Cool concept, punishing players for looping through the deck is a great way to upend the traditional deckbuilder logic that you want to make your deck as small as possible!
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Thanks for noticing that :3
I did notice, while working on a different game, that a lot of deckbuilders benefit from having small decks that you cycle through quickly. That made me consider the idea of punishing players for going through their decks too fast by having too few cards. It creates an interesting balance where players want to keep their deck small to access strong cards quickly, but not so small that they run out of damage and cannot close out the fight.
I have a few ideas for mechanics that would reward smaller decks and tie more directly into the decay theme, but I did not have time to include them in the prototype.
I am also considering shifting the decay from the deck itself to the cards individually. Each card would weaken the more it is used, and players could spend essence to restore them to full strength. This would still encourage larger decks, since you would want other options available rather than overusing your strongest card, especially if you are saving it for a tougher enemy. But I need to think about it and play around with both concepts to see which one feels better.