More Card Ideas and Game Structure

[strinsberg]

I have had a lot of other card ideas and I would like to present some of them here for discussion. My expectation would be that if we have time we can add them into game modes as we see fit for version 3. I think version 2 is probably good right now.

Please add more ideas or refinements on the given ideas in the comments if you have them and we can use this thread as a discussion for future card additions.

Game mechanics of attack and safety cards

• Go back to a place where we have attack types and each attack has 1 safety card. Ie) antivirus for malware, firewall for hack. We can still use scan as the sole remedy card to keep it simple since it only removes 1 thing anyway (in the future scan will let you choose what to remove).
• This change would also allow us to introduce new attack categories. I think we should include a social engineering category. Its safety could be a spam filter or something like that. Cards like spam, phishing, scam, etc. could be introduced in this category with various effects (more effects below).
• Adding more cards would require having changes like mentioned in #606 where we have the ability to pick (or randomize) what categories of cards are available in non-agile game types. This way we could keep the deck balanced by say only using 2 categories of attack cards and some algorithm cards. This would also keep each game simpler as you wouldn't have too many card types in a game.
• These changes and having only a select group of special cards in the deck at a time would allow for us to innovate with card types with less worry that there will be too many concepts for players to need to know at once, as well as not ruining game balance by having way to many special cards in the deck. And given the number of concepts available in CS and Cyber Security this could be really valuable for being able to introduce many concepts, but in a controlled way.
• Perhaps some attack and benefit cards that have slightly less powerful effects could last for 1 sprint in agile mode. That way they would be more effective than lasting for a turn, but not so bad as to last for a whole game if you can't remove them.

Concepts for cards

• Social engineering category - Phishing, Scam, Spam, Fake links, etc.
• Hack - Denial of Service, Backdoor, etc.
• Bring back some bonuses like we had with overclock, but maybe part of the algorithm cards so they are more software focused.

Possible Attack Card Effects

• Player doesn't redraw after playing a card for 2 turns. Their hand gets smaller and when the effect is gone they will draw back up to 5.
• Get an extra card in your hand for a few turns or longer.
• Spam could shuffle 3 useless spam cards into the deck that when you draw them they just take up space in your hand.
• Force a player to shuffle their hand into their deck and redraw a new one. Could pair well with spam to get those spam cards into their hand.
• Get to play a card from another players hand like it was your own hand. Could work well with spyware so you know when to play it.
• A variable 2 card that is an attack and can be used to replace a higher variable in an opponents stack. It could be scanned or just replaced like a variable normally is.
• Discard a card (or top card) of an opponents method stack. This would slow them down, but not be permanent.
• Swap cards between one of your stacks and one of an opponents stacks. Ie) take a repeat 4 card and give them a repeat 3 card. These cards would stay in the same position and stack.
• Make it impossible to play special cards like algorithms, attacks, safety cards for 2 turns. This would be sort of a companion card to the stack overflow which does this effect but for cards played on the play field.
• Reorder the top three cards of an opponents deck. The same as the sort card, but used on an opponent.
• Turn a method card into a regular instruction of the same value. Ie) this stack would no longer update with your method stack. So you would not lose any points, but it would sort of cap the usefulness of this stack.

Possible Algorithm/Positive Effects

• Swap cards in 2 of your own stacks. If you have 2 stacks that have repeat 2,4 on them swapping a 2 and 4 so you have a 2,2 stack and a 4,4 stack will increase the points you get from those stacks by a bit. This could be a sort of remedy as well if you are forced to play repeats on an instruction card while you wait to get a method card. Maybe this effect could also just allow moving the top card from a stack to another one.
• Shuffle a few cards into your deck and draw new ones. This is basically what I plan to do to replace redraw button in agile mode. The shuffling them into the deck helps to ensure they don't run out of cards during the agile rounds.
• increase your hand size for a few turns, or longer?
• Pick a card back out of your discard pile. Kind of like search, but for your discard.
• Next turn get to play 2 cards.
• increase the cap on your method stack by 1 for the game?

[strinsberg]

Some ideas left over from cards channel in Slack

• Some bonus effect (overclock?) that lasts for your next turn only and allows you to play 2 cards. Perhaps we could limit the types of cards affected so that you can't play 2 R4 cards on a stack and instantly win.
• BlueScreen/Crash card that when you draw it the card is discarded and that is your turn.

Others

• Some attack card that removes or bypasses the Antivirus or Firewall.