But this isn’t entirely true – even though the computer can crunch the numbers, the player may still want to understand what they mean.Īfter my disappointment with Cards and Castles 2, I still felt nostalgic for Duelyst, so I tried another similar game Stormbound. In contrast to board game design, I think it is tempting when making computer games to assume that complex calculations carry no cost because the computer is performing them.

Abilities phrased in terms of small integers are a lot easier to grasp. The only percentages that most players can multiply without effort are 50%, multiples of 100%, and (to a lesser degree) 10%. Another related issue with Cards and Castles 2 is that the abilities of the cards use percentages “this unit gets 20% damage resistance” or “this unit takes 70% less damage when attacked from the front.” A percent value works for probabilities but serves as a barrier to understanding when it requires actual multiplication. The moral of the story is that large numbers make it harder for players to grasp the game state because they make the arithmetic harder and less automatic. Duelyst, by contrast, keeps most numbers under ten and displays them clearly beneath the creatures.

Cards and Castles 2 presents as a CCG suitable for quick matches against other people, so the amount of processing required to understand each unit is more noticeable. Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game often played against the computer, so you expect to consider each move carefully. Worse, to see the current attack and health, you have to mouse over a unit, making it very difficult to understand each creature on the board at a glance.įunnily enough, Battle for Wesnoth has similar combat mechanics and granularity, but I don’t mind it in that game. However, the range of numbers used commonly goes into the forties and fifties. Attacking lowers your target’s health number and also prompts them to counterattack. Just as with Duelyst, each creature has an attack number and a health number. I stopped playing after only a few minutes because I found the granularity of the combat mechanics to be unbearably high. Recently, partially out of nostalgia for Duelyst, I tried out a similar game called Cards and Castles 2. While I don’t often care much about graphics, I found its pixel art style one of its most compelling features. Essentially, Hearthstone but with spatial positioning. Duelyst was an online CCG where players drew creatures, items, and spells and played them to a grid.

Back when its servers were still active, I remember enjoying Duelyst a lot, in particular. I have never played Hearthstone, but I have played some of the games it inspired.

Cards and castles 2