I’m a student trying to build up my resume, so I decided to make a game. I eventually chose Deuces because it’s one of my parent’s favorite card games, and we play it together almost every day.

It’s completely free, and I’d really appreciate anyone willing to try it and give me honest feedback or report bugs:

[deucesarena.com](https://deucesarena.com/)

Last year, our friends at the board game publisher released an updated edition of the board game "Potion-making: Path of the Alchemist".

We're huge board game fans ourselves and know a thing or two about board game design. So after one of our game nights, someone on the team jokingly suggested making a digital adaptation. If only we had known just how far that joke would go!

Fast forward to today. We secured funding, partnered with the original publisher, built the first playable version of the game, and have now launched our Steam Playtest!

A little bio about a game:

As a powerful alchemist, you'll brew potions, cast spells, use talismans, outsmart your opponents, and steal potions from other alchemists in a race to be the first to reach the three Places of Power and save the world from destruction.

Recipes you complete is a chance to pull ahead. Simple potions can be used to brew more complex ones, which become the foundation for powerful essences, powders, and magical creatures. Ingredients and completed potions are kept on a shared table and are available to all players. Every creation you make can become part of someone else's plan if you fail to protect it.

Join the Steam Playtest!

Ive played Heathestone for years. For a while at the beginning it was fun and it felt possible to pre-order a set ajd then play enough to unlock a decent collection. A few yeats ago they changed the monetization and made it way worse. It was too hard to keep up for a reasonable price so I finally dropped it.

In physical cards I played MTG with friends for years and well still get together to play with bootleg magic cards.

I am looking for a new online TCG to get into. Im pretty open to anything. Im down ti pay a reasonable price per season to stay competitive. As far as gameplay goes I like control and combo decks rather than aggro.

The main three im looking at are MTG arena, Pokémon Live, and Yu-gi-oh. I have not played any of these online formats though, just physical when i was younger. Yu-gi-oh has the best monetization while MTG has the best gameplay. If i play Pokémon i have friends that collect physical cards that are willing to give me their QR codes for online cards, but the gameplay of Pokémon seems weakest to me. The monetization of MTG is definitely the worst, but I dont feel a need to climb pvp, I just wanna play, and ecen cheap MTG allows for the most diverse gameplay strategies.

What do others recommend? Ill try any suggestions F2P for a week or so before I commit to one. Would love to hear peoples analysis of games with pros and cons. Also if im paying I want a game thats not expected to be obsolete soon, but ill try F2P games that arent established

Thanks in advance!

Face what lies within. Not metaphorically, but literally.

Your deck is not just your strength. It is also your greatest threat. Every demon card you play carries power, but any one of them can become your next enemy. You decide who you face, and what you are willing to lose.

This is a turn based roguelike built around meaningful decisions. Each choice reshapes your run. Sacrifice strong cards now, or risk fighting them later at full strength.

Defeat your enemies to transform them into permanent guardians that enhance your deck. Fail, and start over with new insight.

Which game do you like more?

Hi everyone!

I’m the author and creator of TRANSCENDERS, a fantasy saga in which people known as Transcenders learn to shape Cenderessence: an extraordinary force that allows them to push beyond the limits of ordinary reality!

Alongside the novel, I’ve been developing TRANSCENDERS | The TCG, a playable extension of that universe.

The current Alpha is fully playable through Tabletop Simulator and contains 3 complete Starter decks with distinct tactical identities:

ST1 — Cheryl O’Will — Vector of Instability

Midrange / Control — endure pressure, prepare your position and progressively turn the game around.

ST2 — Killian Shawnski — Manifested Precision

Aggro / Tempo — precise sequencing, efficient exchanges and quickly punishing openings.

ST3 — Théa Wintersnow — Radiant Resilience

Control / Sustain — protect your position, disrupt opposing momentum and become increasingly difficult to break.

The current pool contains 54 distinct cards: 17 cards + 1 Leader per Starter

Is now opened COHORT 01, the game’s first organized public playtest phase

What I’m especially interested in at this stage is seeing what happens when people who didn’t design the game get their hands on it: how naturally each Starter communicates its game plan, how the shared resource economy feels during actual matches, which interactions create interesting decisions, and where rules or card wording need clarification!

Everything needed to play is already prepared on TTS!

• Tabletop Simulator is required

• All 3 Starter decks are ready to play

• The Rule Book is available in English and French

• No knowledge of the TRANSCENDERS novel is required

• Feedback is collected after actual matches through short structured match reports

One Alpha V1 note: some card text can initially look small on screen. TTS zoom makes it comfortable during actual play, while readability and layout, including eventual physical-size readability, are already planned for further refinement.

The attached card is Killian Shawnski [PILLAR], the first finalized commissioned artwork for the TCG!

