More pages from the rule book, painstakingly crafted for your reading pleasure!

Graydon

Ok, the above is a shade confusing, and a little misleading for the sake of the joke, so let’s pull this apart and see what we are talking about here.

Broadly speaking every skill in Mr. Card Game is going to be relevant (if at all) during either the Non-Combat phase or the Adventure phase. Or both. But don’t worry, it isn’t as confusing as it sounds … Mostly.

Some skills are passive, these are the simplest skills – once you purchase one you always gain whatever benefits the skill provides. So if it increases you melee attack, you will enjoy that bonus for every melee attack you make, for the rest of the game. Increasing meat drop, or autosell, defense, same thing. Here are a couple of examples:

Non-combat skills, for example Cannelloni Cocoon, are activated during your non-combat phase, and will be completely resolved before you move on to the Adventuring phase.

Combat Skills, such as Entangling Noodles or Disco Face Stab, cannot be activated until your Adventure phase. With Disco Face Stab that isn’t terribly important since it only affects combat, by making Monsters easier to defeat, and also since its effect is clear even before you use it. Entangling Noodles is a bit more interesting, since you won’t know which cards you will draw until you draw them. And since you can’t use Entangling Noodles until the Adventure phase, you won’t be able to eat, drink, or do any other Non-combat activities in between drawing your extra cards and defeating a monster. So, plan wisely.

Finally there are Buffs. Buffs are a lot like Passive skills with an on-off switch. When you first train them, they don’t do anything, because they are switched “off”. During your Non-Combat phase you need to pay the Mysticality cost to switch the Buff on. Once you do, you will have whatever benefits the Buff provides until you roll over. At roll over, all of your Buffs switch back to “off” and will need to be paid for again before they will do you any good. Remember also that when a March on the Tower is called, everyone’s buffs are switched off, but they may be reactivated during the March with the appropriate Mysticality.

There you have the four types of skills you can train in Mr. Card Game. Feel free to send me questions, or requests on aspects of the game you’d like to know more about.

Until then, take care,

Graydon

That’s it, nothing else to see here. Just bask, and enoy!

Graydon

Last time we covered the basic combat maneuvers in Mr. Card Game, aka how to beat up a monster and take its stuff. This article is all about combat items, monster loot drops that aren’t going to defeat a monster all by themselves* but may make the difference between nailing the juicier target, or in some cases, winning the game. But what do combat items do?

Mo’ Cards, Mo’ Damage

As we know from last time, cards in hand are the renewable resources that you use to defeat monsters in the Kingdom. And three of the four combat maneuvers are specifically dealing damage to do so. Enter the two basic types of combat items: Stunners and Extra Damage.

Extra Damage is pretty straightforward and does what you would expect: add damage to your total. But there are two things worth mentioning here. First, because you already know how much damage you need to deal to defeat a monster, you aren’t gambling when you use a Tangle of Rat tails (for example) you know whether you need that extra damage or not. Secondly while some extra damage combat items deal plain old non-elemental damage (like the Brick of Sand) others are typed just like damage spells. So keep those affinities and immunities in mind. Don’t worry, they are right there on the card for you like with spells. Stunners on the other hand are a bit more interesting …

On the surface Stunners seem pretty straight forward as well. The Gob of Wet Hair for example says draw two cards. So, unlike the extra damage items stunners can be useful for boosting an evasion maneuver (using your defense to overcome a monster rather than piles of damage). “Can” is the key word there because you generally won’t know what you will draw until you draw it, though a crafty player may be able to make a good educated guess if he or she has been paying attention to his or her deck. But where stunners are even trickier is in the timing …

Stunners are combat items and like all combat items you can’t use them until you are in the combat phase of your turn. This that you are already committed in terms of your equipment, active buffs and so on. So not only are stunners a gamble as far as what you get, you won’t be able to mitigate a bad draw by changing up your equipment, buying a skill, consuming anything, buffing or using a no-combat skill, since your non-combat phase is already in your rear-view. Wow, stunners are terrible! Or are they? Even the lowly Gob of Wet Hair can boost your combat potential by as much as eight points with a lucky draw. And I have see players declare a March, knowing that they need some luck from stunners or they won’t even be able to defeat the sorceress, much less win the game. And you know what? Sometimes those players have won!

Back to Basics

Like all regular loot in the game, combat items have an autosell price at the bottom which is the meat you get by selling off the item. The cost in the upper right is how much it costs to buy the item from the heap, if you are playing with that optional rule and the card is on the top of the heap stack. And the Heap icon in the lower right is a reminder that combat items are one shot boosts, when you use them they go to the Heap.

And there you have combat items, a little boost in your fight to become rich and fam – err defeat evil!

Graydon

*During the combat phase of every turn you must execute a combat maneuver and play one more cards from your hand to boost that choice. So even the weakest of monsters won’t be taken out with just a combat item.

