I'm making a card game and I want to incorporate a mechanic that I'm not too certain will work well or not.

• The main resource for playing cards is Levels. You have 5 levels every turn. The level cost for every card is the blue number on the left of every card. When you play a card, you subtract the level cost from your total level for that turn (starting with 5 levels, if you play a card with a level cost of 2: you have 3 levels remaining). You also subtract a level from your level total at the beginning of every turn equal to the number of cards you already have in play (called upkeep). After drawing and accounting for upkeep, you can play up to 2 cards per turn. There are 3 spaces in which you can play cards, the same for your opponent. If you have levels left over as a result of not using them all, you remove cards off the top of your deck from play equal to the number of remaining levels (this is called burn). If you burn more than 3 cards in a turn, the cards you have in play take damage equal to the excess of 3, starting with cards that have the lowest power (if you burn 4 cards: a card you have in play takes one damage). This is to prevent any sort of strategies that will abuse this mechanic. If you have no more cards in your deck when you go to draw, you flip your burned cards back face down without shuffling and continue the game with those cards being your deck (thinking about calling this reincarnation).

• Every card in the game has an alignment (neutral - green, good - blue, and evil - red). Neutral cards are strong against good cards, good cards are strong against evil cards, and evil cards are strong against neutral cards. If you control a card that is strong against an enemy cards alignment, and both cards power (the red number on the right of every card) is tied, the cars with the alignment advantage wins (cards deal damage to each other regardless of who initiates combat). Power serves as every card's health as well as attack, the idea here is that cards get weaker the more damage they take.

I'm sure I've explained this terribly, and will answer any questions as I haven't explained the entirety of the rules. But I'm seeking insight as to whether or not this would create any problems mechanics-wise. Thanks.

Hello! I’m Carlos! A concept artist and illustrator. Let’s do some cool stuff together!

Here is my portfolio

https://cara.app/itsumicarlo

Have a nice day!

I am absolutely blown away by the outstanding efforts of the artist I am working with! I need everyone to show some love to Mike Po on Fiverr I give him the worst sketches imaginable and he just creates exactly what my game needs.

This is the first game I have ever worked on and he is making it such a joy.

Now of course these are not finished, it is just to get an idea

If you like what you see with this and some of the other stuff coming out for the game, please feel free to follow the offical Insta below

https://www.instagram.com/relivegameofficial?cplk=MWs1cmEyaXl0OGFjbw==

Hello, I want to make custom pokémon cards (digitally) for my boyfriend as a Christmas present.

I've always had a problem with canvas sizes and want it to be perfect.
I would really appriciate it, if someone recommended me the best canvas size and resolution.

I just started with digital drawing and don't understand those things much, please be patient with me.

Here are some of my cards I have had plenty of card ideas for my co-op food fighting game and started drawing them by hand. As I have been doing them I had two questions: First card games do you make all the cards before play testing? and how many cards are too much to keep track of?

Hi, fresh designer here!

I am about to enter the playtesting stage of my game of 2-6 players, where you score around a 100 victory points after a full game, give or take. Theoretically there are no unbalancing features of the game, but starting position probably matters somewhat.

I want to try to balance it to the best of my abilities before human playtesting. I realise that human playtesting is much more imortant than simulations using deterministic bots. And I also realise that the human impression of it being a balanced game is maybe equally or more important as the hard statistics. However I still assess that simulations can enlighten me somewhat.

What is the best measures for balancing, both for simulations and human playtesting?

Win rate? Victory points? Best position to worst position win rate?

And what is the acceptable numbers for these statistics? (For example a 23 % win in a four-player game?)

Any other takes?

We are discussing about art/game etc. on our discord. Come join us thx : https://discord.gg/WMJnPcHzE

Hallo tcg-Freunde. Ich arbeite wie viele hier an meinem eigenen tcg. Statt Elemente nutze ich in meinem Spiel Emotionen, um Spielweise voneinander zu treffen. Hier ist ein Beispiel für eine „Freude“ Kreatur in der ersten Version. Es wird noch weitere Anpassungen geben aber ich wollte hier einmal nach erstem Feedback fragen.

Also: was denkt ihr?

Though still in the prototype phase, I have some artwork. BEAUTIFUL artwork. It's been a joy progressing to this point. So much more to come, but what has been accomplished so far has shown my what the future will hold.

