TBF #4 – So Much Rage

A Complicated Week

What a week this has been. Let me tell you, it started well, went bad, and then well again. The reason? I got sick in the middle of the week, killing most of the momentum I built on Monday. I was raging internally, like a card, waiting for the sickness to go by…

But that won't stop me from publishing what we did this week! Oh no, no, no. We are in for a ride this whole year together, sick or not. Tuesday Blog Fact must go on, the train must arrive every week, whatever happens!

As a consequence of that, this week's blog post will be a bit shorter than usual, but fear not: next week will be epic! I have tons to talk about and we have some playtests on the way.

En(Rage)

For those who speak French, you might have caught my little wordplay in this section's title. Enrage and "En rage" are both the same term in English and French. This section is about how we wanted to push the mechanic further.

The initial iteration of the rage system was that a card would gain some rage every time it's revealed due to your action of picking a card. Once the card reaches its patience limit, it would enrage and hit you for 1 or more damage if you were to pick it again without making a match. This was done to add some stakes to the game and force you to remember which cards you already turned.

While the first implementation was good, we thought we could push it further by adding cards that could play on this rage mechanic. So, we made one tiny change. You can now also enrage cards that are face down. And of course, some cards have the ability to enrage cards next to them. They will now turn face up once they have reached their patience limit. Look at The Cymbals.

The noise it makes is enraging… I understand why the neighbours hate it.

You can gain some good advantages from this, because if you enrage a card and it turns face up, it will check if it can be matched with another card before going face down again. Even if it doesn't, you gain some extra information about what that card is, helping you in the current round you are playing.

Of course, there is the obvious trade-off of enraging cards, which means the next time you turn that card and you don't have a match… oh well, that's 1 or more health points gone!

We thought this would create some interesting choices and a lot of tension if you were to build a rage deck. Are you taking the chance of enraging cards? Is it worth it? Maybe, maybe not. Can you consistently enrage multiple cards to get more than one reveal at once?

Of course, some cards give you incentive to do just that. Look at The Warrior.

Once you hear his war cry, you won't forget it.

That's a free match if you manage to enrage it! No need to look for its pair. This card might need a little tweaking, but it's going exactly in the direction we're looking for.

I haven't revealed (hehehe) all the cards that can do interesting things, but let me tell you… you can pull off some very cool combos!

Let me give you one more bonus before you go. You have this cool fella from the death deck of last week.

He is almost too trigger-happy in my humble opinion.

Small Art Update

You might have noticed less and less art in the new cards. Don't worry, we haven't gone lazy. The main reason is that Janie is recharging her batteries in France! Once she comes back in early May, you won't believe the pieces that will come in. And let me tell you, I will be the first one to spam you with them!

With that said, that's all for this week! I told you it would be a short one. But do not worry: next week will be meatier, stronger, faster, and better! See you then!