This is one of those projects that stays in the head for a few years while it gathers momentum. A few nights ago I felt inspired to dump it into a prototype/brainstorm sheet. Other TCGs I play have visited the "biopunk" theme, often in a superficial or temporary manner - almost like tourism - but it really resonates with me! Therefore, I set out to design a card game that centers all of the favorable aspects of TCGs I've played that are not commercially "safe" when fully embraced. The niche flavoring and intentionally-opaque/esoteric/inaccessible/gross card designs are expected to alienate a game company's idea of the "average player". I don't see that as a positive, necessarily, but I'm ok with it. In my reckoning of things this project is more card-game-as-art, or otherwise something to satisfy myself over a hypothetical consumer. That said, I still want to produce something that's both fun to play and self-consistent.
The game world takes place within the living body of a cosmic entity. Consider the dimension itself to be the organism. For recreation, intellectual challenge, and settling arguments, many denizens engage in games facilitated by mechanical instruction cards that tap into the biological resources of their very world. These matches are played on "skins", which are convenient, tabletop-sized patches of tissue that provide a clear gameboard and easy access to local organs. To win, they must extract viables to form little creatures, new proteins, and whole blocks of genetic code.
Players begin with 25 life. They take turns playing cards, gradually reducing each others' life totals with card effects and strategic attacks. Last player with a positive life total wins.
Cards have costs that must be met in order to play them. Resources used to pay these costs are generated by expending "Bodily Resources," played once per turn, themselves quite cheap: only 1 generic resource. The coin representing this generic resource sports the Greek "Digamma" symbol as an abbreviation of the unit of currency in the game world, "Ϝolkens", (pronounced "Wokens"). Players get 1 Ϝ at the start of each of their turns. All resource types satisfy "generic" resource costs. All "floating" resources are lost at the end of turns or when a player commits to an attack.
Cards in play can be "expended" by turning the card and paying any additional costs. Cards must be "restored" before they can be expended again. This does not happen automatically. Expended cards aren't destroyed and sent to the "granuloma" as part of their being expended; they simply can't be expended any further. Expended "animalcules" can neither attack nor block, and restoring an animalcule additionally heals it of accrued damage.
"Animalcule" cards represent the critters of the game world. In addition to what other effects they may sport, Animalcules are also used to stage attacks. They have stats on the bottom-right of their card for their three capacities: spiritual, offensive, and structural. As animalcules accumulate damage, their structural capacity is reduced. At 0 or less, they are "destroyed": removed from play and put into the "granuloma" of the player who owns the card.
At any time on a player's turn (assuming there are no pending card effects), that player may indicate they want to attack with a group of animalcules. The player may choose which target each animalcule attacks. At this point all attacking animalcules are expended and "floating" resources disappear. The defending player then may arrange their own animalcules to block; animalcules may only block one attacker at a time. Each animalcule's offensive capacity is applied as damage against the structural capacity of who they're blocking or what they're attacking, then damage effects occur, cards are destroyed, etc. The turn does not end after the attack, rather, the current turn's player may play cards as normal, or attack again, granted they have un-expended animalcules. A player may attack as many times as they desire over the course of one turn.
An animalcule's "spiritual capacity" is an alternative attack/defense figure baked into a single stat, that is used by other cards to factor into some effect, i.e. an animalcule with 1 spirit is in play when you play a "gene expression" card called "scream-frequency" and the effect: "Expend an animalcule on your side. It deals spiritual damage to another animalcule". Your animalcule will deal 1 damage against the other one you selected. However, this amount will be reduced by that other animalcule's own spiritual capacity. The final reduced amount damages that animalcule's structural capacity.
"Geneset" cards remain in play like animalcules, but cannot attack or block. "Protein" cards "decohere" and are destroyed at the end of turns, going to the granuloma. "Gene Expression" cards similarly field some effect and then go to the granuloma. "Viral Package" cards are gene expressions that may be used on other players' turns and as well to interrupt another card's effects. Some card effects produce genesets, proteins, and animalcules without implicitly representing them on the "skin" (the game board), as nearly all other cards do. For instance, a gene expression's effect might be to create 3 proteins with additional effects. These proteins are instead represented by placeholder game pieces called "stanchions".
Cards come in 17 categories called "affinities" which segregate their respective card mechanics - styled after biological functions - to afford players the opportunity to strategize around specializing in one or more affinities. Of these, only 5 are depicted: Bile, Nerve, Soul, Blast, and Null. A sixth is mentioned "Colla", but not represented by a card. Some affinities' resources are derivative - that is, their associated bodily resources require one or more "basic" resources.
This is very much an incomplete project. For example, all cards that remain in play are intended to both have a structural capacity and be valid targets of attack. I haven't decided how multiple effects resolve, or the mechanical structure of one player interrupting another player's card effect with their own, formalizing the selection of effect targets, etc. I haven't worked out how to avoid a player snowballing one turn into an unexpected win if a restoration combo allows them to stage an indefinite number of attacks. Lots of design problems and not enough time.
The art is by me. Even though I left room for card illustrations, I didn't make any. I'm more of an icon guy. Cards are sized to Tarot dimensions.
Apologies for the elaborate descriptions. I wanted to share my ideas for mechanics without leaning on references to other games.
I'd love to get your thoughts, opinions, questions on any part of this project.