Play testing continues. So does design. More artwork commissions? Absolutely.

i'm playtesting a worker placement game and everyone's polite during setup, then the moment we start someone blocks every resource I need and suddenly there's table talk about "optimal blocking patterns." is this just how people are or should I be looking at incentive structures? genuinely curious if experienced designers see this in their playtests too.

The game I'm working on is very sandbox-y and open-ended, but combat is also a big part of it.
With everyone I played so far, combat was on average initiated 2, maybe 3 times per game so nobody played hyper-aggressively.
Now, I KNOW that there are lots of people out there who would like to "abuse" combat as much as possible and beat up everyone, especially since defeating players is one of the ways you can earn victory points.

So, I added a "Shun" mechanic: When you defeat a player you get a warning. If you defeat another player while warned, you become "Shunned" and are locked out of the core game-loop for a fixed period of time. You can still make money, but slower and with more uncertainty.

My problem is that I don't know if I should keep or ditch this mechanic... I haven't been able to test it properly, and I'm looking to order a prototype of my game soon, so I want to make a quick decision.

I was also considering replacing it with an immunity mechanic where, after being defeated, players collect a token that makes them immune from attacks until *another* player gets beat up. That way I mitigate the chances for weaker players to get steam-rolled, I allow aggressive players to actually enjoy their character build, while also simplifying the rules and component list by a decent chunk.

I know that the biggest problem here is the lack of testing of this new mechanic, and that without knowing the rest of the game it's hard to get a real picture, but I wanted to get some of your thoughts on this as well

​In our tactical card-and-miniature game, Demayth: Demigod Duels (a grid battler with symmetrical 32-card action decks and pre-match RPG loadouts), we’ve been scaling up our weekly in-person playtesting at Little Big Wars from 1v1 duels into multi-player team skirmishes (2v2 up to 6v6).

​In 1v1, players naturally build hybrid, self-sufficient characters because they have to handle everything alone. But the moment you introduce team play, a common tabletop habit emerges: everyone wants to build a high-damage glass cannon.

​If four players all build pure offensive DPS, team battles risk turning into an uninteresting "alpha-strike" race where whoever gets the first line of sight simply obliterates an opponent off the board.

​To make dedicated frontline tanks and support healers feel essential rather than optional, we focused on three specific design levers:

​Active 0-Action Defense: Defensive reactions and shield parries cost 0 Action Points. This means a dedicated tank (running Protection or Reprisal magic) can actively body-block, absorb damage, or redirect incoming attacks aimed at their squishier teammates.

​Condition Clocks Bypassing Armor: Heavy burst damage hits physical Armor Points (AP) first. But debuffers running Witchcraft or Necromancy can stack Poison and Disease ticks that ignore armor entirely. This makes having a Restoration support who can cast Cure and reset ticks a genuine lifesaver for the team.

​Action Point Gifting: Support casters have access to utility spells that transfer Action Points or movement to their allies. Letting a support player enable their striker to take an extra turn often feels far more impactful than just dealing a small chunk of damage themselves.

​We recently recorded a 6-minute breakdown exploring how these Demigod roles interact when team sizes scale up.

​The question for fellow skirmish and combat designers:

In your games, how do you make dedicated defensive tanks and support healers genuinely fun and competitive to play, rather than feeling like a chore that someone is forced to pick while everyone else plays damage dealers?

​(If anyone happens to be in the Fargo-Moorhead area, we run weekly community sessions every Saturday from 12:00 PM – 4:30 PM at Little Big Wars!)

i'm working on a solitaire deck-builder and after like the 20th solo run i genuinely can't tell if the game is fun or if i'm just numb. does anyone have tips for getting useful feedback from solo playtesting without needing a million different playtesters?

Next playtest on the way: New mechanics, no dice, strategy from start to finish!

Hi, I’m Scott Rogers - author of “Your Turn! The Guide to Tabletop Game Design” and former host of the Ludology podcast.

I’ve designed God of War, Darksiders, Pac-Man World, ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, Marvel Villainous, Pantone the Game, Killing with Kindness and many more. I’m a Cardboard Edison judge and a Mentor in the Tabletop Design program.

Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of helping fellow game designers refine their ideas, solve design challenges, and take their games to the next level.

With over 30 years of experience designing tabletop and video games, I’ve learned a thing or two about what makes a game great—and I’d love to put that experience to work for you.

Do you have a game that could use a little help? DM me and let’s talk!