Is This Card Game Unfair!? Mori Carta - Roguelike Card Game

[@jonathan.ahnert]

(Game's Designer here) Loved watching the streams of this! Glad it's made its way to youtube. Wanted to share that we just launched a big balance patch, which should ease players into learning the game, while preserving the challenge we love in an easy to unlock "challenge mode." To Trump's community: I've been watching him since 2015, love this group, and happy to answer any questions that are posted as replies to this post!

[@ichbinschon18lol]

Amazing to see you here! How did you come up with this kind of concept?

[@jonathan.ahnert]

@ichbinschon18lol the way you add cards in offerings (where you can't see the next one until you decide on the current card) was used as the shop mechanic in a dice battler prototype I was working on. Friend said it was the best part of the prototype, so I scrapped everything else and designed the game around it.

[@VigaveFoc]

Way to go on creating the Dark Souls of Roguelite Card Games, XD But I didn`t feel like its forced hard, game seems pretty cool actually and I will give it a try.

[@jonathan.ahnert]

​@VigaveFoc thanks XD The simple swiping attracts a broad audience and the punishing systems tend to be a surprise for many.

[@MrDonosoi]

Dont have a question, but i appreciate you having a demo, i tryd it out and bought it now :)

[@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX]

I would definitely like to see more of this masochistic card game content from you Trump !

[@ECKtrain]

I’ll watch more of this :)

[@enricotirta5549]

He doesnt see that the top colour of the deck is shown the entire time

[@RamiroGDuran]

Man, that's an important part of the game that's not clear at all

[@TrumpSC]

HOLY TOLEDO

[@Belzemat]

You can see whether the next card is an enemy card by the back of the card on the top of your deck.

[@Cynyanko]

Very fun to watch you play! You should make more on this game

[@NN-cr6gx]

This game looks super fun and every turn should have an optimal round. Would love to see more of this (especially because I don't want to fail myself, akin to the ice game that you totally should play again)!

[@johnsellers5169]

The mayor of Value Town is Back!!! with a new card game, cant wait to see it!!!

[@МаксимКамзычаков]

Heyo Trump, that's finally something i wouldn't mind watching from you. Thanks for a great game will check it out for myself, also wouldnt' mind seeing more from you as well.

[@DMwithoutPCs]

I want to see more of this! I want to see your first win!

[@MrDonosoi]

Trump i just pickd up the demo and i learnd that splitting excite gives you 2 free 3 mana cards, thats quite good. Loved the video

[@johnnyfromheaven8984]

More of this would be awesome!

[@jonaswalter7508]

Would really like another vid of this

[@raven_fort]

I really enjoyed this stream and the previous one, id love if you posted more of it. Ive mossed you trump!

[@theBigBeepo]

Very interesting game would love to see more

[@hugosz283]

Game looks fun, gonna check it out!

[@samuelslager8666]

I would watch more!

[@pummelnaw]

Would like more vids of this game!

[@flazefeeds381]

I'd be keen to see some more :)

[@tylerchen618]

Very interesting how the deck is based on making decisions on how to handle enemy cards by managing energy, health, and armor!

[@Kertyna1]

I'd like at least a couple of more videos of this game. Very entertaining. Win or lose doesn't matter that much, but a bit of a longer or more interesting run would be cool.

[@MeowMeow-sl2wu]

Would like to see more of this game on youtube. I rarely have time to watch the full streams, dong really mind if they are successful for unsuccessful runs all of it is good content

[@Isaac_Holger]

Tinder has never looked so good.

[@CycleMantis]

The principal mechanics are interesting! But the current design seems tedious. The choices rarely seemed very rewarding or exciting. There's issues inherent to "deckbuilder where you only access one card at a time and only have 2 options" that aren't well addressed imo

[@jonathan.ahnert]

(Game's Designer) Heya, would love to hear some of the "inherent issues". Always down for a design chat and I've spent the last 5 years thinking about this game and it's design so eager to hear other's thoughts on the space.

[@CycleMantis]

@@jonathan.ahnert It seems like there might too many possible lines of play to consider at any point with so little information available to the player. So you're left gambling between very unclear outcomes, even IF you tried to calculate different lines of play. Being able to see more than the back of the next card might help? Probably worse is not feeling like the enemy is acting or reacting to anything, since it's all simulated by the negative cards which the character plays, and those are *mostly* the same for the entire fight.

[@jonathan.ahnert]

@@CycleMantis On the reactive/active enemy note. That is definitely something we've taken note of. Enemies with trigger abilities (when you do something they do something) feel more engaging to me, as do enemies with escalating effects. Both of these are more complex and tend to be used more in late game enemies. On the calculation of play. I find that this does require you to aim for a certain outcome that may or may not come to fruition. To me it feels like taking calculated risks rather than pure gambling. I also like that it can lead to situations where you have to play for a particular out and the tension around whether you'll survive or not is slowly revealed.

