I played quickly some turns, but probably would need to play longer to notice the difference, i unlocked the second character once, which i find much more intuitive and fun to play than the warrior (paying with health never feels good to me) and it felt the cards i got with the second character were most of the time showing more inherent synergies.
This creates some interesting and non-trivial interactions which I quite like, as well as actually reducing overall complexity in a roundabout way (since I currently have 27 statuses, which would grow to ~50 if I would replace every negative status with corresponding “inverted meaning” status).
Hmm I would say complexity is how difficult is to understand a rule and hold it in your head, for me it would help to reduce complexity, if you have special rules for - and +, so that i can more easy associate them with words. If you have a rule for - i want this behaviour and for + i want this behaviour... for me a second word would help... if the behaviour on the other hand is the "same" then a second therm would not be as urgent.
Your comparison with Slay the Spire is very on point. I intentionally deviated from “simpler is always better” rule of card design which StS embraces. I compensate for complexity a bit by simplifying other parts of the game (such as UI and game map).
I would argue the map of slay the spire is mostly there to reduce complexity and not to increase it. If you think from the player perspective, it is build in a way that:
a) it reduces the players choices to a few simpler once he can decide up on (avoiding analysis paralysis)
b) it teaches the player core principles by putting emphasis on certain aspects of the game (for example in some occasions you might be offered a card removel) ... if the meaning of this isn't obvious first, the player has plenty of time to learn it.
In your game from my perspective you introduce everything all at once after you play a round:
The player has a lot of choices to make
- (which card do i want to keep - which might work with other cards or combos I don't know yet or put in for special purposes that will only come apperently later)
- Do I want to pay some money for removing some cards? (Paying money for doing something especially when it gets increasingly more expensive... is something many players will only carefully adopt too... as long as I'm not sure how and which card combis to aquire... will i make a mistake if I throw this card out etc. (slay the spire solves this elegantly by simply giving you a choice from time to time) and how does it compare with the other options?
- Do I want to pay money for some new choices? (Again feels strange if you're not aquainted with the deck choices yet) (which automatically conflicts with the other option)
- Then the artifacts... from which some of them are probably specialized for some combos the player don't know about yet. (Again friction for new players) (It is much less dramatic if this doesn't happen so frequently)
- Then you best take a look at the coming opponents (it's good that it's there in some sense and i only noticed recently that you can preview the monsters which are about to pop)... but would you expect the player to go over there read the description of every possible opponent and then make a choice? (So for optimal play I would have to do this and figure out about something like the wyvern there and might decide it is to dangerous)
In slay the spire most of this choices are in a "sense made for me" or i can concentrate on one of them not all of them at the same time, which reduces complexity a lot.
Yeah, I think a game which is more complex cards than slay the spire can be interesting, I think it's a matter how it gets introduced though and maybe some hardcore card game fans will enjoy your game quite a lot and are enjoying all the little twists you intented to be there and are also busy learning the tipps in the wiki.
My time unfortunately is quite limited, so I won't have the time to dig really deep into your game.
From what i experience it feels like a game where you put a lot of cool stuff in "because you liked it", which usually becomes a beast later to tame. Don't get me wrong i enjoy some complex games, but usually i prefer them to increase in complexity gradually over time - for example SpaceChem is one of my favourite games, the difference is that it starts small and gets more complex, which leads to every step of the gameplay being fun, I don't have to sit through a longer tutorial phase, just everything gets introduced step by step... so it avoids the questions - does spending time with it "is actual" worth it, will all the complexity lead to a more enjoyable experience in the end. (Same for example with chess or go directly from the start, the rules are rather simple and you can start your journey end get better over time enjoying it straight from the start without too much "homework", or even starcraft 2... which will have a lot of homework later if you want to climb in pvp).
In your game it feels like the process of creating it was "putting a lot of rules and cards in very fast" ... of course correct me if I'm wrong... normally I woud argue, when creating a complex card game, a different approach might be more suitable "start with a small amount of cards maybe 15 or something"... and then over time and based on player feedback grow the game into a more complex game, this approach has to advantages:
a) it allows you to somewhat tame the beast of complexity
b) it allows you to build a much smoother game introduction for new players (being a kind of summary of what you did to reach this point)
this doesn't mean that you can't go for your +- status ... it just means once you implemented all of them step by step over time... you can be sure that every mechanic will work and don't overwhelm the player and that there are less "unforseen complications, which are hard to fix once a big forrest of rules start to interact with each other in unforseen ways)
An example of a game which has more complex card rules though if of course magic the gathering, which introduce some complex mechanics especially given how many cards it holds... and is in sense more similar to your game. I just want to say that the learning curve and complexity of this card game is "tamed", because of two reasons:
a) there are suitable beginner decks only introducing parts of the mechanics and are optimal for getting used to the game
b) the deckbuilding and gameplay are two seperate steps... so the player has all the time in the world "to build a deck of more complicated cards" and take the synergies he understands well and create more complex decks over time, so you really are interested how "well the synergies will hold in real gameplay"
I would argue that your game would profit from a phase like this instead of having this long tutorial in the beginning start with a completly prebuild deck, which contains some interesting synergies and let the player figure them out on his own... (so he can have fun right from the start without having to learn to much)
... then maybe have a second run, where you introduce some status changes more in depth etc.
... you could go really slow here... no need to rush... aim should be to keep that the player has as much fun as possible while introducing complexity step by step and finally "have a full grown player" who has a strong basis of all the important fundamentals of the game and feels much better equiped to make the interesting choices, you want him to make.
The tutorial at the moment feels a bit forced... I thought about it and I came to the conclusion, that is due to the following reasons:
1... it is relative long without being challenging and it gives you a lot of information fast
2... it forces you to slowly go through stuff, which for most of the part is rather obvious (so it feels like a bit cumbersome to be introduced to it)
3. It forbids you to play card (one thing i figured out latetly is... that players usually hate it, if an "action" is not allowed even though they know it would do no harm
4... some of the information is a bit cryptic
Just before I forget to mention it... compared to the first version I played the warrior plays better now... ( I rememberthe health sacrifices to be much more brutal earlier... but I might be wrong)
Take away what is helpful throw away the rest... just my perspective on the introduction to your game at the moment.
