custom editor scripts

• In hindsight would probably do differently and use either a scripting language or a FSM system

Command Pattern• Command Handler

• Cards generate a set of commands

• Based on game state

• Commands are then executed

Thanks! Questions? @mnerurkarwww.noprophet.com