Deckhack

Playtesting showed three problems with the first version of Rise Up. Here they are, with how I tried to solve each:

1. Movement made the game worse. So I (re)moved it.
2. Clubs was straight up and irrefutably useless. So I changed it to buff each club card by 1.
3. Aces weren't cool. So I made them double the effect of their color.

That was it in short. If you want the game design reasoning behind it, please read on.

The first problem was movement, and the fix was easy: I removed it. After all, it is through decrease that we achieve perfection. You can now fight any room at any time. In the initial version, I envisioned the player moving from room to room using the joker card, but this is bad for several reasons.

Fundamentally though, it only removed attention from the core game loop: staking cards. I required the player to hide the ace in the top row, which has the most cards per room, and you had to rise up through the rooms to find the ace. This simply increased the setup time for no reason. It made the game a little harder, which isn't bad in itself, but difficulty should come from the core game mechanic, staking cards against rooms, instead of a secondary one like movement.

Movement also slowed the game down: beating a room meant you had to move your joker into the next one, which does nothing except take up time. By removing movement from the equation, it also became easier to let go of the top row holding the ace, which reduces set-up. Also, it's just no fun to have to slog on through to the end and limit choices in a game such as this. If you have a great set of ability cards, you should not be forced to waste them on easier rooms just because movement is limiting you. You should be able to jump to the hardest rooms instead. As a result, the game is now easier to set up, to explain, and it plays faster, which makes it more fun.

The second problem was obvious to anyone who played Rise Up for the first time: clubs was simply weaker than the rest of the abilities. For reference, it used to move a card from one room to another. Compare removing a card with spades, which can eliminate a king if you're determined or lucky, to clubs which lets you switch two cards on the board. The only situation where this is something which could feel game-changing is when you've already revealed a card using diamonds. In other words, it required another ability to be useful. It should have been self-evident from the start that, considering this dependence on another ability, clubs just wasn't clubbing it. Instead, now it gives the card in your possession a +1 buff. For example, the 10 of clubs now counts as an 11 without tapping the card. First of all, it's a lot stronger than moving or switching, and second it's always useful. Especially in the theoretical scenario that you are down to the last room in the last stage, and you know you are facing a king. Now, even with a queen of clubs, you can beat the game.

It gets even better combined with the fix for the third problem, the aces. Gaining a special ability, an ace, that you can use one time as an additional ability is cute, but it should either be an ULT or a permanent buff. The issue with the original design was that the aces became arbitrary tokens of progress rather than making you feel like you were progressing. I believe the player should feel they are further in the game simply by the result of the actions they are performing. I think a permanent buff does that and is more useful since the stages keep increasing the cards that are in each room. Therefore, I decided to change the effect of an ace to double all ability uses. Now, in the new stage you are revealing double the cards, or you are refilling double the abilities. In your first stage, you'll already have a buff: the clown's blessing. For example, if you got the Club Ace, you can now have all your club cards count as +2. Isn't that nice? Perhaps I will add an ult for the aces as well, which would make you lose the buff. I haven't tried it out yet, but maybe it would make the game too easy. Sounds like a balancing issue.

Movement also slowed the game down: beating a room meant you had to move your joker into the next one, which does nothing except take up time. By removing movement from the equation, it also became easier to let go of the top row holding the ace, which reduces set-up. Also, it's just no fun to have to slog on through to the end and limit choices in a game such as this. If you have a great set of ability cards, you should not be forced to waste them on easier rooms just because movement is limiting you. You should be able to jump to the hardest rooms instead. As a result, the game is now easier to set up, to explain, and it plays faster, which makes it more fun.

The second problem was obvious to anyone who played Rise Up for the first time: clubs was simply weaker than the rest of the abilities. For reference, it used to move a card from one room to another. Compare removing a card with spades, which can eliminate a king if you're determined or lucky, to clubs which lets you switch two cards on the board. The only situation where this is something which could feel game-changing is when you've already revealed a card using diamonds. In other words, it required another ability to be useful. It should have been self-evident from the start that, considering this dependence on another ability, clubs just wasn't clubbing it. Instead, now it gives the card in your possession a +1 buff. For example, the 10 of clubs now counts as an 11 without tapping the card. First of all, it's a lot stronger than moving or switching, and second it's always useful. Especially in the theoretical scenario that you are down to the last room in the last stage, and you know you are facing a king. Now, even with a queen of clubs, you can beat the game.

It gets even better combined with the fix for the third problem, the aces. Gaining a special ability, an ace, that you can use one time as an additional ability is cute, but it should either be an ULT or a permanent buff. The issue with the original design was that the aces became arbitrary tokens of progress rather than making you feel like you were progressing. I believe the player should feel they are further in the game simply by the result of the actions they are performing. I think a permanent buff does that and is more useful since the stages keep increasing the cards that are in each room. Therefore, I decided to change the effect of an ace to double all ability uses. Now, in the new stage you are revealing double the cards, or you are refilling double the abilities. In your first stage, you'll already have a buff: the clown's blessing. For example, if you got the Club Ace, you can now have all your club cards count as +2. Isn't that nice? Perhaps I will add an ult for the aces as well, which would make you lose the buff. I haven't tried it out yet, but maybe it would make the game too easy. Sounds like a balancing issue.