Maverick - Solo Card Game

I'm making some changes to the rules. The trap is now a familiar you command. I streamlined the card design and layout.

Here are some of the prototype cards. Some things in the image may not make sense now with the current rules but should make more sense when I release v1.1 tomorrow.

Note: The location of the action icons are for aesthetics related to the monster image only.

The darker grittier style has been preferred by some but until I get an artist to replicate that I’m just making low ink low color PnP prototypes over coming weeks. The icons are easier to see than the thematic “hit” placement design.

I’m still playing around with symbols and colors.

I negotiated a contract price of 7 cards during setup, so I started the game with 33 action cards.

Well, near the end of the game these were literally the only 5 cards left and I barely pulled it off.

I had to move maverick 5 spaces left. Then, 1 space left. Then used a 4 for his ranged attack, while my melee animal companion, Arcturus, used another 4 for its melee attack leaving me at one card left for the win!

Final design, a monster and the monster slayer, Maverick:

I had originally splashes of brighter color mixed with the muted tones and people said it was too distracting from the rest of the card, but I thinking its partly my artistic inabilities. In a published version I'm sure they could make the "Sin City" design look really good.

The logo does have some color:

I added A4 size files and cut lines to the front and back pages.

Thank you!

Game sessions of card wager, win/loss, score is great.

Questions to consider:
Whether the wager would be more fair if you pick specific cards instead of off top.
How the monster abilities felt.
Any monsters that feel overly easy or hard. I know the beholder is intentionally a real pain.

I’m trying to balance enough content in the basic game versus too many mechanics and abilities. I have few ideas for more content like a push/pull object mechanic as a mini expansion.

I also have considered a 2p mode where competing monster slayers on opposite ends slay the monsters until all 13 monsters are slain but still testing balance.

Thank you for the insightful feedback.

• You are playing it that you have to do all actions in the same turn? Yeah, Charge is like Ranged Attack except the character moves. Melee is definitely the hardest to pull off as you mention, so I tried not to double it much.
• I'll consider changing the Demon to two melee attacks instead of one melee, one ranged. I didn’t want those two to feel TOO hard. Dragon is a bit harder because of the 3 actions and Overlord ability. Having to Charge a Dragon, and then do a Melee Attack on it while the other character range attacks it all in the same turn feels pretty difficult to me. Also, knowing you have to save at least two 5s for those two monsters makes them inherently more difficult.
• Yeah, Meditate is there as a last resort, but rarely used.
• To make the game less "swingy" and "luck-based" in terms of scoring, action cards wagered during setup are worth 2 points (no longer worth double their value), and remaining action cards are worth 1 point (no longer worth their value). I did this because if the action cards off the top of the deck are a bunch of 5s this game, but are a bunch of 1s next game, it feels pointless to even attempt the second game already knowing it will be lower than your previous high score. I don't want that. Much like how all the action cards while different in value feel equal in usefulness during game play, I want that same affect for scoring.
• I originally planned on having the eye built into the card backs of those cards, but then went with a plain design forgot to put them in. I’ll put them back in tonight. EDIT: They are in now. I would just add them onto the corresponding backs of those 6 monsters in your printed version.
• I’m totally open to different theme ideas, it’s just the theme that fit the art assets I already owned. I originally had the game called “Old Town Road” with a cowboy bounty hunter after wanted criminals and another family friendly theme of wildlife photography. Hang ups with other themes always seem to be tying the three "combat actions" to the theme (like running vs. ranged vs. up-close wildlife photography?).

Awesome stuff.

Here is the unofficial revision of the Rules of Play. It's unofficial because the proposed idea of a monstrous slayer hasn't been updated in the PnP cards.

This revision has many cosmetic and flavour/fluff changes. However, the biggest takeaways are the removal of Meditate action and Eye of Garakus ability which have been merged into a once per game action called Transform, the addition of trophies to alter your strategy and maximize your score, and the monster ability, Disable, was reverted back to its original name and effect: "Noxious - Whenever your monster slayer stops at the same location as a noxious monster, you must discard a card!" When I had changed Noxious to Disable awhile ago it inadvertently made the Ghost useless and the other Disabling monsters much weaker, so now its back to what it should be.

