Rules Unveiled.....almost

Well Tim Ellington, Decipher game designer, released many more details today about the upcoming Fight Klub card game, read below:

We’ve talked about some of the cards, functions and design goals of Fight Klub, but how exactly does the game work? What are the components of the game, and how does it all come together?

In a nutshell, here’s how it plays out.

There are 6 types of cards in Fight Klub:

1) Character (Starts in play. Hero or Villain. Provides Energy and game functions)
2) Condition (Plays on table and provides game functions.)
3) Effect (Plays from hand to provide numeric boosts to skirmishes. Some provide game functions.)
4) Fight card (Plays on table. Most have three skirmishes that match up with opponent’s Fight card.)
5) Gear (Plays on table, can provide numeric boosts as well as game functions.)
6) Instants (Plays from hand and provides game functions.)

A deck consists of 40 cards:

1 Hero or Villain
12 Fight cards in a Fight stack
27 cards in your Draw deck.

You build your deck around your character and the Energy they generate (one or more of the three “colors” of Energy). You choose Fight cards that work in combination with Effects and other cards to win skirmishes and score damage against your opponent’s life. Your Draw deck consists of cards that help you create a synergistic balance between executing your gameplan and disrupting your opponent’s strategy.

A typical character may have 8 Life, 5 Hand and 1 Hold. It takes 8 damage to knock you out of the game, and you get to start each turn with 5 cards in hand and can keep (Hold) 1 card at the end of each turn before you Even up (Discard down to your Hold number, then Draw up to your Hand number).

At the start of the game (and at the start of each turn), your character generates Energy, marked by colored tokens. This Energy pool is used as a bank of resources to pay the cost of playing cards from your 27-card Draw deck. Fight cards, which are drawn from a separate Fight stack, have no cost to play.

A turn has three Phases: Setup, Fight and Cooldown.

The Setup Phase starts with each player getting their Energy allocation, and then each player gets two Setup actions. A Setup action can be used to play a Condition or Gear to the table, play an Instant card with the Setup keyword, or execute a Setup gameplay function from a card in play.The player with The Drop determines which player takes BOTH their Setup actions first. Then the other player plays their Setup actions. Then each player turns over three Fight cards, creating three random “fights.”

The Fight Phase begins when the player with The Drop decides which fight to resolve first. Once the fight is chosen, each player gets one Enhance action. An Enhance action can be used to play an Effect card on a player’s current Fight card, play an Instant card with the Enhance keyword, or execute an Enhance gameplay function from a card in play. The player with The Drop determines which player takes their Enhance action first.
The fight is then resolved by determining who wins the most skirmishes on the Fight card, or who has the winning condition if the fight is being resolved with Clash gametext. After the fight is resolved, and any rewards or bonuses are awarded, each player gets one Score action. The player with The Drop determines which player takes their Score action first. The player with The Drop then chooses the next fight, and the steps are repeated until all three fights are resolved.

After the final fight of the turn, there is a Cooldown Phase. Each player gets one Cooldown action. A Cooldown action can be used to play an Instant card with the Cooldown keyword, or execute a Cooldown gameplay function from a card in play. The player with The Drop determines which player takes their Cooldown action first.

Both players then Even up by discarding to their Hold number, and then drawing to their Hand number. The Drop is exchanged, signalling the end of the turn, and the next turn begins, with the player with The Drop determining action priority.

As you can see, the game is not mechanically complex, but the variations you can create with your choices of Fight cards and Effects, as well as the way you can manipulate the table with your other cards creates a play environment thats fast, fun and has tons of in-game decisions to keep you on your toes. :-)

So, an example might be:

A fight card with skirmish numbers of 3-4-5.

Your character provides a bonus for the center skirmish of, say 2. You play an Effect that gives you a 2-0-1 boost, and now your skirmish totals are 5-6-6. What can your opponent muster? Let’s say you win the center and right skirmishes, so you score the Fight card. The right skirmish had a reward tab of Add 1 Yellow Energy. So you get to score 1 damage to your opponent and Add 1 Yellow Energy for winning the reward tab.

But your opponent plays an Instant for his Score action, which awards him 2 of any energy if he loses the previous fight. Now he has 5 Yellow Energy tokens, to your 3, and the next Fight card has clash text which scores the fight for the player with the most Yellow Energy! But for your Enhance action in that fight you activate an Enhance function on one of your Conditions that forces your opponent to Burn 2 Energy… now what options does your opponent have? :-)

He can’t change the outcome, so you managed to tie that Fight card. This “raises the stakes” and the two tied cards are set aside, waiting for the outcome of the next fight, the final one of the turn. Which, because you had The Drop, you waited to do last because….

Tim
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Thanks Tim, looks like we are close to summing them up!

More on the turn sequence......

Well as of today the countdown clock has expired to apply to be a Founding Mentor and all that it includes. However you can still be a Mentor once the game is released. No release date has been set but I would imagine it would coincide with one of the Summer conventions so as to maximize the exposure to gamers. Game Designer, Tim Ellington shed some more light on the rules last Friday, see below:

"The turn sequence is always an interesting part of any game. Different games have different styles. Some are very rigid in structure, and some are more free-flowing. In Fight Klub, we want to keep the “rules” part simple while making the game as strategically deep as possible.

An old game design axiom is “it’s like chess… easy to learn, a lifetime to master.” Chess has relatively few rules. Each piece can do a limited number of movements, and you get one “action” per turn. With the exception of castling, there’s not a lot of “special rules” you have to know. Fight Klub isn’t exactly like chess, but the goal is the same. Make it easy to learn, but strategic to play and challenging to master.

In order to make the basic game “movements” as easy to understand as possible, we have created a turn sequence that tries to minimize confusion and timing issues that can plague some games.

There are three Phases in a turn. Setup, Fight and Cooldown. Eash phase has a few actions that can be taken, and it’s set up in the following steps.

The Setup Phase is easy as 1-2-3.

Do this once – First Setup action.
Do this twice – Play one Condition OR one Gear OR one Instant – Setup OR take one Setup action.
Do this three times – Flip a Fight card from the Fight stack.

Now you’re ready to fight :-)

Each of your three Fight cards constitutes a fight. The Fight Phase follows these steps:

1st Fight:
Enhance – Play one Effect OR one Instant-Enhance or take one Enhance action.
Fight – Skirmish resolutions and/or Fight card gametext.
Score – Play one Instant-Score OR take one Score action AND Score any winning Fight cards.

2nd Fight:
Enhance – Play one Effect OR one Instant-Enhance or take one Enhance action.
Fight – Skirmish resolutions and/or Fight card gametext.
Score – Play one Instant-Score OR take one Score action AND Score any winning Fight cards.

3rd Fight:
Enhance – Play one Effect OR one Instant-Enhance or take one Enhance action.
Fight – Skirmish resolutions and/or Fight card gametext.
Score – Play one Instant-Score OR take one Score action AND Score any winning Fight cards.

The Cooldown Phase contains end-of-the turn mechanics as follows:

Play one Instant-Cooldown OR take one Cooldown action.
Discard to Hold number, THEN Draw to Hand number.
Exchange The Drop.

Keep in mind, the player with The Drop determines which player takes their actions first in each phase of the turn. They also determine the order in which the Fight cards are resolved.

By having an easy-to-understand structure for the turns, we want the learning curve for Fight Klub to be quick and easy, so you can spend more time playing and learning the deeper strategies involved.

Tim"

Thanks Tim, and we look forward to more details forthcoming each and every Friday as the launch date gets closer.