Fighting Card Game
THE BATTLE OF ZE
The Battle of Ze is a 1 vs. 1 card game inspired by the fighting game genre. Players are facing each other off in a best of 3 matches using cards that represent Attack, Guard, and Throw in a way similar to the game “Rock Paper Scissors”, while incorporating fighting game concepts such as Combo, Counter, and Punish.
INSPIRATION & DESIGN CONCEPT
Ze was heavily inspired by popular fighting game titles such as Street Fighter, The King of Fighters, and Super Smash Bros. The game breaks down, incorporates, and simplifies core fighting game concepts like Combo, Counter, and Punish. Although just got into fighting games in the recent few years, I was deeply impressed by its history, complexity, and welcoming community. To introduce this genre to more players who are hesitant to try it out, I decided to design this card game that captures the essence of fighting games.
Conceptualizing
My early vision for the game was to make an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master 1 vs 1 game that only takes 10-20 minutes to finish, targeting fighting game fans or those who are new but interested in this genre. For the game system, I took inspiration from successful card games like Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, and Flesh & Blood (below), assigning a variety of attributes and effects to each card to resemble different moves a player can perform in fighting games.
When it comes to integrating the fundamentals of fighting games into my card game, It’s definitely a challenging task to pick and choose considering the huge amount of terminologies in existing fighting games, which also vary from game to game. But then what elements I should utilize without making the game not feel like a “fighting game”?
I used the process of elimination. Since my target audience involves people who are most likely to be unfamiliar with the genre, it would be wise to avoid introducing terms like “Frame Data”, “Confirm”, and “Cancel” to scare them away before even trying the game. I also found it difficult to incorporate all the possible scenarios without raising my game’s learning barrier, so I decided to keep them out of the system.
Some of the options players can take in fighting games (Street Fighter V)
Then what’s left? After crossing out all the options that have to do with players’ positioning (Ex: In the air, spaced, close in, crouched, etc.), we have the three most basic but crucial interactions:
Picture Source: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
It’s not hard to see that these three interactions resemble a “Rock, Paper, Scissors” relation, a concept that’s straightforward to understand.
However, in fighting games, this relation is not always true.
For example, if a player uses an attack with High-Startup-Frames (which takes more frames for the attack to come out, in other words, slower) on the other player who’s about to use a grab, the former would lose most of the time (which makes Attack counter Grab false). Similarly, If a player blocks an attack with Low-Startup-Frames (faster) and attempts to counter-attack with a slower attack, he/she might risk getting hit by a faster follow-up attack from the opponent.
In this example, it takes 3 frames for the punch to come out
The idea of “faster attacks beat slower attacks” is intuitive and easy to achieve in Ze, by adding the attribute “Speed”, which uses an integer to determine how fast or slow an attack is. This adds a little more complexity to the game without making it too overwhelming for the players.
What’s a fighting card game without Combo?
At big fighting game tournaments like EVO, seeing pros pull out Combos after Combos in a string of button presses is always a satisfying view. Although unable to replicate the button pressing aspect, I managed to implement the system by assigning a Combo number to each Attack card. Similar to how Combos work in fighting games, in Ze, players are allowed to play multiple Attack cards in one go once they land their initial attack without being blocked.
The mind game of countering and being countered
For those who enjoy reading opponents’ minds and finding openings to punish, the Counter system in Ze is perfect for them. After anticipating an attack from the opponent, a player can set up a Guard card to block, which allows counter-attacking with his/her own Attack cards. Depending on the Speed of the counter-attack, the opponent might not be able to respond and thus get punished for always resorting to attacks. The defender can even bluff to have a counter-attack to waste the opponent’s resources, which not only refers to the bait and punish play style in fighting games but also adds depth to the card game.
Overthink and you will get grabbed!
As the third cornerstone of the triangle, Grab is the natural enemy of Block/Shield. Despite losing to most of the Attacks, Grab serves its purpose of having opponents second guess before they decide to set up a Guard.
That sums up the core concepts of Ze for more details, please refer to the rule section.
ITERATIONS & PLAYTEST
Version 0.1
In contrast with its current theme, the prototype of Ze was called “Kungfu Cardfight”, referring to Chinese martial arts such as Tai Ji and Wing Chun.
This iteration uses a scoring system inspired by Gwent, in which players gain points by taking turns playing cards from two 30-card decks, while some cards can yield more points or provide special effects when played under certain situations. For example:
“Left Jab: +4 points, if your opponent does not block, you may play another Attack card this turn.”