[@alexhartigan4485]

@jonathan.ahnert Awesome game, I've played it a bit and beat challenge mode up until Atoned. And on this character I feel a bit of what the OP is talking about. With Atoned, with the cards I have unlocked so far, the only win condition i've seen is to be able to string enough cards in one direction. However, many enemies and especially the Beast will brutalize you if you only ever swipe one direction. There are also mana impossibilities that disrupt this and also the mana costs severely limit what feel like viable cards to run because you have to prioritize cards that can 'always' be played. Back in the enemy front, the enemy win condition (like take damage on swipe in a direction) can directly counter your own. This is my current issue with Atoned and has me setting the game aside for a bit as the challenge feels a bit too rough and non-varied. Other characters had multiple viable win conditions (exhaust-duplicate or on-exhaust or reshuffle-duplicate for scholar; double-denial or on-reshuffle-duplication for trickster; on-take-damage or on-exhaust or anti-block for druid). In contrast Atoned has felt one dimensional and feels rough when that one dimension forces you against counters

[@LastOneNW]

Yes I like it and I wanna see more =)

[@Mazapine]

I was actually just playing Slay the Spire earlier and thinking of what similar games were out, great timing

[@radenkovic2856]

Lol I just started the video and the main screen looks exactly like slay the spire. Layout wise. And I also got it a few weeks ago on my phone after finishing it on pc 2 years ago

[@admiraltonydawning3847]

Monster Train, Ring of Pain, Dicey Dungeons, Griftlands, Spellrogue, Inscryption, Black Book, Hellcard, Across the Obelisk, Goblin stone, Wildfrost, Loop Hero (sort of), Deck of Ashes, Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles, Gordian Quest, Cobalt Core, etc...

[@restingmoose7042]

I would definitely enjoy watching a series of Trump playing this game.

[@ktktktktktktkt]

Trump has a lot of experience swiping left or swiping right doesn't he

[@Harleqyin]

You seem significantly incentivised to make a larger deck in this game, just so you can better dilute the opponent's cards. Will be interesting to see more to show whether or not this is the case.

[@TrumpSC]

Yes, that seems right in my experience

[@jonathan.ahnert]

(game's designer) Yep! A big difference between this game and traditional deckbuilders. We do have some enemies that wound you whenever you swipe in a particular direction which can punish larger deck strategies.

[@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX]

Stoked to see Trump play card games. Also holy this game looks like a piece of work. Turn 1 on a beginner deck involves a bunch of mana/deck cycling already

[@meander281]

Love it ❤

[@masonklatt1117]

i loved it

[@lachlanmackenzie2168]

Great stuff, as usual, Mr Trump

[@Anything-butOrdinary]

Is it really a roguelike when you don't unlock anything or gradually get stronger at the end of a run?

[@TrumpSC]

You do unlock more cards, just like Slay the Spire (which I believe would be correct to call a roguelike)

[@Kertyna1]

You do get stronger in the run by adding stronger and more cards to your deck. Secondly upgrading and unlocking things in between runs is exaclty what would make this not a roguelike to purists, they would rather you call such games rogue-lites In my opinion this distinction is dumb and anything that has a procedurally generated run structure could be called a roguelike.

[@mellowcorpsep6665]

youre thinking of a "rougelite", a "real" rougelike wouldnt unlock anything

[@Arsobar]

Will u play dune spicewars i love to see u play

[@timcarhill]

More pls

[@Llama_vet]

Why so little uploads?

[@gregoryaxel9168]

Trump has fallen so hard, the 1st 5 comments were a butt bot instead of a funny one 😢

[@kemphoss-4791]

i mean... butt bots are a little funny at least

[@Robbie1okay]

Despite not being mobile game it looks like it has a mobile ui which kinda puts me off tbh

[@jonathan.ahnert]

Understandable, the swipe interaction would do well on mobile. As a reformed mobile game designer I can promise that the design ethic fits for midcore - hardcore card game players.

[@Robbie1okay]

@@jonathan.ahnert It's not about the swipe interaction, it's how big and "touch screen" accessible every aspect of the game is. From the main menu to the actual gameplay everything is so big that it doesn't feel designed for pc use in my opinion at least.

[@jonathan.ahnert]

@@Robbie1okay Hmm I get that. UI is not a strong suit on the team and we didn't have much we needed to fill the space with. We just made everything bigger in case folks played on smaller screens or have seeing impairments.

