Hey there everyone,
So I'm developing a card game (my first one) and I need help figuring out how many cards I will need in the deck to make sure the system's balanced. Is there some kind of algorithm or mathematical solution/template I could use?
Here's some more info on what I'm doing: Basically, in the first part of the game you start with 3 cards and you always need to have that amount of cards in your hand (that info is a little off topic, but it might be relevant). You draw cards from the deck which have point values on them (there are others, "specials", as well that are for later in the game, but I don't think they need to be included right now to determine deck size, just the ones with the point values) and place them down by you to start accumulating points or discard. Okay, so you do this until you reach 30 points which takes you to the next part of the game. A reason you would need to discard is that you need exactly 30 points to move on. I don't think that that's entirely relevant for my question, but just in case...
The point values are 1, 2, or 3 (I'm thinking that maybe these are too low, so another possibility might be 1, 3, 5 or something like that. This is probably a really important thing to know, but for the time being let's assume it's 1, 2, and 3).
As part of the second part of the game, points are deducted by "attacks" (just go with it here) off of that 30 that have been collected and when you've been knocked down to 0 points, you're out of the game. There's an option to go back to pulling cards to get back up to 30 to continue with the "attack" part of the game, so there needs to be enough cards in the deck to allow for this.
These cards I've been talking about (the draw deck) can be reshuffled when they've been gone through, so that's something to factor in, too.
Lastly (I think), I'm thinking that this would be for 4-6 people to play.
Okay, so all that being said (and thanks for reading this far), how do I figure out how many cards I would need and in which combos (how many 1's, 2's, 3's in the deck)? If you're instant response is "playtest it", there's gotta be a number to start from, no? Any help in this regard would be really appreciated. I love that this forum exists, so I've got my fingers crossed here for some good feedback!
P.S. In some respects this game might be similar to Milles Borne to think about for figuring out card amounts. How is it done for these types of games?
Thanks!
Ah, yes, algerbra. I probably should find it simple. :)
Yeah, everyone would be drawing from the same deck and everyone would have to get 30 points to move on to the next part of the game. At various points they might have to go back to drawing from the deck to replenish points that were lost in the second half of the game, so I'm not sure if that effects the formula you laid out I guess I could increase the total number of points for more cards to cover that possibility even with reshuffling the deck. What do you think?
And I intend for there to be a lot of playtesting, I just needed a point to start from, is all.
Anyway, it's a great place to start, so thanks!
Anyone else with ideas?