Thoughts on Game Pacing

Hi everyone! Things are exciting behind the scenes here at Hyper Juken Headquarters, lots of work being done testing new cards, new formats and the topic of today, altering the game rules.

If you are familiar with Hyper Juken, you will know that scrying, looking at cards from the top of your Arsenal and placing them on the top or bottom of your Arsenal, is a big part of the game. It happens at the start of each turn for the turn player. This has some ramifications that limit design space; hand filtering and actual scry are of less value as it's built into the game. Likewise, it can be pace breaking, giving each turn an entire process of setting up your draws.

This decision was made early on for two reasons; 

Firstly, the Ki system. To play Hyper Juken you need Lv0s or cards that will be sent to the Ki Pool and by looking at the top 4 cards each turn, it ups the chances of hitting a Lv0. Most Arsenals come with 8x Lv0s, 20% of the Arsenal and provided you send the entire 4 cards to the bottom of your Arsenal, that gives you an 86% chance of hitting a Lv0. If you go a further turn, it brings it up to 96%.

Secondly, to cater to people who don't typically like Life Deck systems. If you can look through your Deck for specific cards, what gets sent to the Discard Pile as damage doesn't mean as much, especially with the generous healing in Blue and Red. You can see specific cards reliably when both are put together.

Over recent months, the discussion about design space had come up a few times in card design. The built-in scrying every turn making any card that scried independently, altered scrying or filtered the hand of much lower value. Why use them when the game gives you so much to start with?

Then a discussion on game pacing came up and it made me sit and take pause. We were discussing another game that pauses the gameplay to effectively create a subgame to determine how the gameplay will continue and just talking about it in a negative light caused me to reflect on Hyper Juken. It behaves in a very similar way at the start of turn. Playtesting was like yes, it's because you were overcompensating.

Some things were discussed, such as lowering the scry, but I went with my gut. The point of the scry is Lv0s, resources. Let's make it a part of game setup and just draw to hand size afterwards. The likelihood of hitting a Lv0 is fairly high after 20% of the Arsenal has been looked through, failing less than 15% of the time and this is a number that can be altered in different ways such as Arsenal construction and card effects.

Worked a treat. We both hit our Lv0s reliably. The game progressed far more naturally, card reoccurrence did its job and it worked out well. So much so that after the initial game, it was like "Yeah. This is it.". Moving Scry to game preparation flowed much better than the system currently in place.

Later in the day, we tested A3's current progress. Moving Scry 4 to game preparation rather than turn phase just worked out so well, playtesting eventually just incorporated it into the standard format you're familiar with. Effects that interacted with the Arsenal and other zones were doing the job the scry was doing in many respects. No one missed Lv0s, everything just went as it should and worked. Very similar experience with better pacing.

I haven't officially said I'll change the rules of how Hyper Juken is played now, but the new format will incorporate this change and I'm very much leaning towards the change being made in the standard format. Tell me if you think it'd be for the best or if you have a go with this change, how it feels.

Till next time friends, thanks for reading,
-Erik

I Can't Get No Satriafaction

Hi everyone! Sorry for not posting in two months, it was a combination of being ill, being busy and nothing to really discuss while I've been working on a bunch of things, but I do now.

Set 3, Triple Threat, yes it looks like that name is sticking due to being able to work it into the lore, has been a very difficult set to work on. A cycle of feeling like it's done, then going back, not being happy with it anymore and questioning the thought processes behind it, but a couple months ago, it felt done. I wasn't satisfied with Satria (Red) or Naagpal (Blue), but I couldn't think of any way to improve them and frankly I was sick of working on the set. It felt like I was spinning in circles working on it. Snowy (Yellow) however I am satisfied with and feel she turned out best. She is finished and good to go.

Set 3 had taken something of a place on the backburner while we worked on Set 2.5. Set 2.5 came together at a brisk pace thanks to it being the first set with input from the new play tester from the start and both of us being really excited for what it brings to the table. Set 2.5 is planned to be the next set once some things are addressed.

With that said, I moved onto drafting Set 4 as I had some ideas I wanted to get into card form for testing down the road. Getting rather excited about the new concepts introduced in Set 4, I brought an unfinished version of the Yellow character to playtesting when we finally got to both meet up and play Hyper Juken this past weekend.

This new Yellow character is an absolute blast to play. Even with blank cards in their Arsenal and Corner, it was fun. Very different to anything you currently have, but also supports your current cards, sets up the future and is a coherent package, so you wouldn't think it is doing so much. The Arsenal has been tweaked a little since, but Set 4 Yellow, in combination with how well I feel Set 2.5 turned out, has reinvigorated my personal love for this game.

I've made it no secret that I have a lot of regrets with Set 2 and frankly Set 3 was feeling much of the same. Love Snowy, she's on point, the other two were perfectly viable and the set didn't really have any notable dud cards, but I just wasn't happy with how Satria or Naagpal turned out. With how much fun Set 4 Yellow is looking right now and how both Red and Blue for the same set are progressing, along with Set 2.5, I finally feel motivated to go back to Set 3. I want to use everything I've learned from designing Sets 2.5 and 4 to finally finish Set 3. End up with a result that I'm actually happy with.

Satria will likely end up the bigger task as I'm probably reworking his entire attack lineup, Hyper Fighter, one of his Kata cards and one of his two Tactic cards, all Arsenals in Set 3 come with two Tactic cards, but I think I can keep his original core concept, who he is, then make something more cohesive with both him and the existing Red card pool.

Naagpal on the other hand requires less individual cards redesigned. Still a fair bit of reworking, but not on the level of Satria. I guess Satria may end up on the easier side here because his Arsenal is basically 50% blank now, but I think he'll get to the position where the final couple cards are a bit tricky. Usually happens.

I didn't think I could feel so optimistic about Set 3 again, but I'm happy I am. I think this time I can finally end up with all Characters and their Arsenals in a satisfying condition.

Till next time friends, thanks for reading.

-Erik