[@Robbie1okay]

​@@jonathan.ahnert Would have probably been good to reference other games that use cards and their ui size in general (outside adding an adjustable ui size which is arguably more work) With it currently for me via the video full screen everything is actually massive, like I'm extremely near sighted (only have clear vision like 2/3 inches in front of my face) and need to use glasses even when using the computer and everything is so big I'd basically be able to play the game without my glasses on. It's way over the top on size which is what makes it feel so mobile in design, along with being big enough for touch screen compatibility everything seems designed to be able to be seen/read on a very small aka mobile sized screen. Honestly it'd probably look good on something like the steam deck but on an actual pc everything being so big and bubbly in design and interaction very much give it a mobile port feel personally. Will say I'm just one person though and clearly other people enjoy it so it's just a personal taste/opinion thing so don't feel like you need to justify that design choice, your group clearly had drive to make a game and clearly there's a crowd for it and not every games for everyone. So the fact the game seems to be a decent functioning game that is presumably passion driven rather then asset flip or AAA microtransaction money driven already makes it better than a lot of stuff on the market. Cheers!

[@jonathan.ahnert]

​@@Robbie1okay Thanks for such a thorough and considerate response! It does look good on the steam deck, and has touchscreen support there which feels nice. When fullscreened on a decently sized monitor it does feel out of place.

[@cranapple3367]

This feels like a game with one excellent idea (every card having two modes) with little to support it.

[@jonathan.ahnert]

(game's designer) We tried to go deep on the design space opened up by the core mechanic. Each character plays really differently and requires a different playstyle and mindset. I'd love to hear ways you think we could do more, always looking to improve

[@cranapple3367]

At a glance, actions don't feel impactful. There's no "board state", just the state of your deck (which is invisible). There's no variance in animations for things like taking a small amount of damage versus a lot, or at least nothing i saw as a casual viewer (compare for example hearthstone's loud SLAM sound effect when a minion with a lot of attack attacks). Even dying doesn't feel impactful, it's just a card (and having to play the "mori carta" feels bad!)

[@jonathan.ahnert]

@@cranapple3367 Regarding the effects of dealing damage, moment of death, etc. I couldn't agree more. The game could really use some more satisfying feedback there. Mostly an issue of resources there for us. On the board state, I'll just list things that come to mind. Hopefully these are along the lines you're thinking of: Swipe effects (when you swipe a direction something happens), Trigger effects (when x happens y then happens), reshuffle effects (that happen when you get to the bottom of the deck), card upgrade levels. and then the basics like player might (bonus damage), resilience (bonus block), energy and block, as well as enemy block and enemy might.

[@Thalaranthey]

Nah, terrible game. Feels like theres not enough skill expression with how it works. Feels unfair, not challenging. Like you're doomed to lose unless lucky which is terrible imo

[@gravelordniko4674]

Unfair game... like i get it but ai art, unreasonably tough bosses and no balance just you lose.

[@PaladinusSP]

The gameplay is fine, but the AI-generated art is very distracting.

[@arturom31]

I didn't notice until you mention it. But once you see it, you see it.

[@Karsh.]

Looks better/more interesting than 90% of StS-wannabe games' art, so I don't mind that at all.

[@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX]

I'm fine with it. The whole point of AI is to make creation more accessible to people. If AI art didn't exist, the game developer might have decided to not make the game entirely if they believed the artwork was going to be too taxing to deal manage.

[@imoutoconnoisseur]

@@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX Here's the issue with that argument: These anti-AI luddites *don't* want creation to be more accessible to people. In their eyes, only "main characters" (see also: narcissist POSs) should get to express themselves and their creativity. For the ones who draw, all their lives, that was the only unique thing about their personalities, so now they're realizing they're not mommy's special boy anymore, whom all these peasants who can't draw a stick figure should look up to.

[@Icetea-2000]

I think AI is cool to use if you want to have completely unique artworks for every client in any moment. Like a cardgame where you create completely new cards and then it generates an artwork from the inputs. But if it’s just for static artworks that are the same for everyone, well it still reduces the workload which helps to make it easier to create games, but it’s certainly not better than hand drawn and it’s easy to see why one would consider them "soulless"

[@arturom31]

The game looks really good but indeed the AI images that they use are quite annoying. It looks unprofesional but still, they have the job done for programers that can't afford to pay for the illustrations... so i think it's ok? but they should pay to some illustrators in the future to at least fix all those errors

[@hannahbriarly4192]

AI or not the art just doesn't look coherent to me. The game seems quite interesting but I find it distracting

[@Keleva]

Nice to see Trump around more again, but good lord that AI art is hideous.

[@The_Big_Rock]

First

[@slim-op8bi]

Uggo AI art

[@wiseguygamer7593]

Play hearthstone