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#nomia

tangleworm
@tangleworm

NOMIA Devlog 7 -- Costs and Resources

Turn-based games are ultimately about strategizing around resources and effects. The strategic possibilities should be deep and expressive, but not overwhelmingly complex. I approached this from two angles:

  • Card games have the advantage of managing complexity load on the player. Even if the game has a huge possibility space, the player only has to consider the cards they have in their hand.
  • DnD's various resources -- actions, bonus actions, spell slots, and class-specific feature charges -- enable strategic depth, but it can feel arbitrary what is considered an action versus a bonus action. In addition, there is a lot of memorization of which resources enable which tactical options, and many are only differentiated by when they recharge.

I knew I wanted more interesting ways to pay for your cards than just deducting action/gambit points. With the two things above in mind, I settled on making cards affect your other cards.

A screenshot of a card in NOMIA, named "Final Blow", with art of a stylized diamond cracking through the card while descending. Its effects are: Lunge 1, Deal 20 damage, Overheat 1. Tooltips show that Lunge means the card moves towards the target while ignoring movement costs, and Overheat means that playing the card adds 1 turn of cooldown to a random other player action. Flavour text shows "This had better work..."

Overheat cards are mostly carried by Mighties. They lock down your Actions, representing physical strain.

Another screenshot of a card, named "Reinforce". It costs 0 action points, and gives the player 8 Block at the cost of overheating another action for 2 turns.
Another screenshot of a card, named "Determination". It costs 1 gambit point, and grants the player 15 block a the cost of overheating an action for 2 turns.

Bane cards are mostly carried by Magicals. They gum up your Gambit deck, representing mental strain.

A screenshot of two cards. Inquiry deals 10 damage for zero gambit points. However, it only has a range of 1, awkward for a spellcaster, and adds an unplayable junk card named Stress to the gambit deck. Protectiveness gives the unit's ally 12 block for 1 gambit point, but also adds a Stress card if not played.

...and there's also cards that cost HP, inflict debuffs, and discard other cards when played.

A screenshot of a card named "Evaporate". For a cost of 1 gambit point and 10 self damage, it purges 3 stacks of all debuffs.
A screenshot of a card named "Still Waters". At no point cost, the player gains a buff and a debuff -- incoming damage from the next attack is reduced by half, but outgoing damage from its next attack is also reduced by half.

Hopefully, these additional costs add more depth to each turn, allowing the player to strategize around their detrimental effects, or even turn them to their advantage. For example, minor self-damage can burn vulnerability stacks that may have been used by strong enemy attacks, and discards can remove Banes from your hand.

The ultimate goal is to have additional costs hook back into the other gameplay systems, instead of becoming deductible resources running entirely parallel to them.