Update & The Balance

My, my, my how hard it is to balance a game. I am currently beta testing The 3rd Printing Of "Blue Mist", specifically with Magic players and I'm seeing new problems emerge. As it turns out Aminosuro & Karo Kathijrell might be a little overpowered and while I think that term has been thrown around a lot, I think in this case it might be valid. I say might because I've seen both sides of the issue. Let me explain, Aminosuro & Kathijrell are the only characters who are capable of summoning, this allows the player to take 2 turns. Now I've been offered a host of solutions and I'm also exploring some other options in regards to other parts of the game.

As it stands, Blast attacks are the only attacks that cannot be countered and therefore the operative question would be "Why would you use a Beam then?".  The answer would be you'd use a beam on a character without a deflecting weapon but maybe that's not a solid enough answer. I have quite a bit to think about and consider but one of the solutions I liked was making a standard base of HP for all Summons and that seems like a great idea (because then I don't have to worry about balancing power levels). Likewise making more cards unusable by Summons would be beneficial as well. My final consideration would be should I reduce the Blast damage to an extent that even though it's a guaranteed hit the effort makes it less advantageous or should I add a stipulation to Blasts? I'm strongly considering making Blast damage half that of a Beam. That I think is a solid trade off.

Update #7

So after a few sessions of playtesting I've hit an interesting problem, now granted I've been playing this game solid since high school and never once hit this problem but therein lies the virtue of showing it to other people, you get a fresh perspective. And perspective is the nature of the card DOOM Technology.

There are only 2 copies of this card in a deck of 49 cards, so your chances of drawing it are 2 out of 49, so as you can imagine it doesn't pop up early on. But in the last 2 playtest session I've had this card has emerged and both times the holder of it was the victor. Now I've played this game before and have lost with DOOM Technology but that was by virtue of it occurring later in the game than early on. The thing is this card negates an entire game mechanic (Drawing Mist cards for your special attack) and therefore it allows you to spam your special attack until your opponents die. Now granted that was the design of it, for it to be very powerful, but have I made it too powerful?

Now the solution here is to add it to another expansion as I do have a plan for it later and as my wife put it, I don't have to remove DOOM Technology from the core set, but if I don't remove it I need a counter for it. Now if I did add it to a later expansion I DO have plans for what that'd look like and I do think it'd be fun. Balancing a game is hard, I think a few more playtests will help me decide what to do. I think maybe if I stacked the deck and then see what happens we can go from there. Until then, catch you lot later!

Update #6

The 3rd Demo print is in and NOW we're ready to get started on a lot of things! I found an artist and the promo work for the Kickstarter is done (for the most part). The next part is all up to me and that requires me to shop "Blue Mist" around and get some eyes and testimonials on it to draw people in. I can't show you guys the promo art yet, I'll save that for the Kickstarter but ultimately we're in a good place with this, now it's just a matter of doing it. Catch you guys later!

Update #5

Major Update, kids and kiddies! Here we go! So aside from overhauling the appearance and the language of the cards I've decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and do Kickstarter (against my better judgment) but if I'm gonna get this project off the ground I'm gonna need the most capital I can generate. So I'm hoping to start the campaign in March. The good thing is the majority of the project is done and when I get an artist I have enough reference artwork finished so that they're not working blind. The major issue is finding an artist who fits the style of the game. I don't want to go too serious but I don't want it to be too cartoony as well. Personally, I'm looking for someone who can deliver a DragonBall Z style, just cartoony enough to be light-hearted but just realistic enough to take it seriously. I have an artist in mind but whether or not they're down to do it is beyond me. I have a daunting task ahead of me.

All that being said, despite the fact that I'm outsourcing the task of artwork to a 2nd party, while I'm working on the 3rd printing I'll be using the opportunity to redo some of the artwork myself. Specifically the characters: Aminosuro, Toji, Tempest, Amuka, and Dira. Time permitting I'd love to re-draw the whole cast so that my eventual artist will have a better reference of how the characters are supposed to look. But I'm extremely limited on time. Anyways I'll keep you guys abreast of what's going on with "Blue Mist". Hope you guys stay tuned!

Update #4

So finally there's an update! Here's what's going on with "Blue Mist"! Let's dive in! For starters the rules and the game is more or less getting a bit of an addition. For starters let's talk about the game play it's self. Previously in other iterations of the game you could only do 1 thing per turn. This go around I've added a Character Action & a Draw Action. The reason for doing this is simple but in short it'll allow for faster game play and make people feel as if their turn counted even if they couldn't accomplish a previous goal. So if you suffer from a Status Effect and fail to roll and cure it, you can still draw a card and do something else. So that's one major change. The second change is an obvious one and that's of course COSMETICS! Previously the 1st printing of the cards were muddled with language and critical information was barely visible:

 You have an entire paragraph of text you have to read before you can even understand the card to activate it and then you gotta determine whether or not it's a support or an enhancement or whether or not it fits your alignment. Now everything is right out in the open:

BOOM! This card tells you what it does, who it's applied to, how long it stays which alignment it works for and what's classified as.Not to mention the background color is much more pronounced and visible giving the card a cooler esthetic than it's previous version. That's what I've been up to as of late on the Blue Mist front.

Update #3

How goes it everyone! I know it's been a minute since I've posted here so I'm giving you guys an update! Not sure if I said this, I re-did the Sanity Test awhile back after revamping the rules and got a 65/100. After getting a 28/100 previously, a 65 is a 37 point difference. I'm currently re-writing the rules and trimming the fat. If my 37 point average continues, I'll be well over 100%. Wish me the best on getting the rules re-worked. But, yes, I haven't given up on Blue Mist and the battle is still ongoing!

Update #2

And so Oh my brothers and only friends, THE CARDS HAVE ARRIVED and they look GLORIOUS! Thankfully, now that I have these I can work on getting the rulebook situated. Speaking of which the Sanity Test for my rules are 28/100, so I need a MASSIVE overhaul of the rules and get those situated and work on getting some test plays done. Thus far the sky is the limit! WOOT!!!