"Monster Keep" is currently in its present form being designed as "Yet-Another-Deck-Builder".
I was struggling with the "starting decks". Given ten (10) cards to start your deck ... I was wondering WHY(?) would players buy cards from the market in the middle of the table.
And then I got this "crazy" idea that the STARTING cards should be able to be distinguished from the remainder of the cards in the market. So at first it was JUST to differentiate the cards.
But lo and behold, I got the idea that the "STARTING" cards are worth only ONE (1) Unit point versus the market's cards are worth TWO (2) Unit Points!
Why is this important???
Well now there is a REASON to "buy from the market"! More Unit Points means better capability to do "Basic Attacks" or use "Advanced Tactic"...
This is truly an incredible "mechanical" advancement because now the game is starting to make "more sense". And maybe the 20 point goal is too low, maybe it should be 30 or 40 Victory Points (VPs)... My playtesting should determine which is the more accurate goal.
Cheers and keep you posted about my progress! I am soon going to re-work a *new* prototype and do some playtesting alone first...
I am thinking that the LAST three (3) cards to each buy pile in the Market should be worth THREE (3) Units of that Resource!
So something like SEVEN (7) cards are DOUBLE Resources and THREE (3) cards are TRIPLE Resources.
Advancing through your "Resource" Deck could be a powerful "Tactic". Because there is NO Deck-Thinning, you are stuck with the cards you start with and those that you buy...
Therefore there is incentive to BUY while waiting to get to those TRIPLE (3x) Resources. Will need to playtest this in order to SEE if Triple bonus is effective or not!