@astralfrontier on in Blog
I had a discussion with a friend and game designer about a new mechanic for Constellation Cards, which replaces the vague and nebulous “challenge” concept. It’s intended to be a very simple framing for how to handle success vs. failure in any RPG, but the discussion brought up other topics I want to hash out as well.
Over the weekend, I got to playtest Constellation Cards at a small local gaming event. The results were pretty good! I think the biggest problems actually came from my own failure to use my prep.
But I upheld one promise. “This game will be unlike anything you play here.”
I made a lot of progress on the game recently. This includes finishing up work on an optional deck: City construction. A new addition as of tonight is a set of Personality cards.
The idea is that you deal a set of Neighborhood cards to represent different parts of the city, then Dynamic cards to connect them. The goal is to create a city that will serve as a good basis for drama.
I’ve been working on Constellation Cards (formerly “flip-a-card”, my branding is crap) for the better part of 6 years. Recently, some positive encouragement motivated me to bring it back to life and try to get it ship-shape.
You can try the Tabletop Simulator version of the game by subscribing to Constellation Cards on Steam.
I want to talk about the technical aspects of how I created the cards in their current form, and what my next steps are for the game.