On the long journey of developing Ambal Tournament, trying to create a balanced set of skills has been both fun and challenging. Not only the skills had to be balanced but they also had to be interesting to use, some more complex while others keeping it simple. I’ve also included skills that are very situational, these are always fun to have since they might be difficult to use, sometimes risky, but offer great payoff.
Another challenge is keeping all the skills in the same “power level” since there’s no card rarity in Ambal Tournament. Every card needs to be relevant, every skill matters. That’s one of my design mantras when developing skills, they should all have the opportunity to shine during the game and give players that satisfying feeling of “that’s why I brought this skill”.
Every skill belongs to one School of Knowledge, creating that School’s identity, and that also goes into count when working on skills. It’s a delicate net that requires careful consideration on the skill’s effect, how it fits on their School, how it interacts with other skills, possible combos, possible counters, overall strength. Another thing to note is how they will affect a round, how much planning the player has to make before using that skill and of course, what’s the best way to use them.
The interactions between skills is where the magic happens, and having a solid design is important to allow them to be fun without breaking the game (with an infinite loop or paradox situation for example). I’ve lost count on how many times I had to rewrite a skill’s description because it could break the game or cause serious confusion between players.
One thing I wanted to give players was the ability to combo, but wanted to make some of these hidden or at least not so obvious. A clear combo is Time Bomb + Curse Blast, by reading both skills you know how they interact with each other and which benefits you’re getting (tons of damage).
But some combos are intentionally not obvious, players will really have to master the rules and understand how to take advantage of some effects. A great example of this is Self Ignite + Wildfire, with the former you cause Burning on yourself for 2 rounds to gain Energy and with the later you deal damage causing Burning to yourself and all opponents for 2 rounds.
Why is this great? Because Burning duration doesn’t stack, it is only replaced if it’s higher, so the downside of Burning yourself twice is only counted once. If you were to use these 2 skills in separate moments, they could make you burn for 4 rounds instead of 2, that’s a big difference!
Can’t wait for players to find these out. My goal moving forward is to offer more of these combos, more interesting interactions, surprising effects, everything to keep the battles dynamic and fun!