It takes a very savvy player to know that a 5 percent increase in move speed is pretty big.'

'Now your gives you a knife, now you can shoot while sprinting-these talents or abilities tend to actually register,' said Yanez. But game-twisting effects that changed the rules went over like gangbusters. What surprised them was that strong cards that gave them access to more items, with a clearly trackable increase in power or utility, didn't go over well. It's one thing for players to know a level and build a deck anticipating its challenges, it's another for them to have to react to the Corruption Cards as well.įrom there, the team needed to learn what actually a 'good' card felt like. Yanez said that the idea got additional traction once they realized the AI Director could be wrapped into the system. 'Why try to force it into something else when it just makes sense?'

That's because when they were explaining the concept to other team members, cards and deckbuilding were just the right metaphors to use. 'It took us a little while to understand that cards were a good fit for us.' 'We were actually a little hesitant to use cards, too, because we didn't want any sort of misunderstandings on what it was, or how we were going to sell ,' he explained. Turtle Rock co-founder Chris Ashton was one of those team members, and he and Yanez were among the first to realize some variation of a deckbuilding system would be a good fit-though the team didn't necessarily stick to calling them 'cards' right away. In the last few years, games like Slay the Spire and the recently released Inscryption have mixed deckbuilding mechanics with different kinds of combat to great effect, giving players (and designers) a large number of levers to pull when customizing different experiences. Yanez explained to Game Developer that the card system emerged out of the design team's fascination (and love) for the roguelike genre.

At the beginning of each campaign, the AI Director will add some number of 'Corruption Cards' to the deck, which can appear and impact player runs. Players are only given 7 cards at the game's start, but can build decks of 15 (more on that later). As players earn supply points, they can purchase more cards by spending those points on different 'supply lines.' Each supply line contains cards that are meant to synergize. At the beginning of each act, players 'draw' cards and select ones they one to activate for the run. When players start the game, they are given a small pre-made deck of cards that contain different active and passive buffs for themselves and their teammates. First, a quick primer on how the card system in Back 4 Blood works.

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