Card game mechanics candidates

This document proposes three directions for a two-player collectible tabletop game that we will play digitally, with an initial set of approximately 100 distinct cards. The target is a five-minute explanation followed by a 10–15 minute game. Those are design targets, not measured results. None of these proposals has been playtested. Every state must be visible or trackable with ordinary cards, markers, and counters; the digital version should help players handle that tabletop state.

The first playable prototype is now a compact duel. The design requirements do not demand territories or several victory systems: cards, combat, resource decisions, and deck construction can create distinction within a familiar duel. Read the current duel rules for the implemented baseline. The site contest and creature relay below remain research alternatives, not commitments or prerequisites.

Lessons from existing rules

Pokémon separates an Active Pokémon from a Bench, attaches Energy to individual Pokémon, and ordinarily ends a turn after an attack. This provides a useful reference for the team candidate. Our design inference is that concentrating combat around one creature can make the board easier to read, while replacement and development still offer decisions. This is not evidence that our proposed game will be quick or balanced. Pokémon rulebook, pages 7–14.

Lorcana permits a player to add an eligible hand card to their inkwell once during a turn; ink pays for cards, and characters can challenge or pursue lore. The design lesson we take is that a card can represent both a future play and a resource opportunity. Our site proposal allows every card to become supply and uses territorial scoring instead of Lorcana's victory system. Lorcana comprehensive rules, sections 4.2–4.6.

The wider comparison, including resource variance, interaction windows, deck consistency, and other games, belongs in the mechanics research. The rules below are original proposals, not descriptions of those games.

Three distinct structures

All numbers are hypotheses. A now has a separate playable rules reference; C remains an alternative sketch. Do not blend all three into the first prototype. In particular, six-round scoring plus stronghold health plus knockout prizes would obscure what a player is trying to achieve.

What the site alternative would need to justify

The proposal offers several routes to the same clear outcome: score more points. A small creature can hold an abandoned site, a durable unit can preserve an early lead, a removal deck can dismantle one contested site, and a mobile deck can change which fight matters. “Many strategies” does not require many unrelated win conditions.

Three sites and a two-unit limit make board space a resource. Only three actions per player per round means that a movement card competes with deploying or fighting. Banking a card asks a different question: which future option can I afford to give up? These are intended sources of depth. Whether they produce enjoyable decisions is the central playtest question.

This direction costs more rules than the duel. We have not established that the spatial choices justify those rules. Its earlier design work is not a reason to keep it as the foundation. Revisit it only if play reveals a problem that territories solve better than the simpler duel.

Site game prototype rules

The following is the earlier site-game draft, retained for comparison. It is not the current browser game. Its two decks in the set plan likewise belong to this alternative.

Teaching outline for this alternative

Show the three sites and explain that the player with more points after six rounds wins. Show the point schedule: one per controlled site in rounds one and two, two in rounds three and four, three in rounds five and six. Tied sites score nothing. Each player starts with five cards and can replace any number once before play, shuffling the set-aside cards back after drawing replacements. Choose the first initiative player randomly; initiative changes players every round.

Each round, ready your cards, draw two, and optionally bank one hand card as supply. Supply cards stay for the whole game: exhaust them to pay, then ready them next round; there is no stored energy pool. Then take three alternating actions each: play a card, clash, move, or pass. Playing pays the printed supply cost. Each site has two friendly unit spaces; each player has one relic space, and a new relic discards the old one. Units enter exhausted but score immediately. A ready unit can exhaust to fight an enemy at its site, with both dealing their power as damage. A unit is defeated when its marked damage reaches its health. A ready unit can instead pay one supply and exhaust to move next door.

Compare total unit power at each site after the six actions and award that round's points. Damage stays; temporary bonuses end after scoring. An equal final score is a draw. Teach Guard, Arrival, and the eight-card hand limit when they first matter, and count that explanation in the teaching-time record.

Keep the empty-deck penalty and supply cap in the written reference. They cannot be reached in the unchanged pilot, which leaves 13 cards in the deck after the opening hand and all six rounds of draws, and permits at most one supply placement each round. Opening redraws may let players see additional cards, but those set aside are shuffled back. Do not spend the introductory explanation on these reference cases.

Components and deck construction

• Each player uses exactly 30 cards, with at most two copies of a card by name. Choose up to two factions; neutral cards are always allowed. A card's faction is a deckbuilding restriction, not a separate kind of supply.
• Cards are units, tactics, or relics. Units show cost, power, and health. Tactics and relics show cost. All costs in the pilot are one through six.
• Place three shared site markers in a row: left, center, right. Left is adjacent only to center; right is adjacent only to center. Each player has two unit spaces on their side of each site, six in total, plus one global relic space.
• Each player has a hand, deck, face-up discard pile, supply row, score counter, and three action markers. Use counters for damage and temporary power. Ready cards stand upright; exhausted cards lie sideways.
• Hands, deck order, and supply card identities are private. Scores, remaining actions, supply count and readiness, discard piles, units, relics, and damage are public. A player may inspect their own supply cards. Supply cards have no printed abilities while in supply.

