TCG Design Tips

If you're designing a TCG there are a few things that I personally think you should try and avoid having in your game. These are things that I've learned from making a few games and playing random startups.

1. Boards

I really recommend that you don't design around having a board component to your game. From experience it's a bit of a crutch, it limits the space you have to design in and if you balance around the board your stuck with it forever. Also, if you plan to try and market your game having a board sends mixed singles. Is it a board game is it a card game? It's targeting two audiences that don't really mix too well. Design your game to be played with the cards ONLY.

2. Complex Math

Now, requiring players do math in your game is fine and having players do complex math is fine. The issue is in having players do complex math for the majority of the game. I created a TCG that mechanically played like Super Auto Pets. The mechanics of this work for an automated game, but once you have players sitting down and doing the math as the turn goes it becomes super tedious and boring.

3. Complex Resource System

This extends from the complex math reasoning from before but if your game uses some kind of resource to play cards the simpler that system works the better. In a game I was working on I had a system where players use gold to play cards from their hand, they then could later refund the cards they played for their gold value. Gold would persist though turns and at each upkeep phase players would receive a small amount. 

What I learned from this system is that with so much going on between spending, refunding, and receiving gold at the start of their turns, players would lose track of how much gold they had and too much time was spent managing their gold.

4. Complex Interactions

This also extends from the points above but make your game human playable. What I mean by this is make sure that the number of things that players have to track on their turns doesn't become overwhelming. When they do peoples turns can become too complicated and long and it makes the pacing of your game slow down to a drag.

5. Make your game Breakable

I unironically think allowing players to find interesting combos/mechanics that can create broken situations is overall more fun for players to do. Having your game being a little broken, as long as it's not overbearing, is fun.

To sum everything up, make your game as simple as possible for players to pick up and play. I think simplicity in design, across all mediums, usually works the best.