Happy Christmas Eve! If you’re into that sort of thing. I’m not, as a rule. I hate fun. Which you probably already guessed based on (he gestures broadly at this entire blog). What are you doing here? Are you hiding from your family? Stuck at retail? Too full of food to do anything but scroll through your phone? Well whatever the reason, welcome. Welcome. Let’s talk about another bonkers game design possibility.
So one of 2018’s most successful prototypes for me was Fun Harmless Wa - er, Runtime Error. It’s the fastest I’ve ever built a prototype, and it playtested great, with encouraging, actionable results. As a reminder, Runtime Error is a cyberpunk deckbuilding legacy game, with the big twist being that any card in your deck can also be added to your tableau, taking it out of your deck and allowing you to use it every turn. And it’s that last part, the bit that’s uniquely Fin and the only part of the previous sentence that’s NOT a super-popular boardgame trope right now, the tableau, that caused me to start working on Runtime Error’s sequel. Runtime Error is still barely in its alpha stages, but I’m already designing a different version that’s a radical departure. Why? Mostly one game: Century: Crystal Golem.
So, I managed to procure a copy of C:CG via someone (Ed Soderberg of Ironrise Games) who nabbed it for me from GenCon. I instantly became a big fan. Sure, the killer components helped, but for me it was a hit because it shared a niche with Splendor: A straightforward engine builder that’s accessible for gamers old and new, and also both games have gems. I like engine-building, especially when the engine runs on crystals. Sue me.
Anyway, it was the hand-building in C:CG that made me start working on Frameshift Error, the biopunk sequel to Runtime Error. Because I really think that as the market chokes on deckbuilders, that C:CG (or the original non-fantasy version, Century: Spice Road) will stand as the Dominion to a whole new generation of hand-builders. I think that so much of deck-building has become about minimizing the luck of the draw, that eventually traditional deckbuilders will wash out and split off into deck-thinners and hand-builders. Which leads me, finally, to today’s mechanic.
Your Whole Damn Deck Is In Your Hand
In Frameshift Error, you’ve got the Interbiome, your Tableau, and your Hand. Every card has an Energy cost; this cost must be paid to the Bank in order to add buy cards from the Interbiome (purchased cards go into your Hand), to play cards from your Hand to your Tableau, or to return cards from your Tableau into your Hand. There is no Deck, there is no Discard Pile, there is no limit to the size of your Hand or your Tableau (although certain game conditions or malicious cards may impose restrictions).
So what’s the deal here? Why do I think this will kill deck-building? Well, for one thing, I think that deck-thinning is such an appealing (and statistically speaking, sound and successful) strategy in deck-building games that it’s bound to become its own successful genre. For people that don’t want to play that though, and are still interested in the additive, -building part of deck-building, I think that the other design direction that still minimizes chance, is to have all your options at once. You could play Dominion with your whole deck in your hands, or you could riff off of last week’s idea and stack your Dominion deck instead of shuffling it, but the point is, there’s still a good game there if you replace the luck-mitigation of “how do I maximize my chances to draw what I want and minimize my chances to draw what I don’t” with the choice-timing of “when am I going to play which card”. There’s still strategy, it’s just a different flavour.
Another thing that makes this less bonkers: Depending on how cards return to your hand, you generally don’t need multiple copies of the same card. This does not have to be a component-heavy game; it should instead be a choice-heavy game. Successful implementations of Your Whole Damn Deck Is In Your Hand will feature fewer cards, but more uses for each of them. Ideally, cards that are little engines unto themselves.
Anyway, I could be totally wrong. But with Frameshift Mutation, I’m placing my bet that Century represents the direction this subgenre will head in. Even if the market disagrees, it’s bonkers juicy design space to explore. So go forth! Give it a shot. See you soon, once more for this hellish wasteland called 2018!
So one of 2018’s most successful prototypes for me was Fun Harmless Wa - er, Runtime Error. It’s the fastest I’ve ever built a prototype, and it playtested great, with encouraging, actionable results. As a reminder, Runtime Error is a cyberpunk deckbuilding legacy game, with the big twist being that any card in your deck can also be added to your tableau, taking it out of your deck and allowing you to use it every turn. And it’s that last part, the bit that’s uniquely Fin and the only part of the previous sentence that’s NOT a super-popular boardgame trope right now, the tableau, that caused me to start working on Runtime Error’s sequel. Runtime Error is still barely in its alpha stages, but I’m already designing a different version that’s a radical departure. Why? Mostly one game: Century: Crystal Golem.
So, I managed to procure a copy of C:CG via someone (Ed Soderberg of Ironrise Games) who nabbed it for me from GenCon. I instantly became a big fan. Sure, the killer components helped, but for me it was a hit because it shared a niche with Splendor: A straightforward engine builder that’s accessible for gamers old and new, and also both games have gems. I like engine-building, especially when the engine runs on crystals. Sue me.
Anyway, it was the hand-building in C:CG that made me start working on Frameshift Error, the biopunk sequel to Runtime Error. Because I really think that as the market chokes on deckbuilders, that C:CG (or the original non-fantasy version, Century: Spice Road) will stand as the Dominion to a whole new generation of hand-builders. I think that so much of deck-building has become about minimizing the luck of the draw, that eventually traditional deckbuilders will wash out and split off into deck-thinners and hand-builders. Which leads me, finally, to today’s mechanic.
Your Whole Damn Deck Is In Your Hand
In Frameshift Error, you’ve got the Interbiome, your Tableau, and your Hand. Every card has an Energy cost; this cost must be paid to the Bank in order to add buy cards from the Interbiome (purchased cards go into your Hand), to play cards from your Hand to your Tableau, or to return cards from your Tableau into your Hand. There is no Deck, there is no Discard Pile, there is no limit to the size of your Hand or your Tableau (although certain game conditions or malicious cards may impose restrictions).
So what’s the deal here? Why do I think this will kill deck-building? Well, for one thing, I think that deck-thinning is such an appealing (and statistically speaking, sound and successful) strategy in deck-building games that it’s bound to become its own successful genre. For people that don’t want to play that though, and are still interested in the additive, -building part of deck-building, I think that the other design direction that still minimizes chance, is to have all your options at once. You could play Dominion with your whole deck in your hands, or you could riff off of last week’s idea and stack your Dominion deck instead of shuffling it, but the point is, there’s still a good game there if you replace the luck-mitigation of “how do I maximize my chances to draw what I want and minimize my chances to draw what I don’t” with the choice-timing of “when am I going to play which card”. There’s still strategy, it’s just a different flavour.
Another thing that makes this less bonkers: Depending on how cards return to your hand, you generally don’t need multiple copies of the same card. This does not have to be a component-heavy game; it should instead be a choice-heavy game. Successful implementations of Your Whole Damn Deck Is In Your Hand will feature fewer cards, but more uses for each of them. Ideally, cards that are little engines unto themselves.
Anyway, I could be totally wrong. But with Frameshift Mutation, I’m placing my bet that Century represents the direction this subgenre will head in. Even if the market disagrees, it’s bonkers juicy design space to explore. So go forth! Give it a shot. See you soon, once more for this hellish wasteland called 2018!
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