If everyone collectively likes the changes, I'll move forward and make these rules official and update the PnP cards.

The PnP cards will remain mostly untouched other than removing Eye of Garakus and replacing the card back of the monster slayer with its monstrous slayer form.

Previous versions of the cards are pretty much unaffected by the changes since the Eye of Garakus can just be ignored or used for some home variant and the card back of the slayer already has the logo that represents the monstrous slayer (just not its avatar).

I have added a bridge size option for the monster and slayer cards in the original post. The art is just a tad smaller but you can actually see more of it. I'll try to finish the bridge size action cards over the weekend.

I'm prepping the image files now to print a copy from The Game Crafter:

With the new trophy system, a well-timed Meditate action for free is really nice, so I personally don’t transform out of the gate since the foresight boost is minor to me. I wanted to leave the Transform tied to player choice rather than a threshold and hoped losing a free Meditate by transforming immediately would be enough of a deterrent but maybe not.

Originally, I had Transform cost a card.

Another option is instead of meditate, you get to do an action for free by flipping to monstrous form. You can still transform iright away but that may not be best use.

Im totally open to any actions powers passives etc good or bad tied to monstrous slayer form.

From my dealings on BGG, I'm thinking most people are slaying the Imp (and probably other monsters) incorrectly because it’s rarely complained about but kind of a pain with no chance at a trophy.

You need to move to it twice in a turn, so either you need to move to it and your animal companion needs to move to it in the same turn or you need to move to it, move away and move to it again all in same turn.

I'm going to work on clarifying the rules and providing a lot of examples this week.

That isn't a bad premise as long as I can associate and justify the other mechanics with that theme. Lost soul has a sidekick or companion too? Melee/Ranged Attacks or something else? Trophies become what?

Cooperative mode and versus mode rules and cards will be coming soon to Maverick in PnP version 1.1. Here are each mode's rules in a nutshell:

Cooperative (Guild): All the game play rules are the same as solo mode.

During setup, place a second monster slayer and animal companion in swapped positions next to the right-most monster at the opposite end of the dungeon corridor, so that the second monster slayer moves below the dungeon and their animal companion moves above it. Players alternate turns. Optional Stealthy Rule: Players cannot discuss or show the cards in their hand to one another.

Versus (Bounty Hunters): All the game play rules are the same as solo mode except for how slain monsters are tracked, where collected trophies are placed, and how the game is scored.

During setup, place a second monster slayer and animal companion in swapped positions next to the right-most monster at the opposite end of the dungeon corridor, so that the second monster slayer moves below the dungeon and their animal companion moves above it. Players alternate turns. The first player only draws a starting hand of four cards (replenishing up to five cards after their first turn).

Whenever a player slays a monster and flips it face down, they also rotate it so the tip of the logo's sword points toward the side of the player that slayed the monster. Also, instead of placing collected trophies on top of a slain monster, place them in a pile in front of you so there is no confusion as to who has collected what trophies.

At the end of the game, only slain monsters and collected trophies are scored:
Each slain monster is worth 3 gold.
Each collected trophy is still worth 2 gold.

The player that earned more gold wins the game. If tied, the player that slayed more monsters wins the game.

Btw, this game has an official BGG game entry.

This was my fastest idea to game entry design ever, under 5 weeks (thanks quarantine). I haven't touched this game in months and held off on tweaking theme or expansions for if/when it ever gets picked up by a publisher, they'll change those details anyway.

A small tweak to the theme. Instead of slaying monsters for gold, you are a monster slayer in training, completing your last trial in the proving grounds to become a Maverick.

This allows me to change from earning gold to mastery and provide a score table bronze/silver/gold depending on how you did in the trial.

Also, instead of increasing your max hand size to 6 when you're in monstrous form, you basically get an on-use action wildcard. This means you can switch between forms a few times during the game if you're determined and lucky and this gives a little wiggly room in completing the game without giving extra mastery.

The first one-card mini-expansion is Maverick: Devil's Mark.

It's a single red "6" action card that you place under the 6th monster in the proving grounds during setup. After you slay that monster, add the red "6" action card to your hand which counts toward your total hand size of five action cards. You can either play it like normal, or hold onto it until the end of the game, earning you 6 mastery (over the normal 1 mastery).