BOARD GAME
_Card Fighters
Video games and board games are fundamentally similar, but there are certainly many differences.
Personally, I played more video games than board games, but by producing board games, I was able to fill in the shortcomings of my game design.
As I created Card Fighters, I learned that small figures could bring about big changes, and I spent a lot of time adjusting and balancing them.
CARD FIGHTERS
A fighting game has returned to the board game. Enjoy the unique psychological warfare of fighting games with your friends with cards.
Genres: Board game, Mind sport
Players: 2
Playing time: 25 min
Random chance: Low (card drawing)
Skills required: Strategy, tactics
CONTENT
HOW TO PLAY
How to play
GAMEPLAY VIDEO
Gameplay Video / YouTube Link
INSPIRATION
Inspiration
GAME MECHANICS
Cards / Special Abilites Description / Card Design
CARD DESIGN: COLOR
High(Red) / Middle (Yellow) / Low (Blue) / Defensive Moves (Green) / Wild Card (Black)
CORE MECHANIC: PSYCOLOGICAL WARFARE
Hitbox & Hurtbox / Predicting / Combo
NUMERICAL ADJUSTMENT
Balancing
TABLETOP SIMULATOR MOD
Steam workshop
HOW TO PLAY
1. SET
Set the board.
All the cards have Left Version and Right Version. They should be separated.
Stack 10 same Normal cards each.
Stack 20 X Cards.
Stack Special Cards into 2 groups. Special Cards should be mixed and shuffled.
2. PICK CARDS
Players have to pick 4 Normal Cards they want, and 4 random Special Cards.
3. PLACE CARDS
Each player places a card. After both of players have placed cards, flip them at the same time.
4. DETERMINE WHO WON:
HITBOX & HURTBOX
Determine who won by analyzing the information written on the cards.
If your opponent's Hurtbox has the same color as your Hitbox, and color of your opponent's Hitbox is not the same as your Hurtbox, you win.
5. DETERMINE WHO WON: DELAY
Determine who won by analyzing the information written on the cards.
If both of two players hit their opponent, they have to determine who hitted first.
The player with less Delay wins.
If they have the same Delay, both of them are hitted.
6. ADD OR REDUCE HEALTH POINTS AND DELAY
Decrese Health Points of the player who has lost.
Add or reduce Delay of players.
All these things depend on the winner's card.
7. PICK 1 CARD
Each player picks one card.
They can pick one of the Normal Cards at will, but if they want to pick a special card, they have to take the top one first.
8. ITERATE 3. TO 7.
Iterate 3. to 7. until a player's Health Point is zero.
GAMEPLAY VIDEO
I strongly recommend watching the video on YouTube (1440p).
The video with the commentary from the player(2P)'s point of view.
INSPIRATION
A fighting game is a very thrilling game in which two players attack and defend each other with fast but weak attacks, slow and big attacks, and finally predict the opponent's movements and hit the counter.
Of course, there are many other attractive elements in fighting games, but I focused on the psychological warfare that predicts the opponent's movements.
Tekken, which is also one of my favorite games, has a lot of psychological warfare. Therefore, I was greatly influenced by Tekken while making this game, and I referred to Tekken's a lot for many movements and figures.
GAME MECHANICS
When I designed the card, the top priority was intuition.
So I made the pictures and shapes on the card big and reduced the letters as much as possible.
Nevertheless, essential information is not missed.
In addition, the special card was separated from the regular card by adding colored inner borders which is not described in the picture above. And the outer border of all cards is white to prevent players from guessing what the card is with the color of the border that they can see slightly.
CARD DESIGN: COLOR
This game requires players to read a lot of information on their cards, so they can make the fastest and most efficient judgments through the color of their cards.
HIGH (RED)
Red cards have a High Hitbox.
While they are easy to be dodged because there are many cards without a High Hurtbox, they are powerful when it hits, or even be blocked.
MIDDLE (YELLOW)
Yellow cards have a Middle Hitbox.
Players can't dodge them, but they are disadvantageous when blocked.
LOW (BLUE)
Blue cards have a Low Hitbox.
Low attacks are relatively harder to block, and there are many moves that can attack and dodge a High move at the same time. However, they becomes very dangerous if the opponent dodge them.
DEFENSIVE MOVES (GREEN)
A green card can be very helpful or useless at all depending on the opponent's moves.
It includes guard, parry, jump, etc.
WILD CARD (BLACK)
Just like its name, wildcards are overwhelmingly powerful.
They can even ignore some rules.
Therefore, the conditions of use of them are very limited.
CORE MECHANIC: PSYCOLOGICAL WARFARE
Fighting games are really fun, especially their psychological warfare. While exchanging attacks and defenses with each other, the scene of predicting the opponent's attack or inducing the opponent's actions to reverse the situation is definitely the best moment of the fighting game.
Therefore, this fighting game I created should be mainly psychological warfare, so I removed the concept of distance that plays an important role in other fighting games. Thus, players can put all their strength into psychological warfare, instead of checking with long-range attacks from afar or running away.
The mind map on the right represents the number of possible cases in this board game. Since the core of this game is to judge what actions can be done in what situations and what actions benefit from them, I'm going to enclose this picture in the game package. It will definitely help those who want to study various strategies.
However, 1P can also use other cards instead of Middle Punch Two. The picture above shows some ways to respond to the cards that 2P may put. Therefore, it is a psychological warfare that players have to predict the opponent's cards.
For example, when a player at the left (1P) hits Middle Punch on his/her opponent (2P), the next turn will be a psychological warfare. Middle Punch is a Continuous Move, so 1P can use Middle Punch Two, which is a powerful move that is a extremely fast Combo starter. If 1P uses Middle Punch Two next, and if 2P uses some moves that have High Hurtbox (shown in the picture), 1P can Combo and cause a incredible damage to 2P. Thus, 2P would use some moves without High Hurtbox. However...
Predicting
Predicting is the most important part of the game, because it is strongly related to the psychological warfare. However, it is not just guessing without evidence.
First, players can see the faces of the cards the opponent picks. Each player has to pick 8 cards at the beginning, and also 1 card at the end of every rounds, which means that there's no way to hide what cards the players have.
Of course, average players do not have to memorize the opponent's every single card. But I leaved a space for hardcore players who are willing to try everything to defeat their opponent.
Apart from that, players who have lower health point might be more likely to be defensive or gamble to reverse the situation. Some players also have habits. They like to put a specific card in a specific situation.
Some smart players can also use this strategy to deceive their opponent. They intentionally place a specific card in a specific situation again and again, make their opponent think that he/she predicted them, and finally change the behave and punish their opponent.
This is another example that can be seen often during the game. During Combo, a player who has hitted by Combo Starter, (2P in the picture), has to put "X Card" or "Combo Escape" instead of other cards.
Combo Escape is powerful because if it is hitted, Combo ends immediately. However, 1P can predict it and block it by Stand Guard or Crouch Guard. Then, 1P will get -5 delay in next turn.
It is especially important if a Combo can reduce a player's health point to death.
NUMERICAL ADJUSTMENT
BALANCING
I learned that adjusting the numerical value on the game is very difficult and requires carefulness.
The game changes very differently even if the number is changed by about 1.
