Sky Ace

'Sky Ace'  is a superhero combat card game developed by Jeff Moore. Originally it was written as part of a 24 hour RPG contest, but there is a later version which cleans up and changes the mechanisms a little. It appears that Jeff no longer designs games, but you can find his output as downloads HERE.

The game uses standard playing cards, including the two Jokers. You need one deck per player. Your character is represented by a suitable figure, or pawn.

During the course of the game cards are laid on the table to form a grid of alternating red and black cards. Each character occupies one of these cards. When two characters are adjacent, either diagonally or orthogonally, an attack can be made. The nature of the attack depends on the relative positions of the two cards, and uses a series of mnemonics:

Adjacent along the short edge of the card or Head is a Hand to Hand attack
Adjacent along the long edge of the card or Side is a Stealth attack
Adjacent on the diagonal with the number/symbol of the card, or Digits, is a Distance attack
Adjacent on the corner with no number/symbol, of Clear corner, is a Charge attack.

These four types of attack are how a character is defined. There are four attack frequencies, which dictate how easy it is to score damage with an attack. Again, they use mnemonics:

Every Time hits on Even cards (2,4,6,8,10)
Occasionally hits on Odd cards (3,5,7,9)
Rarely hits on Royals (J,Q,K)
Almost Never hits on Aces and Jokers only.

A character is designed by assigning a frequency to each of the four attack types, with an optional bit of fluff. So, for example:

Captain America

Hand to Hand = Every Time (Skilled martial artist)
Stealth = Almost Never (Surprise move)
Distance = Occasionally (Throw shield)
Charge = Rarely (Attack with shield)

On a player's turn they take a card from their hand, and lay it on the grid in a legal position, such that it fits the chequer-board pattern, and is adjacent to both the player's character and at least one other. It can be laid over another card (effectively replacing it). The character is then moved onto the card. An attack may then be resolved. The nature of the attack is based on the relative positions, and the player can play cards from their hand with any which match the condition counting as a hit. Extra hits are scored if the attacker and/or the defender are on matching cards.

The defending character then plays cards from their hand matching their frequency, with each card negating one hit. If the attacker's score is still higher the defender takes damage.

There is an option for the phasing player to stay where they are, and to move an adjacent defending character onto a newly played card placed behind them. This is a knockback attack, and is resolved the same as a normal attack.

After attack and defence cards are played and compared, both characters draw new cards from their deck.

As a character takes damage, the number of cards in their hand is reduced.

And that's it. The game allows for multiple characters in play, and different levels of power are represented by higher or lower health points/hand size.

I played out a quick game this lunchtime but, as ever, decided to tweak the game. In combat the defender plays cards based on the incoming attack, so if they are attacked in Hand to Hand their defence is based on their Hand to Hand frequency, for example. I wanted a mechanism where a character's defence was independent of the other character's attack method. I noticed that the card suits were not used in the game, so tried building a defence mechanism around them. This is what I came up with ...

There are four defence methods each linked with a suit:

Clubs are Cunning (The character confuses the attacker in some way)
Diamonds are Dodge (The character ducks or avoids the attack)
Hearts are Hardiness (The character is tough or regenerates)
Spades are Shield (The character has some kind of active block)

As with attacks a character assigns a frequency to each defence. So to use Captain America again:

Cunning = Almost Never (Duck into cover)
Dodge = Occasionally (Martial arts dodge)
Hardiness = Rarely (Roll with the punch)
Shield = Every Time (His shield, of course!)

When a character is attacked, the defence they used is based on the suit of the card they are stood on. They then play cards from their hand matching that defence's frequency, scoring an extra block if their own card's value matches the frequency and another is that of the attacker matches.

Other changes I made were to discard cards from the board at the end of each character's tun if they were not adjacent to any character. Also, for simplicity, I used a single deck, since I was only playing with two characters.

I created two characters - Captain Britain and his arch-foe Slaymaster

Captain Britain

Hand to Hand - Occasionally
Distance - Rarely
Charge - Every Time
Stealth - Almost Never
Cunning - Almost Never
Dodge - Rarely
Hardiness - Every Time
Shield - Occasionally

The Captain flies into the attack hard and fast with little subtlety, relying on his strength and fists. His defence is based on being tough and his suit's force-field.

Slaymaster

Hand to Hand - Occasionally
Distance - Rarely
Charge - Almost Never
Stealth - Every Time
Cunning - Occasionally
Dodge - Every Time
Hardiness - Rarely
Shield - Almost Never

Slaymaster is a devious assassin, although not incapable in a straight fight. He often uses exotic weapons and always has a trick up his sleeve. In defence he relies on martial arts or trickery.

Here they both are, with their initial set-up cards.

The highest card gets to position them in any legal manner and take the first turn, so Slaymaster initiated the fight. Since they had to be positioned diagonally in order to create the correct grid, and Captain Britain is good at Charge attacks (on the 'Clear' diagonal) I positioned them for an initial ranged attack.

I didn't record a blow by blow account. Captain Britain took a hit early on, which cost him cards from his hand. In this shot he is launching a charge. Because it is his best ability, he hits on even cards, and gets bonus hits because both he and Slaymaster are positioned on even cards.

Slaymaster got to retaliate with a brutal attack - his hand to hand is 'occasional' so hits on odd cards. He could play three from his hand, and scored a bonus hit because Captain Britain was now on an odd card as well. So 4 hits!

Jokers are wild cards in terms of colour, with it being implicit by their position in the grid. I allowed them to be either of the two relevant suits for the purposes of defence.

I played the game at lunchtime, but not at work. I like to get out of the office at lunchtime, and just around the corner we have a lovely communal workspace, which is a co-venture by two community groups, Society City (which runs a second-hand bookshop, and organises poetry nights and similar story and word-related activities) and Hidden Harvest (who are about educating people in using 'waste' food and host a fortnightly 'recovered' food dinner). You can look both of them up on Facebook if you're that way inclined. I buy book and relish there, sometimes get to the dinners and use it as a pleasant and relaxing space to spend lunch-breaks when I'm not walking or shopping.

Anyway, Captain Britain was on the back foot for the whole game and here you can see him being finished off by Slaymaster. You should be able to work out the attack by now ...

The game was more interesting to play than I thought. I assumed that a character would always play to their strongest attack, and that's obviously the way to go if you can, but sometimes your hand doesn't let you go there, and you have to make the best of a bad job. Also playing to the enemy's weakest defence can pay off, even if it's not your best attack.

There's probably a couple of things I'd change based on this first game. Firstly I'd have the number of hits equal to the difference halved, but rounded up instead of down, so if the attacker beats the defender they score at least one point of damage. I'm also not sure about halving the difference to determine hits, as it creates situations where blocking one scored hit doesn't make a difference in terms of damage scored. Also I wasn't happy on the death spiral effect of a character losing cards as they lost hits, so may consider allowing a character to keep their full hand until they are defeated, increasing their options a little. How this will play out in games with multiple characters I'm not sure.

The defence traits were interesting, but I may try a game with the actual defence mechanism too, and see how that plays out.

Anyway, it was a pleasant way to while away a lunchtime.