MoG's Game Dev Journal

[Man_Over_Game]

The game is separated by four different decks, all with a mini instruction booklet. They are Deck Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4. As you get more personal experience from playing the game, and you feel you want to “level up” the gaming experience, you open the next level of decks and add them to your previous set. Each level essentially makes the game more complicated, more “advanced”.

Level 1 introduces the core mechanics and Command cards.

CORE RULES:
You start with 5 dice. This is your ability to influence fate. The closer you are to death, the more power you have. Each time you are Hit, you gain a die, unless you have 10, and then you DIE.
You assign dice to cards, cards spend dice to do things, and spent dice returns to your Player Pool.

When you roll dice from any pool (from a card or your own pool), determine the result by rolling all of the dice, keeping the highest value and adding +1 for any duplicates of that roll you may have.

COMMAND CARDS:
These are essentially units on the board, and they act in their own phase called the Command Phase. For each Command card in this phase, follow this pattern to determine Initiative for which card acts:
1. Find the largest dice pool among cards you control that can act (note that facedown and exhausted cards cannot act)
2. If an opponent has a card with the same amount of dice, both of you roll to determine which player gets Initiative.
3. The player with Initiative then picks a valid card they control with that much dice and that card act.

A unit with Initiative may:
• Engage an enemy target (Exhausts this card).
• “Burn” (remove) a die from itself to fuel an effect on the card.
• Flip facedown.

When you start an engagement with a target, you are generally also attacking immediately after. Roll all of the dice from that card’s pool, adding any bonuses that unit gets to its attack. The defender then rolls all of their dice for their defense. If the attacker meets or exceeds the defender’s roll, the defender is Hit and the attacker loses 1 die (unless they only have 1 die). If the defender prevails (and most cards are discarded immediately when Hit), they can retaliate with their own attack roll, losing a die afterwards in the same manner.

It's also important to note that some cards, and all facedown cards, have the Protect keyword. A card with Protect can Engage on behalf of another card without Protect by Exhausting. So by putting one of my cards facedown, I can have it Protect a faceup card, while also keeping its effects hidden. However, a Protect card can be attacked directly without the benefit of another unit with Protect.

Lastly, a unit can Burn a die to resist becoming Exhausted. If a Command card runs out of dice somehow, it’s put at the bottom of your deck.

At the start of each round, determine initiative for upkeep based on each player’s player pool. The player with initiative draws cards up to their current player pool, unexhausts any exhausted cards, may flip any current cards faceup or return them to the bottom of your deck, plays any number of cards facedown, and then reassigns all of their remaining dice.

Cards will often have a +/- Attack or a +/- Defense bonus listed on the card. Statistically, these are roughly equivalent to added or subtracted dice (so a Command card with +1 Attack and 2 dice makes attacks with roughly the power of 3 dice).

When a player is attacked, they roll the dice in their Player Pool for a defense roll, but a player cannot attack (at least until Deck Level 3).



Level 2 introduces other keywords:

Assassin: I ignore Protect (from both Allies and Enemies!)
Ranged: I always attacks first, unless I was Exhausted before the engagement or if I’m engaged by an enemy with Ranged.
Enchant: Move a die from your Player Pool onto another, specified, card. Not necessarily a card keyword, but a keyword for effects. For example, the Shadowmancer has “BURN: Flip a Command card over. If it was an ally, Enchant them.”
Initiative +/-: I get a bonus or penalty to the dice I count for Initiative and any rolls I make for Initiative.
Protect: Same as the facedown rules on Protect, but I can now Protect while faceup.
Brash: Revealed as soon as the Command Phase begins (so it can attack the turn it was played)
Gambit: Activate an effect when I am revealed.

You should generally ignore keywords and effects on a card while it is facedown. This means that Assassin cards can Protect while they’re facedown, and that a Ranged card can still attack first when it’s engaged while facedown (as it’s flipped faceup after the Protect effect but before any attacks).

It's worth noting that, while having cards facedown limits your opponent's information and often times comes with strategic benefits, attacker wins on a tie. This creates an interesting dynamic supporting both aggression and tactical caution.




Level 3 covers Might cards, which allow your player to attack almost identically to a unit, in a phase that comes after the Command phase called the Hero phase. Level 4 covers Magic cards, which essentially work as triggered traps/buffs, as well as functioning as a mechanic to steal a card when your opponent would discard it. I'll go into more details on these in my next post. Level 5 will add Hero cards, which add modifications to mechanics in the game (such as modifying the discard pile or adding/removing dice from cards), akin to classes.