Fantasy Tic-Tac-Toe

Take a look at Card City Nights. It's available on Steam. Exact same idea. But don't let that discourage you! Just use it for inspiration. Their system is making combos by card placement relative to arrows connecting on the edges of the cards. What you're talking about is a single 3x3 board, but in their game, each player gets their own 3x3 grid, so that you have some room, then dealing damage, healing life, and removing cards are the 3 main abilities.

Another possibility, though, would be to just have a bigger board. 5x5, perhaps? I think a 3x3 is too small for enough variability in play. Check it out and get back to us with your thoughts! I'm excited to see how this goes, as I've thought of doing the same.

Sounds like a great concept. Two things to focus on, in my opinion:

1. Final Fantasy VIII had a card game you should check out that functioned as a mini game, with a 3x3 grid board that you placed monsters on and fought each other, using basic numeral stats for each direction (NSEW). The reason it was too simplistic was that there were no creature "abilities", and no randomness, so I like the idea of the dice you have going there!

2. Since know the creature abilities are going to be what keeps it from being monotonous, that is what I would focus on developing, coming up with a bunch of ideas for the abilities first.

It sounds awesome, an I look forward to updates. How many cards will there be? I presume at this point they will all come in 1 box, as opposed to TCG style?

I really like the initial concept. Here are a few thoughts you might want to consider:

1. What if you made the 3x3 tic-tac-toe grid a dungeon, and players have to enter the dungeon from the sides of the grid via doorways.

1.1. These doorways are on long rectagular pieces that are placed at the beginning of the game. There would be 4 rectagular pieces laid down, one on each sides of the grid so that each piece covers the length of 3 grid squares, thereby allowing possible entrance to that square only if there is a doorway showing at that grid square's location. The would be a pool of these rectangular pieces that the players draw on their turn. On a player's turn, they could replace one of the current in-play pieces with the one they have, thereby changing the entrances (doorways) to the grid. This would allow some strategy in how players are able to enter the dungeon.

1.2 Or... you could have "doorway" cards that are placed at 12 locations around the 3x3 grid, one for each space adjacent to a grid square. These doorway cards could have a door, or a blocked entrance, or maybe even an obstacle that the player's monster must defeat before entering a door. Players could change 1 or more doorway cards on their turn, therefore changing the entrance points to the dungeon.

With this type of mechanic, it may work with a 3-in-a-row winning condition, although playtesting would prove it out.

2. You mention that you think kids will be the target audience. Some of the mechanics that you are stating might take you right out of the kid market. (for example, the "facing direction" mechanic might be a little much for a kid audience). Mind you, my idea of a kid audience may be completely different than yours.

Also, regarding "zombies fighting manticores fighting wizards fighting demons fighting medusas fighting gargoyles fighting dragons fighting ogres": a lot of parents may be hesitant about their kids playing games with zombies and demons.

I have had an idea for a head to head game that uses a 3x3 grid but with a twist. I haven't really developed it any further than an idea.

Game Idea:

Monsters - A monster icon is in the middle and then 2-3 "weakness" damage type icons are displayed in several of the 8 directions on the tile (N,NE,E,SE,S,SW,W,NW).

Heroes - A heroes damage type icon is displayed in the middle along with any ability text. They have attack arrows on 2-3 of the 8 possible directions on their tile.

Gameplay
1) A monster is randomly selected and then randomly oriented in the middle spot of the board.
2) Both players randomly pick 7 of their double sided hero tiles.
3) Players take turns placing 1 hero tile at any open spot on the board until all 8 spots around the monster are filled.
4) After all 8 spots are filled, the players add up all the attack values that are facing the monster.
5) The player with the highest attack wins that monster tile - move to next round even if a tie.
6) Continue rounds until a player has earned 3 monster tiles!

Weakness
Orienting a hero on a spot that aligns his damage type with the same monster weakness awards 1 extra damage.

Enter Play and Passive Abilities
Now the heroes may have some added abilities to affect the tiles already on the board.

Examples:
Ranger - Turn the unit across from the ranger 180 degrees.
Captain - Boost the attack of 1 adjacent friendly hero.
Rogue - Play ontop of an opposing hero that has less attack than you.
Marauder - Flip an adjacent opposing tile.

Some heroes may not have any enter play or passive abilities but instead have higher attack, dual damage types, more than average attack directions, etc.

Sample image with tiles (but cards would work too).

In this image the blue player has one tile with 2 attack pointing at the monster but because the damage type matches up with the monsters weakness is doing +1 attack for 3 overall damage.

The second blue tile was aligned to deal 3 damage but the red player's ranger ability rotates it so now that blue tile will be re-aligned on the side with 0 attack.

The red tile's ranger is aligned to deal 1 damage but receives + 1 attack bonus for being aligned with the monsters weakness for 2 overall damage.