First DeckZap Update
Welcome to the first DeckZap newsletter. It may come as often as weekly.
Current Status
You can play the game at deckzap.com. The easiest way to play is to do the pre-built deck modes (see video below), but feel free to build a deck too!
The current game feels like a janky modern wizard battler (i.e. HearthStone) with some of the complication of 90s MTG twisted in. You can have up to 7 Entities and 3 Artifacts. Counterspell is more MTG-style, and you gotta watch for open mana from the elf sorcerer.
I’m not sure exactly what the mechanics of the game will be, but I want this to be the “uncollectible” card game, and there won’t be any packs, loots boxes, or cards to collect. Free (and open source) is fine for now.
Upcoming Over the Next 2.5 Weeks
improve the 3 classes so they each have multiple archetypes, more balance, fewer bugs, and more fun gameplay
total redo of the 1000-line JavaScript UX to better show what is happening in the game via animations and allowing drag/drop
make random_bot play itself to detect more bugs
get feedback from a couple more people (currently 5 total people have played the game, plus my eldest son has watched and given encouragement)
Requests
Send me any card or mechanic ideas that would be cool to include.
Let me know any bugs, or cheap ideas that you think would really impact the immediate fun factor.
Let me know if you think I should invite any particular person to play the game and give feedback.
Card Changes and Improvements Today
Fountain of Youth now costs 3 and reads: “Gain 1 hit point per card in hand more than 5…”
Berserk Monkey is now an 0/1.
Arsenal got most of its abilities removed.
Mana is now limited to 10.
Bug Fixes Today
Combat where attacking creatures with tokens kill defending creatures should now work properly.
If you Unwind an Entity that was stolen with Mind Manacles, the game log now has the correct message.
Gnomish Piper now gives back the controlled Entity instead of itself.