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Saturday, 6 July 2019

Ace And Joker

I've been playing more games of 'Sky Ace' today, fiddling with how many cards each character should get, and trying to keep it tied with the number of hits they can take. For this set of games I used Batman and The Joker.

I tracked one short game to give a partial example of how it plays. For this game I gave both characters four hits and a hand of four cards. This does mean it's possible for one to take down the other in one attack. In a two character game that makes for a brutal, short game, but it may not be so much of an issue with multiple figures on each side.

To fully understand the mechanisms refer to the posts linked above.

Anyway, this is the start. The characters both drew a card with the Joker getting the Queen of Spades and Batman the 8 of Diamonds. With the higher value card the Joker gets to position the characters. They have to be placed in an alternating red/black pattern, however, so the Joker is obliged to place them orthogonally. His best position is side by side, and that is a Stealth attack, his best move. But in fact his hand doesn't contain an even card, which score hits on that attack. With his hand, the Hand to Hand attack is best, even though it hits on Royal cards only. The Joker scores a 3 hit attack - the Queen he is positioned on, plus two Royals from his hand.



Batman is on a Diamond allowing him to Dodge - his best defence. He can use even cards to counter the attack. He counts the 8 he is on, and can play two more cards from his hand to block all 3 hits.


It's Batman's turn. He plays a King of Hearts in a knockback attack. This means that Batman stays where he is, placing the card behind the Joker and moving him onto it. Hearts are the Joker's worst defensive posture, representing his Hardiness.


The attack is still hand to hand - Batman's favoured option hitting on even cards. He counts the 8 he is positioned on, and adds two more cards from his hand to score 3 hits.


The Joker can only defend with Aces or Jokers, and has none, so takes all 3 hits. Ouch!

The Joker plays a 10 of Clubs on his turn, moving on to it. Clubs are his best defensive position. Since he's not adjacent to Batman, no attack takes place.


Batman plays a 3 of hearts, enabling him to move into another Hand to Hand attack. The Joker is on an even card, which means Batman automatically scores 1 hit. Unfortunately Batman's hand is rubbish, and that's all he can manage. The Joker is able to block it with an even card from his hand.


The Joker plays a 7 of Spades and moves to the side of Batman to launch a Stealth attack - his best move. Batman is on a Heart, which is not a good defence for him (he relies on Cunning Clubs and Diamond Dodges to survive). The Joker plays a 10, which is a hit and Batman can't block it.


Unfortunately that wasn't a clever move for the Joker. Batman can return the Stealth attack, using the knockback move again. Batman hits on odd cards as well, so gets one hit for his own card, one for the Joker being on an odd card and is able to lay another odd from his hand. The Joker takes 3 hits.

The Joker is on a Diamond, which would normally be a good defence, needing odd cards. But he doesn't have any. The 3 hits are enough to take him out.


I'm really happy with how the card-play pans out, but still need to think about how many cards a character should have and how many hits they can take. I like the idea of a fight with up to six characters involved using a single deck - the original game has a deck per character, which is fine for a two character game, but becomes clumsy for multiple characters. But a single deck limits how many hands you can have in play; you simply start to run out of cards, given that some are in play as the board as well. A deck per side might work though, and I may try this in the next game. I actually found a hand of four cards nicely limiting, but may give characters 5 hits

For my next game I may try multiple characters on each side and see how that plays out.

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