7 hours. More organizing today! Pulled the data out of Eggs for tier 5 and 6 upgrades. Created the menu entries for tiers 2 - 4, most of these entries are fully functional with proper cost scaling, pricing and effect on the money engine (or w/e else its supposed to touch). That being said a few are not functional because I had not figured out how to incorporate the space they impact into the theme. I figured that out today and some more points of failure for the game will be introduced soon. Fixed and issue with how price scaling was being calculated. Set up the framework for how to effect almost every nob that there is in the game right now.
Update on First Blood. Got to play a game against Jack yesterday. By speeding up the leveling in the game characters far more naturally got to level 5 where they can get their ults. That feels important to me. However because the ultimate ability is only one card in a card of 15ish cards it has a very low turn over and a very infrequent impact. There are a couple ways to consider solving this. I could make a character's ultimate ability add 2 copies to the discard pile instead of 1. This feels dangerous for reasons of variance. Or I could try to tone down the number of cards in the game in general. I could do this in a few ways. I could start the player with fewer auto attacks, make all spells add only 1 copy, add a deck thinning mechanic to the game (every level you may chose to remove a card in your deck from the game). Currently I am attached to the 3 card stream which imposes a certain minimum size on the starting deck. Preferably it should be 5 or more so that players are not grabbing a card from the center and then adding it directly back the board. If I were to bring down the seed deck to 3 auto attacks I would need to start the player at level 2 so that they at least have a 5 cards deck and thus some very limited, but still existent, choices in the early goings. I am not sold on either of these paths as of right now.
Since I never want a game of First Blood to take 30 min I should probably remove levels 12 - 15 from the game. If a game sees a character hit 15 it would be freak accident. This would allow me to cap spells at level 3 instead of 4. Currently the best thing you can do in the game is get a level 4 spell. Capping at level 3 will mean that the deck's primary spell is less powerful in the mid game, and it should force people to diversify faster (although currently the lack of diversifying is my fault as the designer, neither of the two characters I have made have a greatly useful 3rd spell). One spell either maxes at 5 or you get your ult, at levels 6 and 7 the player Must look at other spells in a more serious way.
The mechanics surrounding the river seems to be getting good attention. Towers having 3 health is probably too much, particularly because I want to give a defender's advantage on the spot where an attack on the tower can be made. I think that lowering tower health to 2 and bracing myself for movement enhancing items breaking the game is probably the most fun thing I can do with that for now. My blink character is probably heeeella broken.
Right now money doesn't matter much, but that is to be expected, I just had to throw out all my item designs. Having all the items I come up with available for purchase seems overwhelming though. I'd be recreating the exact same problems that Mobas have. I'm considering making the shop a deck, and that has a hand of 3 cards which are open information for both players. Those items are what can be purchased. I also want a mechanic where a player can pay to get an item replaced in the shop, because either they don't want it or because their opponent wants it and will get it before they can. Ex. for (1 + # of items trashed since a purchase) gold send a item to the shop's discard. The shop's discard functions just like the players'. I'm also interested in having copies of the same item that cost different amounts. Maybe a dagon isn't worth 13 gold to you, but at 6 you'd take it.