Good morning forum.
I am currently developing a deck construction game, similar mechanically to Pokemon and MtG. I am currently debating whether to have attacks and defense be multiples of 10.
In MtG which is aimed at an older audience, the values of the cards typically range between 1 and 6 (attack and defense I mean), I assume to make the math easier once you have a bunch of creatures out.
In Pokemon, the creatures have health and attack of values like 30, 60, 120 when they could just have easily been 3, 6 and 12 respectively. I imagine the reason for this is to make the cards 'feel' more powerful.
But the extra zero is a deterrent from playing the game I have found- I do a lot of work in schools and many under 10 year olds still collect and show off their Pokemon cards, but when I ask if they actually play the game they say no because it's too hard or intimidating.
If I ask them what is 12 minus 3 they can tell me, but if I say Pokemon X has 120HP and gets attacked losing 30HP, how much HP does it have remaining then they often have trouble. This seems like a big design flaw if Pokemon cards are supposed to be a 'gateway drug' for MtG.
I want my game to appeal to as many ages as possible, but a lot of little aspects I hadn't considered like this are surprising me. Does anyone have any input on this idea?
(Right now my game is using low values like 3, 6 and 12, but it started as 30, 60 and 120).
