Elementum | kjersti

Elementum is still a work-in-progress, though it is doing well~

I'll show some of the iterations and work so far, though if you'd want a proper look at it, contact me and I'll happily provide you a playtest~

CONCEPT SNIPPIT:

Elementum is a 1v1 deck building game. Your characters are mages, batteling it out high up in the air - armed with wits and magic~ Goal? Kill your opponent, nice and simple!

Gameplay;

You may activate 'REMOVE' Effects.
Each player draw 2 cards.
Each player (taking turns) take two actions;
- Draw 1 card.
- Play 1 face-down card.
Each player nominate 1 face-down card each and reveal at the same time. Do effect by speed, and repeat until there is no more face-down cards.
Activate 'STAY' Effects.
Place new 'STAY' effects.
Each player may add a card from the pool to their discard.
Check for damage and swap 'acting player'.

The game has 10 different Element Cards with their own unique effects, and these are the deck building part of the game - shared between players as 'the pool'. Some elements have optional direct

effects, while others are 'STAY' effects cards that remain in play until removed.

Each player control one side of the board each that start out with the same set-up

and potential. Controlling 1 character each, the game ends when one of you are dead~

Gameplay's quick-phased with a small learning curve. Like most games, it does require you to have a read-through the rules at least once, but fundamentally it should be easy to get into the gameflow.

Turn order confusion?

Speed/ order indicators will handle it!

Here's the newest and oldest version of the game - That I have photos of.

The game, fundamentally, has not changed since the first version - though the mechanics in the current version is quite different.

The main changes has been done to the cards themselves. Their functions of what they could do highly favored aggressive play in the start, which was the intent as the game should be quick and have the players on their toes - but defensive players shouldn't feel utterly weak in comparison. I also wanted to avoid having some cards clearly better than others, which they were in the start.

Strengthen the weak

More rounded GamePlay!

In the current version, all the cards feel powerful in their own way. Players that prefer defensive strategies are no longer at a disadvantage, and game-play feel more tense as well. Changing the character HP from 5 to 3 really help emphasis that you can die at any moment!

Card iterations! Here's some using the card 'Fire'. The card sizes changed from big to small then big again under testing. I quite liked the mini pocket edition, although effect changes to the cards as well as playtesting with players that had weaker vision made me change it back to the bigger design.

'Fire' effects is the least altered card throughout production. It is the only direct damage card in the game, and were the only card with only 1 effect, although the latest edition of the card has changed that (not included in photo).
The current version, for balancing purposes, can no longer remove 'Water' and 'Nature' and has instead a secondary effect that send a card from a discard to the pool.

I'll end it here for now.

Next update will have the new board and perhaps some more artsy stuff~

The mechanics and balance feels done, though I may add some more tweaks after the next playtest ^^

Now, I mentioned that some cards were too weak before, and I really should include a few examples for that.

Take earth for example. It is one of the cards in the starting deck for each player. In the earlier iteration, all it did was hinder fire from dealing damage on the same lane as Earth was - and that was it. If your opponent didn't use fire there? You just wasted a card. Especially if it was in the earlier rounds before your platform had taken damage.

Now - the new and improved Earth - is brought up to snuff by being able to prevent the next 1 damage that turn no matter the source.

You can also choose to heal the platform, although the board change adding a starting empty 'shield' slot for each platform, makes it worthwhile to do for an early play.

'STAY' effects has

changed quite a bit over the iterations. Frost, the most drastically so. First off, 'STAY' cards used to have 1 effect as a 'STAY' and one immediate effect the player could choose from. Now, instead, 'REMOVE' is all 'STAY' cards second ability, and it allows the controller to willingly get rid of them.

Frost used to be a shield you could set up - but now, the board handles that and that's Earth's job to fill.

So Frost's purpose used to be 'block fire, and remove other 'STAY' cards. After the board change, Frost felt lacking, and its purpose changed from protection to assisting with a different type of damage - opponent card control.

At first, I went for decreasing the draw phase, although that proved tricky to remember and didn't feel like a proper impact. And since characters take damage if they have no cards on hand at the end of a turn, it worked a lot better to change its effect to discard cards. This also kept it consistent with other 'STAY' cards that does their effects during 'STAY'.

Curious about 'STAY' cards? Here's Frost!