Posted February 17, 2022 by JacobMakesTarot
Hello again, today I wanted to talk about some of the actual rules and core gameplay loop. As should be obvious by the name and previous Devlogs, but Tarot Cards play a big part in the game. While I am not a very staunch believer in the actual predictive power of tarot cards (I think it’s all confirmation bias), it does fascinate me.
The basics are as follows: At the start, you receive a standard 3 Card Tarot prediction. Because of the orientation, they give different benefits or challenges. These are based on their actual meaning within the Major Arcana. For example, at the start of a run you could get a pull like this:
Star: Increased Healing from Items
Magician: Extra Skill Point at the start
Temperance (inverted): Take increased damage
Every floor is randomly generated, and a tarot card is pulled that only effects the current floor
Lovers: Decreased Enemy Detection area
This should keep each run exciting and fresh and allows for (ideally) infinite replayability!
I didn’t choose the Lovers card at random for this Devlog, dear reader. Last week was my 6th wedding anniversary! A wonderful wonderful time in my life (and hopefully my wife’s!). I didn’t want the Lovers card to just be “a heart :)” so I tried to make this unity of rings around a central, amorphous orb. Which at the end of the day is what love is all about, right?