“Block: +3 points, if your opponent’s attack is worth more than 5 points, +6 points instead.”
“CounterPunch: +4 points, if the last card you played was Block, +7 points instead.”
“Last Stand: +3 points, if your opponent has more points than you, +7 points instead.”
Martial art inspiration from franchises like IP Man
In Gwent, the player who has more total points at the end of a round wins
Despite looking like a promising prototype, during the first playtest with my Game Design teacher Brad (conducted Online through screen share), we discovered several potential issues:
1. Since “Block” gives fewer points compared to Attack cards, unless combined with “CounterPunch” (which can be luck-dependent), the attacker usually has the upper hand in terms of total points at the end of a round.
2. There is a lack of interesting game mechanics other than trying to gain the most points, which might make players feel bored easily after a few rounds of gameplay.
3. The current card design and name choice do not deliver the image of a fight between two material artists, but rather more like a boxing match. The Point Comparison system might be counter-intuitive and messy to keep track of.
Version 0.2
This is the iteration in which we can see the early form of Ze. I decided to incorporate fighting game concepts by adding Grab to form the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” triangle while introducing a variety of States (Natural, Combo, and Counter). Cards are reworked and assigned types & and attributes. Extra rules/mechanics like Parry and Tie Breaker are added. The Point Comparison system is discarded and replaced by Health Point. After discussing with my artist, we decided to change the art style from Acarde & Pixel to Chinese ink painting to better accommodate the Kungfu theme.
The Parry mechanic is a reference to EVO Moment 37
In this match, Diago Umahara, a Japanese Street Fighter III pro player known as The Beast, despite being 1 HP at that moment, turned the table around by performing the impossible 15 parries (a mechanic in the game that requires 1/6th of a second to execute) which fully blocked the damage from Chun-Li’s ultimate attack. Diago immediately followed with his own combo, defeating Justin Wong, one of the strongest Street Fighter players. In Ze, I designed the Parry mechanic which also required a high level of concentration to keep track of cards played and knowledge about your opponent to guess which card they will use, giving players an opportunity to re-create the moment in my game.
Design Challenge: Balancing Randomness & Consistency
For this iteration, I invited my friend Jerry, a fighting game enthusiast, to playtest with me. I even made a physical playable version of the game by inserting papers into sleeved cards. This iteration of Ze also consists of two 30-card decks for both players, which quickly shows an issue during playtests — that we were unable to keep a balanced hand of Attack, Guard, and Throw.
This might seem okay at first sight, considering the fact that both players’ hands are randomized.
However, the really awkward moment took place when Jerry had 4 Grab cards in his hand (think about it as Rock, Paper, Scissors but you are ONLY allowed to throw Paper), which made him frustrated over the fact that there was nothing he can do even if he wants to counter the opponent’s next move.
During reflection, I realize that the traditional play style of “drawing cards from a randomized deck” might not be able to replicate an authentic fighting game experience since the players would always have access to all their options (attack, jump, block, etc.), thus more consistency is required to make Ze’s players feel that they have more controls over which card they get.
Another issue was that combo deals way too much damage. During the third round of the game, when we were both at max HP 20, I managed to pull out a full combo that dealt 23 damage total (Light Jab 2 + Medium Kick 5 + Heavy Punch 6 + Finisher 10), ending the round in just one turn, which wasn’t a pleasant experience for Jerry. In another round, we played until one of us had no cards in hand, which resulted in the game couldn’t continue.
After the playtest, Jerry offered some valuable advice, including:
- Give players options to deal with bad hands
- Stronger cards: Light Jab (good combo starter due to its speed (5) and hard to counter
Version 0.3
This was a rather quick iteration with only small changes. In response to the feedback gained from playtesting, the follow-up combo damage is halved, and both players have a chance to draw cards whenever someone gets hit. Added an extra rule Fatigue to deal with the situation in which a player runs out of cards in hand.
A failed attempt at Trading mechanic
Having listened to Jerry’s advice, I designed a new mechanic Trading (not to be confused with the Trade keyword in the final version of Ze), which allows players to discard 2 cards to draw 1 in case they don’t like what’s in their hand. However, during Josue and Andrew’s playtest, none of them used the mechanic even once due to the fact that they were unwilling to make a disadvantageous choice under an already bad situation (having a bad hand).
I thought about buffing the mechanic to “discard 1 card to draw 1”, but that might give players a chance to use it to find stronger cards like Light Jab (now renamed as Jab), which still went unchecked in this iteration and yields a lot of damage when connects with other follow-up attacks.