Setup

1. Shuffle, then randomly determine the player with initiative for round one. Initiative changes players every round. It determines who takes the first action that round.
2. Both players draw five cards. Each may set aside any number face down, draw that many replacements from the deck, then shuffle the set-aside cards back into the deck. Do this once; neither player reveals which cards they replaced.
3. Start at zero points with empty boards and no supply. Put the round marker on one. Complete preparation before anyone takes an action.

Preparation each round

1. Both players ready all of their units, relics, and supply. Damage on units remains.
2. Both draw two cards, including in round one. If a player cannot draw all required cards, they draw what remains and the opponent gains one point for each missing card. Apply both players' missing-draw points simultaneously. An empty deck is not an immediate loss.
3. Both secretly choose whether to bank one hand card. Commit choices simultaneously, then place chosen cards face down into supply, ready. A player may bank zero or one card each round. Any card is eligible, and banking consumes no action. Banked cards remain supply for the rest of the game. There can be at most six supply per player.
4. Give each player three action markers. Initiative has already been determined; it does not change during the round.

A ready supply card can be exhausted to pay one supply. Pay costs by exhausting the required number of ready supply cards. The cards remain in the supply row and ready again next round. There is no stored energy pool, no borrowing, and no carrying unused payments forward.

Alternating actions

The initiative player takes one action and spends one action marker; then the other player does the same. Repeat until both have used all three markers. Every round therefore has six action opportunities. Players do not respond during an opponent's action. Resolve one action completely before the next begins.

Choose one of these actions:

You cannot voluntarily discard a unit just to open a space unless a card's cost or effect permits it. A full site is a real commitment. An effect that moves a unit must respect the destination's two-unit limit. Swapping two friendly units, when an effect explicitly permits it, moves them simultaneously and does not need an additional empty space.

Units enter exhausted even if another effect puts them into play. Exhaustion prevents a unit from initiating a clash or using the normal Move action. It does not reduce its power for scoring or prevent it from defending. Thus a newly deployed unit can defend and score immediately, but cannot normally attack or move again that round.

Combat and damage

Both units in a clash deal their current power even if the incoming damage will defeat them. Mark damage; a unit with total damage at least its health is defeated and goes to its owner's discard pile. Remove defeated units simultaneously. Damage remains between rounds; healing removes up to the stated number of damage counters without increasing printed health. When an effect says to discard a card in play, put it directly in its owner's discard pile without dealing damage.

For example, a 3-power, 4-health unit clashes with a 2-power, 3-health unit. Both deal damage. The second unit is defeated; the first survives with two damage. Its power remains three. If it later takes two more damage, it is defeated.

The pilot uses only two reminder terms:

• Guard: Enemy units at this site must choose a Guard as their clash target if a Guard is present. If there are multiple Guards, the attacking player chooses one. Guard does not constrain tactics or affect other sites.
• Arrival: Resolve this text when the unit enters play. If the text says “may,” its effect is optional.

No flying, elemental weakness chart, hidden traps, interrupt cards, or additional status effects are needed to test the core game.

Targeting and effect timing

Only the acting player makes decisions during an action. “Friendly” means controlled by that player; “enemy” means controlled by their opponent. An effect's controller chooses its targets. “At this site” refers to the source unit's site. A tactic that does not specify a site can choose a legal target at any site.

Check legal targets, space, supply, and other costs before committing a card or action. A tactic with a required target cannot be played if no legal target exists. An optional Arrival effect does not prevent deploying its unit. Pay costs once, then resolve instructions in printed order. “Up to” permits choosing none; otherwise choose the stated number. Effects do as much as possible after costs are paid, without refunds.

Check for defeated units after each damage instruction and whenever a unit's health changes. Damage in one clash is one simultaneous instruction. The pilot has no defeat triggers, stat-setting effects, health modifiers, control changes, or response windows. Ongoing bonuses come from units or relics in play and end immediately when their source leaves play. A temporary tactic bonus instead lasts for its stated duration even after the tactic is discarded. Power cannot be lower than zero.

Damage and effects on a card are cleared when it leaves play. If it is played again, it starts fresh and current ongoing bonuses apply normally. Moving between sites does not leave play, so it keeps damage and temporary effects.

The first set must not add simultaneous triggered abilities until it also adds a short ordering rule and teaches it. This is an intentional prototype boundary, not a claim that a general-purpose card engine can omit timing rules forever.

Scoring and the end of a round

After the six action opportunities, add each player's unit power separately at each site. Include temporary and ongoing bonuses. Exhausted and damaged units contribute their full current power. The player with strictly higher total power controls that site and gains the round's point value. Tied sites, including empty sites, give neither player points. Score all three sites simultaneously.

Then end “this round” effects. If a hand has more than eight cards, its owner chooses and discards down to eight; make these choices simultaneously. Keep units, damage, relics, and supply. Change initiative and begin the next round.

After round six, the player with more points wins. If points are equal, the game is a draw. There is no extra round or secondary tiebreaker. A player may concede at any time. For early tests, play to the end even when the result seems decided, unless a player wants to stop; record when the outcome first felt inevitable.

