Warfare (A Game A Week - Week 2) Postmortem

Overview

Warfare is my second entry in the A Game A Week Challenge, and it ended up being a game of which I'm pretty proud. Going into week two, I knew I wouldn't have much time to complete a game since I'd be busy most weeknights and almost all weekend. However, I didn't want to kill my momentum in just the second week, so I decided to design a physical card game and save myself the programming time. I wanted to create a game that I could play with my girlfriend, as two player games aren't all that easy to come by.

As the name implies, Warfare started out as a variant of the card game War. When I was a child, I had fun "playing" War because flipping over the cards provided exciting moments, even if there was absolutely zero skill involved. I wanted to create a game that took the fun and excitement of the card reveal but incorporated skill. To that end, I incorporated elements from the Italian card game Briscola, in which a card's suit determines whether or not it's victorious over another card. I also mixed in some drafting elements to add more opportunities for decision-making. What resulted was a game I quite enjoyed playing, which immediately made it a step up from last week's game!

Mechanics

To view Warfare's rules, please refer to the game's page on Itch.io. Here, I'd like to talk a little bit about why certain decisions were made. A lot of the mechanics were designed to introduce decision-making points in the game and to allow for skillful players to win more often while simultaneously giving players playing from behind a chance to catch up. With that in mind, let's dive in to the different mechanics, in no particular order!

Drafting- The drafting element is the principal innovation in Warfare. After each battle, the loser can secretly select any card from among the top three. The other two cards are then given face up to the opponent, and they select one. The loser is greatly benefited in this scenario- they get first pick of a card plus information on what their opponent chose. In addition to that, a smart player can shape their opponent's hand into one that lines up poorly against their own. Finally, they get first pick on trump cards, increasing their chances of winning future battles. However, all is not lost for the winners! In addition to scoring game-winning points, the winner gets to make a choice between two cards, meaning they rarely get completely screwed in the exchange. In addition, while they winner doesn't learn any cards in the opponent's hand, they do have the advantage of being able to play mind games with the opponent due to the known cards in their own hand. This makes the drafting element a naturally self-correcting mechanic that aids those falling behind while not completely hurting those pulling ahead.

Trump suit- The existence of the trump suit makes certain cards incredibly valuable. For the player playing from behind, a trump card can be a lifeline with which to get back into the game; for the player playing from ahead, it can be used to ensure the lead is maintained. Trump cards will often be picked up by the loser of the last battle, enabling them to catch up and score some wins & ensuring that they close the gap between players rather than widen it.

Face cards- Face cards provide another decision point in gameplay. Since they are worth three times as much as other cards, they demand careful consideration. Players will want to play them when they are confident that they'll score the win. When combined with the known & unknown information of the players' hands and the wrinkle of the suits, it makes for a mini game played each battle to determine the ideal time for deploying face cards. Having too many face cards could be a liability, as it would leave you unable to properly strategize, so it also introduces the strategy of opting for a regular card over a face card during the draft portion, adding value to these non-face cards.

What went right?

The drafting elements were very successful in providing interesting decision points as well as ensuring that games are often close, allowing losing players to stay in the game. The face cards provide another layer of strategy on top of everything else going on, and the trump suit (as well as the other rock-paper-scissors suits) cause for all sorts of mind games.

The core gameplay loop is quite juicy, quickly alternating between strategic decisions and exciting battles. Winning makes you feel like a genius, and losing gives you tools to get your revenge.

Most of the games I oversaw were pretty close. There were a few notable exceptions, where one player destroyed another, but for the most part, games were won by a handful of points, with the more skilled player often being the victor. Despite all the randomness and aid given to the losing player, the games weren't a coin flip and did come down to player skill.

All the mechanics work really well together to provide an experience that is actually surprisingly deep. I was really very happy with how it came out, and all my playtesters enjoyed the game as well.

What went wrong?

A lot of people struggled with remembering the rock-paper-scissors order for the non-trump suits. This caused for some feel-bad moments when players thought they had won but had actually lost. This could be solved by fixing the trump suit (i.e. always have the face up card be the Ace of Spades) and fixing the rest of the suits (Club > Diamond > Heart > Club), but I opted not to do so to maintain variability and make it faster to start up games. I'm not sure that this was the right decision, but it's what my gut told me to do. I plan on doing more playtesting to determine how big an issue this actually is and whether or not it'll need to change.

Also, there's a lot of things of which to keep track, making for a pretty mentally intense game. When combined with the inherently random elements present in card games and an average of 33% chance of correctly guessing an opponent's card choice even with perfect information, it can lead to some frustrations or the perception that the game is completely random. Players have to be (maybe overly) mentally locked in in order to outplay their opponents.

Next steps?

I want to revisit Warfare and create a mobile version that can be played against an AI or against human opponents. I think this will be my Week 4 project, and I'm pretty excited. I think Warfare holds a lot of promise, especially as it's pretty easy to pick up, it's self-correcting, and it offers a deep experience. In the meantime, I aim to have more people playtest it and provide feedback so that I can make any necessary changes.

Thanks for reading!

-Lloyd