As a result, Trading was removed in the next iteration for its poor usage.
To test out the effectiveness of the new changes, I had my other two friends Josue and Andrew play against each other. They are both gamers but not as familiar with the fighting game genre compared to Jerry, which can bring a fresh perspective.
Version 0.4
This iteration plays a crucial role in shaping the play style of Ze while giving players a sense of different skill levels, to make them feel like they can play better with more experience.
This time I invited my roommate Edward (on the left), a nerd in breaking down game mechanics, to help me validate the potential of this revolutionary version.
Tracing back to the design challenge I encountered in Version 0.2, I managed to find a proper and creative solution for Ze to balance the amount of randomness and consistency and also increase its depth — the 3-pile set-up.
The 3-pile set-up saves the day!
This is what transforms the game from:
a more luck-dependent “Rock, Paper, Scissors” in which sometimes you don’t get to play one or more of them.
↓
a more strategic “Rock, Paper, Scissors” in which you reap what you sow by having control over which one of them to keep in hand (can be all three kinds or even only one!)
Instead of mixing Attack, Guard, and Grab all in a 30-card deck, I separate them into 3 piles. Although the cards in each pile are still randomized, players can decide which type of card they want to draw, also resembling the options that are available in fighting games. Now comes the most exciting part about this setup — since each pile only includes one type of card (either Attack, Guard, or Grab), I and Edward were able to make educated guesses to figure out what type of cards each other has in each pile and in hand. However, to make our guesses more accurate, we will need to keep track of cards played during the game as well as how many cards we were drawing from our own 3 piles. Edward was impressed by how his skill level in Ze is visible just by observing and making decisions based on experience
The player who can first pinpoint the type of opponent’s piles will have an upper hand by predicting what cards will be played next. In order to achieve that, players need to spend time familiarizing themselves with the cards and practicing reading their opponents’ habits, which refers to the “hard-to-master” aspect of fighting games.
Anti-Light Jab — Dodge
Instead of nerfing Light Jab itself, I added Dodge, a guard card designed specifically to counter Light Jab. I managed to make it work once during the playtest when I predicted Edward using the Light Jab, which rewards me for winning the round with a full combo. Now that players have the option to punish Light Jab spammers, I feel that the game is more balanced and is getting close to its final version.
Version 0.5
More attention was paid to adjusting the wording in the rules to make them easier to understand. To test out whether they are intuitive for older players, I invited my non-blood-related aunts: Jackie and Nadine to take on the challenge. Despite taking a while to read through the rules, I was surprised by how much they understood the game without me to help explain. Concepts like Combo and Recoil still posed some difficulties for them since they were not familiar with the fight game genre, but after a few rounds of samples, they were able to get the hang of the game. One thing they really liked about the game is that it only takes about 15 to 20 minutes to play which is not a huge commitment but still fun enough as an experience.
END NOTE
Ze is the very first card game that I designed in about 2 month period of time. I think of it as a product of my passion for both card games and fight games. It was a daunting experience at first to brainstorm all the possible mechanics and rules, but once I found a direction (the theme and core concept) to follow, it made the process a lot easier than I expected.
I also gained a lot of experience from making quick iterations and gathering feedback from playtests, which were essential to helping me polish the game to its current state. Working with an artist made me realize how important communication is to make sure we are on the same page about the theme and details on both the cards and the rule book.
The process of designing Ze reminds me of how fun it is to discuss game mechanics and whether they are good/bad in contributing to the overall game experience, which is something I cherish as a gamer. I want to bring this mindset to my next and all future game projects, carrying out my ideal of creating “a challenging but rewarding experience” for my players.
SUM UP
Theme & Art Style
We originally chose the pixel art style referencing Arcade, but later switched to Chinese ink painting and Kungfu to emphasize the concept of Ze using a simple and clear art style, also referencing popular characters such as Ryu and Chun-Li from Street Fighter, who are even known by people never played the game or any other fighting games.
The Chinese KungFu theme continues to show through the cards, with the use of Calligraphy font and Red Signature Stamp Icon. The rectangular frames cleverly divide up the space for character portraits (with the Yinyang background) and skill descriptions.
The flashy visual effects in Street Fighter V
Another aspect of Ze’s card design is adding colored visual effects to emphasize the speed, power of each move, and their property, which is also commonly used in modern fighting games.
Last but not least, we referenced the poses of real material artists during a fight, to clearly represent the action of the card name. For the card art that we couldn’t find a reference for, we would draw out sketches first, discuss their effectiveness, and turn them into the final art.