Sites can award at most 36 points across the entire game: three sites multiplied by the sum of 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, and 3. Empty-deck penalties can add points beyond that total. The paired weights mean each player has initiative for rounds with a combined value of six points per site, but this arithmetic does not establish first-player balance. Earlier access to sites, last-action tactics, and actual card draws still need testing.

Bounds on game length and combinations

The six-round limit and three actions each create at most 36 action opportunities. That bounds decision count, not wall-clock duration. At an assumed average of 15–20 seconds per action, actions alone take 9–12 minutes; preparation and learning add time. Do not advertise a measured duration until people have played.

For the pilot and first set, no card grants additional actions, rounds, or supply placement; directly repeats an Arrival ability without a new paid play; returns supply to hand; makes a card cost zero; or copies another effect. Future Mobility cards may return a unit to hand. Replaying that unit is a new play: spend an action, pay its normal supply cost, put it in an empty legal space exhausted, and resolve Arrival again. The ordinary action and payment limits still apply, so no extra per-card memory is needed. The pilot contains no return-to-hand effects.

No discard recursion is permitted in the pilot. Reserve any recursion in the 100-card set for explicit once-per-round effects that move one card to hand, never directly to play. Review its interactions before including it.

Card costs have a floor of one. Repeatable abilities in the future must consume an action, exhaust their source, and state a limit. These content restrictions prevent the obvious repeatable resource and play loops without requiring new players to learn a separate loop rule. If a future card breaks the restriction, design and test the new termination rule before adding the card.

Do not use a hard countdown timer in the learning test. Record slow decisions. A later digital speed mode can add a visible per-action clock with a clearly taught pass on timeout; it is a separate accessibility and product choice.

Example of a contested round

In round four, Mira starts with a ready Ash Duelist, a 4/3 unit, at center. Oren has a ready Stone Sentry, a 1/4 Guard, there and a Ridge Walker, a 2/3 unit, at right. Left is empty. Each site is worth two points this round.

Mira could clash into the Guard and clear center, but that uses one of her three actions and leaves damage on her own unit. She could instead spend one supply and one action moving to left, securing an uncontested site while letting Oren hold center. Or she could deploy another unit at center and preserve her ready unit for a later clash. Oren gets an action after Mira commits, so he can reinforce the fight she chose or exploit the site she left. The example illustrates intended choices; it is not proof that all three plays are equally strong.

First playtest and decision gates

This is the proposed evaluation plan for the site alternative, if revisited. Its 21-card pilot supplies two complete 30-card decks. Current implementation work is on the compact duel instead. Paper prototypes are not required. Change only one rule or card family between batches and keep the earlier version available.

1. Run two learning games with open hands. Check that the rules resolve deployment, defense, movement, ties, full sites, and the final round without improvisation. Stop to fix a genuine contradiction; do not tune numbers from these games.
2. Run six recorded games using the schedule below, which overrides random round-one initiative for this test. Within each pair, swap decks while keeping the same person as the opening initiative player. Record duration, explanation time, final score, winner, first player, and unused cards. Count forced passes from having no legal non-pass action, strategic passes, and actions delayed by rules confusion separately; record the action number of deliberate passes. This is a smoke test, not a statistical balance study.
3. Ask each player to explain one resource decision, one placement decision, and one alternative line they considered. Note whether they could understand the opponent's likely next action from the board.
4. Make a single focused revision, then run another six games. Reverse the players' opening-initiative assignments in that batch. If the two-budget system causes repeated confusion, replace banking with automatic supply as the first comparison. If one card dominates, adjust that card before rewriting the entire game.

Each person pilots each deck three times, and each deck has opening initiative three times. Player A starts four games and Player B two, so this small batch is not fully balanced by person; reversing those assignments in the next batch changes that split. Keep individual game records and do not infer a starting-player advantage or a matchup win rate from six games.

These are design gates, not release acceptance tests. Six games cannot establish matchup balance or broad strategic diversity. Only after the core survives the small test should we add the other three factions, a constructed deck editor, and the rest of the 100-card file.

Round one has a known structural limit: one supply and exhausted new units allow at most one useful non-pass action per player. The other opportunities are passes, which can be chosen strategically before deploying or forced after supply is spent. Observe whether this feels like a useful gentle opening or a wasted round.

If it fails, test one isolated setup variant: after the mulligan, each player may secretly choose one hand card to bank; commit those choices simultaneously and place the chosen cards in supply, ready. Then begin normal round-one preparation, including its optional bank. Keep the six-supply cap: a player already at six cannot bank again. Teach that cap when using the variant. Keep the variant labeled separately: it brings every cost forward by one round, including five-cost cards in round four and six-cost cards in round five, and should not quietly replace the recorded baseline.

Decisions left for discussion

The main decision is which promise matters most: familiar dueling, territorial tactics, or creature-team attachment. The first browser prototype uses a CPU opponent in the second player seat. It is a tabletop rules system played through a digital interface. Online human matchmaking and solo challenge scenarios are possible later extensions. Collection ownership, packs, trading, rarity economics, and ranked play can wait until the match itself is worth repeating.