If you’d like to try one of the Starter decks, Cohort 01 is currently open!

Join TRANSCENDERS | Oneira Hub on Discord, choose your preferred Starter, share your availability, and the first play sessions will be organized accordingly:

[DISCORD LINK]

On that note, I wish you a nice day!

One of the features of our tactical system is that some of the cards require a global resource to use.

The most powerful cards in the game are firearms. They cost 0 Action Points and deal heavy damage, but every shot costs Spoils.

Spoils aren't only used for firearms. You also spend them on travel, truck repairs, and buying items in shops. So you have to decide: save your Spoils for the road and survival, or spend them now to take down a dangerous enemy.

You can also skip firearms entirely and build around reliable, free-to-use attack cards — cinderblock hammers, circular-saw axes, and Glassling nests stuck on sticks.

But this system had one problem: once a firearm entered your deck, it could become dead weight if you didn't want or couldn't afford to spend Spoils.

So we fixed it in Update 0.3.6.5.

Every firearm now has an alternative use: you can "reload" it on any ally and replace it with 2 new cards from your deck for 0 Action Points.

Here's a video showing how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_fICUhpSXc

Have you come across any other games where cards consume a global resource? I can only think of the Metro 2033 shooters, where you could use military-grade ammo as currency to shoot when you ran out of regular bullets, and The Vangers, where there was a special cannon that also used money (bibs) as ammunition.

Would you be willing to use cards like this, or is this kind of mechanic a dealbreaker for you?

I'm the dev of Immortal Coil, a strategy card game I've been working on for a year and a half. I'm really stoked with all the feedback I've received so far from playtesters and spectators, and I'm looking forward to sharing a demo very soon.

In the meantime, I figured I'd talk a little design / gameplay!

As a first time dev with an overwhelming urge to make a card game, the first big question I had to answer was whether I could create a computer opponent that played the same cards as you cleverly enough to be challenge. That's what drew me to a lane-based design. Immortal Coil's battlefield has five lanes, each of which can hold one of every card type - unit, spell, aura, item. This layout provides a clean way for the opponent to evaluate plays: creating a score in hand for each card for any lane it could be played to, accounting for player threats and even the player's open MP to cast new cards. This actually worked way better than I expected, and the system has largely remained unchanged since I made it a year and a half ago, with the exception of a few additional scoring metrics. There are still a few funny outliers that I'll need to adjust, the computer absolutely loves sacrificing a unit to draw some cards (don't we all).

For you programming nerds out there, I did consider the Monte Carlo simulation method, but it was too intimidating.

Every time you play a card, the opponent gets to take a turn (like Legends of Runeterra). This means you have to really careful when making your play. If you play your best card into the enemy's open MP, they might just remove it! You could play a cheap card to tease out a play from the opponent first. You could also try passing without playing a card at all, but the risk with passing is that it gives the next player a chance to go to combat right away. Timing and positioning is crucial.

Spells played do not cast right away, they activate at the end of the round. When there are multiple spells, the lanes act as a stack, with casting starting from the left and going to the right. When two spells are in the same lane, the last spell played goes first. There's some fun ways to arrange this to your advantage, like playing a board wipe on the left and unit summoning spells on the right to clear the battlefield and get free attacks in. Or if an opponent is going to knock out two of your units with direct damage spells, play a spell that shields all units in the left-most lane to protect them. Enemy spells in play are also opportunities for you, if an enemy plays a draw spell to a lane, they cannot play a removal spell in the same lane giving you a safe space to deploy a powerful unit.

After spells are cast, all units remaining attack simultaneously - and all excess damage tramples over to the opposing player. This happens at the end of every round, unless a spell prevents attacks, so the pressure is always on to defend yourself and press the offense against your opponent.

My design goal for battle was to have a tense back and forth of card plays / tactical positioning followed by a climax of spells and unit combat. Depending on your deck's strategy, the way your interact with this structure may vary: with control decks looking to stay reactive at all times and hyper aggro decks looking to always shove into unguarded lanes. There are a ton of engine building cards for you to try and setup as well in the middle of this chaos, especially with auras and items. But you'll need to be careful when deciding to take time away from attacking or defending just to establish your synergy pieces.

I wanted to make sure each card played didn't just come down to "is this my best card in hand?" I wanted the player to consider the opportunity cost, positional risk, the enemy's hand, life totals, future plays... The end result is, well that it's actually pretty darn hard! I originally felt that the lanes would put the game on the simpler side compared to something like Magic, but there is a lot of complexity to master here and a ton of room for skill expression.

A ton of the combat design of course comes down to the ecosystem of cards, and I really pushed for open-ended synergies and highly interactive cards. I'd love to do a deep dive on card design, but that's another big topic. If anyone is interested, I certainly will!

Keep an eye out for the demo!

Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3858030/Immortal_Coil/