Mutant Pizza

Hello Otherworldly Beings—

Happy Winter, my friends. I hope you’re all staying warm and drinking the holiday (and hot cocoa) in with your people. Today, I’m going to talk about a new game. Yes, another new game. Game design is journey…or something.

And my, what a journey this has been. Earlier this year, I was writing journal entries left and right about Existentialitis, an Untitled Tarot-Inspired Game, and Escape the Entity. I’m still working on Escape the Entity, although I’m in the stages of tweaking stats here and there for balance so there’s nothing to write home the Internet about. Exitentialitis and the tarot narrative game are taking a back seat to this game for now. In fact, this game is the result of me trying, and failing, to make Existentialitis work to my vision. Right now, I’m calling it Psychic Battle; let’s dive in—

Psychic Battle is a tableau builder

A mechanic I experimented with during the development of Existentialitis was tableau building. The idea with that game was that you could build out rows of cards that represented your weekly tasks, “running through your week” from left to right. Messing around with tableau building sparked a different thematic idea and I ran with it.

In Psychic Battle, you are a powerful psychic facing off head-to-head against your formidable opponent, each using your souls to bend aspects of reality to your will, then using your powerful minds to attack your enemy’s body to destroy them.

You’ll power up each aspect of you over time to give yourself more health, more power, and more energy.

Right now, there are four different suits of cards with unique play styles. This is something I’m rapidly playtesting to see how well it works. During your turn, you’ll run through each row, called Currents, in your tableau, called your Order, increasing your stats for each. Soul increases your purchase power from the market, called the Chaos Flow. Mind increases your attack power. And body increases your health.

See that number in the bottom-left corner of the cards above? Those increase the stat of wherever you put the card (mind, body, or soul). You get to choose which of the three Currents you’d like to place a card you acquire in to increase your tankiness, attack, or purchasing power. Each card also has an ability that’s triggered when you play the card or when it’s activated as you run through that Current from left to right during your turn.

Currently, there are four suits, each having their own unique abilities and play styles. I’m working through a lot of this right now, so I don’t want to get into specifics about it. Suffice to say, each suit has two main characteristics for you to exploit.

I’m currently running this through playtests with great results. It’s been a blast to design so far and feels natural.

That’s all for now on this game but before you go, I want to briefly mention here that I’m going to be undergoing a bit of a “rebranding” of sorts. Or rather, a de-branding. I’ll make a larger announcement with further details on this later this month or in early January. I’m excited for what’s in store, so I hope y’all will stick with me as I change my moniker and settle into something that feels more like me.

See you later, Otherworldly Beings…