I'm so early in the game I just got my first Field Card, but I have no idea what the rules of the card game actually *are*, which is a little frustrating. Sometimes I'm allowed to place cards on the grid, other times not; sometimes the attack grid is 2x3, then it suddenly changes to 2x2; same with the defense grid. Sometimes there's numbers in the grids without me putting cards in them, and I don't know what those numbers mean either. The real-time aspect means I can't look for patterns to learn what's going on, because i'm just slapping cards into holes as fast as I can with no strategy, since I can't make a strategy without knowing how things work. Doesn't seem to be a rulebook in the game menus anywhere, sadly.

Oh, also sometimes putting a 3 card in a box turns into a 5, or some other number, and I have no idea why, or why sometimes the grid rejects cards. A manual would be a very handy thing to have. Also a turn-based option, because it is miserable having to just clickety-slap cards into the grid and hope they don't get bounced out of the grid at random. There was a lot of work put into this, and I'd like to be able to enjoy it.

Hey palecur,

Sorry to hear you're having some troubles with our game's mechanics. I'll do my best to explain address them. For field cards, their effects can be found on the card when you go into your deck inventory.  So if I click on a heal card and bring it into my deck, it tells me it bathes the player in light and heals the player. All the cards in the game should display these kinds of tool tips, and if they are not, please send me a screenshot and we'll look into what might be causing that.

Placing cards also triggers a short global cooldown, so players can't just play every card right away without any thought. Defense, magic, and attack cards each have a separate global cooldown, so you can play an attack card and immediately play a defense card, but you can't play two attack cards back to back without waiting a few seconds. Stronger cards can trigger longer global cooldowns, though those don't show up until later in the game.

The grids do change size periodically as you defeat enemies in long gauntlets or just from encounter to encounter. We were trying to really mimic that real time combat feeling, and one of the ways to do that was to vary encounters, kind of like how enemies in an RPG might dodge or parry.

As for the numbers, your goal is to get the ones in your attack area to zero while keeping the ones in your defense area as high as you can.  Placing an attack card of 5 on an area with only 1 defense will do more damage than placing an attack card of 2 on an area with only 1 defense. The enemy player will be doing the same thing, attacking your weakest areas and defending their weakest. Once again, we were really trying to mimic that real time combat feeling. But actual numbers are all based on addition and subtraction.

It's best to try and widdle down multiple areas on any given grid so when the enemy defends one spot, you still have open places to attack and deal damage. And for most encounters in the first map, you can attack twice to every single time you need to defend. It feels pretty fast at first, but it's not quite as hectic as it looks! That comes later ;P

Hopefully this helps. If you have more issues, let us know and I'll do my best to answer them.