Refresh

Because the legacy microgame will have a fluctuating deck size...how does one refresh the deck as cards are removed from the game...permanently?

My initial thinking is...the starting deck starts with 20 cards. At the end of game, if the deck size is less than 16 cards, you add a new set of "fresh" 8 cards. So....let's say that the game comes packed with a 20 card starting deck, and 20 expansion decks of 8 cards. So, that's 180 cards total. That's not unreasonable.

The new fresh cards would be thought of a sort of a CCG expansion pack; most of the cards would be duplicate versions of the default starting (and boring ) cards. But one card would be a neat surprise, already started with some wacky rules on it.

And each of the 20 expansion decks would have a single, different mystery "rare". Working through the game to rip enough cards to open the next expansion to see what the next rare card is could be fun; opening the next set of goodies in Risk Legacy was always the best part of the game to me.

Thinking

So, I'm working on a mash-up of a micro card game and a legacy-style game. Stay with me here. It's an odd combination.

The base game is a small deck of cards that you play through once. You score. Then you mark up the cards with stickers. Maybe you get to rip up some cards. At some point, when the deck gets low, you replenish the deck with a new subset of fresh, unmarked cards. Rinse and repeat.

Ultimately, the fun of the game is manipulating the deck and cards to the player's whims. Claiming ownership of certain cards, and figuring out ways to destroy the powerful cards that other players have claimed and built. Every time you play the deck will be somewhat different, based on how you've manipulated the deck and cards.

As far as what the stickers and "write-on-the-cards" kind of thing do, I think that's fairly easy to come up with stuff. It's mostly just giving the players some weird ways to control the game a little bit. And trying to come up with bizarre ways to combo stuff.

But I don't think that's the BIG issue that needs to be solved.

I think the real trick is figuring out the pacing of mucking up the cards and deck. Ideally, you want the ability to enhance or destroy a card to be a relatively special event...so a single player shouldn't be able to do it every game. Maybe every third game, on average? Every fifth game might be too far out. Or maybe not, depending on how fast the game itself is....these little micro-games play pretty darn fast.