EPTDiscord is the board game I've been working on since retiring from Starcraft in February. Discord is a deck builder most similar to Dominion, but sets itself apart by having a much bigger emphasis on interactivity. In Discord, you will always be acutely aware of the other players in the game and the pressure they're placing on your decisions.
After establishing the money system just last week we were moving along nicely toward our first release. The main problem was that we had a tremendous differing of opinion for the theme of the game. For a long time we had settled on a pirate theme. Unfortunately, there were some logical issues here. You fired cannons at your opponent’s ship but this didn’t make a ton of sense. How were you buying more cannons in the middle of a fight? What did the health tracker even mean? What does unlocking a prep slot on your ship mean and why does it allow you to fire additional cannons at a time? Then, we tried magic. You are a great and powerful mage and must defeat other magi in a duel of strength. This also had issues in that it wasn’t clear how you were obtaining new magical items during a battle. The prep slots apparently represented parts of your brain that you were unlocking or something.
Following in the footsteps of the greatest game ever created, Starcraft, we found our true inspiration. Although our first release is tomorrow and there’s a lot to do, we’ve risen to the challenge of finding the perfect theme. The money system is now bio matter. You use this biomatter to evolve additional species to add to your hive. You spawn insects in place of our now archaic cannon system and deploy them to attack your opponent’s hive. The prep slots are now rooms that must be excavated to accommodate additional larva. In addition to this shift in theming, we have decided that our game was not current enough in terms of the types of mechanics we used.
Again, we drew on Blizzard for inspiration. Hearthstone, one of the most popular and incredible games is a card game as well. One of the biggest things Discord was lacking is the addition of randomness within the cards themselves. By introducing random effects within the cards themselves, skilled players are able to more easily differentiate themselves through their understanding of probability and deck composition.
One good example of this mindset is in the following card:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7RE0L2x.png)
Earwig is one of the most cost efficient ways to deal damage in the game, but it comes at a steep price. If you’re wrong, you end up taking a lot of damage. The skilled player knows how to manipulate their opponents deck, and count cards to ensure they get the desired result, while a lesser player can still enjoy the RNG aspect of guessing to glory. This card exemplifies our new design initiative.
While we have just over a day before our print and play must be online and ready to go, we are confident that this new direction of design is the correct one. Unfortunately, I must keep the blog short so that I can get back to playtesting and ensuring that every card works exactly as we want it to, but before I go I’d like to present another of my favorite new cards.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ejuabV8.png)
Harvest is one of our most expensive curse cards yet. Basically, it allows you to systematically steal all of your opponent’s best and most powerful cards while dealing some damage here and there if they encounter another curse. This card allows for a skilled player to show off their ability to count cards and memorize their deck which are two skills that we really want to exemplify in our new set of cards. As long as you remember every card that’s in your deck, and look through your discard pile, you can know with what probability Harvest will steal your biggest and best cards. The skilled player can then time Harvest in such a way to ensure that their best cards stay safe. This is another example of how additional RNG within the game can only serve to increase ability of skilled players to rise above others. Below is the a sampler of the first 9 cards of our new initiative: Discord: Rise of the Swarm. Trash means to remove from your deck completely. Dung is the basic money card that allows you to gain 1. Curses are cards that you buy for your opponent and have the red in the bottom left hand corner. The diamond icon is money.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SkTsSDB.png)
Happy April Fools.
Be sure to check back in next Tuesday for another Discord blog.
