I'm in the middle of designing a game that's gone through more than 8 iterations and finally feel as though I've hit a chord of clarity, but the game is still having issues. Here's my game in a nutshell:
Tile Combat, Rock-Paper-Scissors fighting, Hand Management, Hit-the-House victory condition (players have bases that you have to hit to win).
Players have hands of cards that they "program" to each tile face down at the start each turn, which give them a specific amount of movement that turn as well as a unique power (move an extra space if you win a fight, move another tile instead of this one, etc.). When tiles fight, both players choose one of the cards remaining in their hands (hands of 5 cards in a 2p game, 3 cards are programmed and 2 are left in their hands) to play face-down in front of themselves, then turn face-up simultaneously. Using the rock-paper-scissors mechanic, players compare cards to see who wins the fight. The loser's tile is removed from the board and both played cards are discarded and players get to redraw those cards from the decks (which are separated into rock-paper-scissors categories). The first player to charge across the short board and attack the opponent's Base wins the round!
At the start of the first round, there are 5 cards in each of the 5 Rock-Paper-Scissors categories (more like rock paper scissors lizard spock) with numbers on them that range from 1-25, in groups of 5. Tile initiative order is determined by lower numbers, and combat ties are won by higher numbers (lower numbers move faster, higher numbers hit harder). Each category has one unique card with 5 different numbers (Card A 1, A 2, A 3, A 4, A 5, B 6, etc.). You add 5 new cards to each category at the start of each round and remove one from all previous rounds to lower the probability of drawing the early-round cards (likening them to rare artifacts) and increase the probability of drawing the newest cards (like modern technologies). By the end of the game (there are 5 rounds), each category deck will have 15 cards (1 from I, 2 from II, 3 from III, 4 from IV, and 5 from V) for a 2-player game. Each round also increases the amount of times the base has to be hit by 1, extending the duration of the later rounds.
Finally, I've toyed with scoring, but currently have: Kill a Tile=1pt, Kill (not just hit) a Base=5pts. This makes circumstances like in Harry Potter, where you can "Catch the Snitch but lose the game", if an opponent massacres your Tiles all game but you kill his Base everytime.
I've also fought various methods of using the cards themselves:
The card you use for a Tile becomes the cards you use when fighting with that tile, making fights a lot more transparent and less suspenseful.
Also, keeping the cards you use in Fights so that the opponent knows for sure what might be in your hand to help them strategize for fights better.
Sorry for the massive post! This game has plagued me for the better part of a year and I feel like I have something that I can at least work with right now, I just need to iron out some of the small problems I'm having that I outlined here!
Thank you for any time you commit to this post!
That sounds like an amazing idea! The game is based around raw elements, so something like Weather affecting the board would be a powerful strategy addition! Something like Rain boosts Water movement and Lightning efficiency in combat, thanks for the idea!