Ever heard that expression about putting the cart before the horse? Yeah, me neither, which is why I launched into a piece about spells and how a couple of them are different, before talking about what spells are used for. Spell attacks, like the ones I talked about here are one of the four combat maneuvers in the game. So, what’s a combat maneuver you ask? Good question. Basically on every one of your turns in Mr. Card Game you will defeat a monster, and you’ll do it by using one (and only one) combat maneuver (cm).

Melee Attack, Spell Attack, Ranged Attack and Defense
When you get to the combat stage of your turn, you will be selecting and defeating a monster. Which one you choose will be a tactical decision based on the Monster’s combination of rewards (Meat, Stat, and Item) as well as what you are able to defeat with the resources you have at your disposal. But every time you defeat a monster you will be playing at least one card from your hand and using one of the four cms. CMs all work in generally the same way: they each rely on one of the three stats that make up your deck combined with cards in your tableau to equal or exceed the power of the monster you want to defeat. That sounds like a mouthful, let’s get to examples. Starting with melee attacks.

Melee attacks, rely on your Muscle cards, the stat cards with the pink plus signs, for their umph. Add up the value of all of the muscle cards you play as part of your melee attack combat maneuver to get your base damage. Melee weapons (including implements*) and some other pieces of equipment, as well some skills add bonuses to this damage. Add all of this up to see what monsters you can defeat, based on the monster’s power.

Spell attacks are similar, though they rely on the Mysticality (blue water drop) stat cards for their power. Implements, other equipment, and some skills will boost the power of your spell attack. In particular, certain spells offer bonus damage only to spell attacks. This bonus damage is usually elemental (matching one of the 5 elements in the game) so it may be more or less effective depending on the element of the monsters available to defeat.

Ranged attacks use the (you guessed it) Moxie (green talk bubble) stat cards. Ranged weapons, as well as other equipment and skills are where your bonuses are coming from.

The fourth cm is Defense and it is a little different. Don’t get me wrong it is still based on playing stat cards from your hand (in this case moxie again) and it gets bonuses from equipment and skills (and very rarely weapons). And, sure, you are also trying to equal or exceed the Monster’s power with your totaled up defense. But – since when using the Defense cm you aren’t doing damage (essentially you are letting the monster wear itself out unable to harm you) you don’t benefit from other sources of damage (which come from those aforementioned weapons, equipment, items and skills). So while building up moderate Defense is fairly easy, it can be a challenge to pull together enough to take on the Naught Sorceress.

And there you have the Horse, to pull the prior cart (and more carts to come no doubt). Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.

*Implements are the cooking implements that magic workers in the Kingdom use the way other wizards rely on wands and staves.

Ever wonder how a game company decides on the image (or images) that will represent it to world, and more importantly to it’s fans?  Well there are a couple of basic options.  #1 DIY.  This can work just fine.  Rich (you know our founder and CEO) made the logos that we have been using for years.  #2 Hire a fancy Ad Agency.  That can go well or poorly …. but one thing is for sure, it is likely a spendy proposition.  #3 Invite Collaboration with Talented Fans.  That one … that one is really special.  You see, our fans (you guys) care about our success.  You want us to do well, and to continue to make the games you enjoy.  And so, you will be more excited than the average graphic designer or artist about what you bring to the table.  And in the end, Evertide is about going above and beyond the average.

It’s what we do for our brand partners.  It’s what we do for our fans.  It’s what we do for ourselves (we have to play our games too .  And in every case so far, it’s what we have received from you.  So, it just makes to build these relationships up, more and more.

Which brings me back to NEW LOGOS FOR EVERTIDE GAMES!  Ok, yes, I am excited about.  I am always excited about the opportunity to work with the community for the benefit of everyone.  So, if you (or someone you know) is an artist or graphic designer, check out this contest and take a shot.  Don’t worry about the other designs already up there.  For the moment, the best thing you can do (for us and for you) is to bring you to the party!

Take care,

Graydon

Wow!  If you haven’t checked out the progress of the t-shirt contest it has been a wild ride, with over 150 entries, and a number of revisions and tons of feedback from you!  With your help, we narrowed the field to 12 Semi-finalists.  And, now we have (again with your help) narrowed the field even further to six finalists! The finalists still have an opportunity to tweak and adjust their designs before the winner is determined.  So, we will continue to be monitoring your comments on the Semi-Finalist Album and relaying it to our designers. Don’t let your thought or opinion remain unvoiced, who knows the impact it could have.

And for the curious, here are the finalists (though these may not be the most current of their revisions, for those check out the current album).

Hey Folks,

In connection with our recent Kickstarter for Mr. Card Game, we have created a contest over at 99 Designs where you can try your hand at designing our t-shirt.  All of the specs as well as the (Fabulous) Prize are detailed there.  So go check it out.  The design contest is open to anyone who wants to take a crack at it, and we would love to see your best effort.  I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Graydon

PS – if you don’t know what Mr. Card Game is, click here.

PPS – if you have a question about the contest, just email me at graydon@evertidegames.com