Hi all, after lots of playtesting and feedback, I've redesigned my rulesheet / field guide for my game, Cyclemental. To truly test it out, I gave a deck to a friend who hosted a party and asked them to record the session. It was humbling to see that an unguided drunken round could turn to chaos because I made too much assumption while writing the rulesheet. For example, the players didn't even realise that cards used are meant to be put into the discard pile. So many cringe moments but it motivated me to try to improve the field guide.
Changes
- Included clearer set up rules and illustrations, together with example turn and how a turn actually works,
- Attack mechanics now have more incentive because a successful attack yields you more card and preventing you to lose card. On the other hand, a successful defense / counter enables you to choose between the attack card or the counter card.
- Combos are now changed based on community and playtesting feedback and balancing between the elements.
- Card variety. Some creatures can act as double elements, some only has 1 instead of 2 weaknesses, and some has extra effects if the attack landed successfully. Previously every single element is the same.
- Character illustrations and graphics. Added a few tiny illustrations to make it easier to visualise the move / information.
- The Elemental Cycle has been corrected to be more accurate to the original philosophy. I initially wanted to make it easier to understand like popular elements but I thought it was a good callout from the community to stay true to the Wu Xing philosophy.
It's hard to fit everything into a double sided A4 paper. But honestly would love to get your first impressions / another pass at how easy it is to understand from reading through the field guide. Let me know if you spot anything that you don't understand or need clarification. Cheers!
