card-game

Card Game

A playbook for card games — card data, the deck/hand/discard zones, the turn structure, and how card effects resolve. This is a compositional skill: it models cards as data and wires them to UI. It does not re-teach data assets or UI nodes; it defines the zone model, the draw machinery, and the effect-resolution rules that keep a card game correct and bug-free.

When to use

• Use when building any game where the core objects are cards moving between zones (deck → hand → play → discard): deckbuilder, TCG/CCG, solitaire, roguelike deckbuilder.
• Use when designing draw/shuffle/reshuffle, turn structure, card costs, or how effects resolve.

When not to use: board/tile state with matching rules → puzzle. RPG with an incidental card battler → start from rpg. For defining cards as assets, use godot-resources / unity-scriptableobjects; for the hand/drag UI, use godot-ui-control.

Core loop

Draw to your hand → spend resources to play cards → effects resolve and change the board → end the turn (cleanup/discard) → opponent/next phase → repeat until a win condition. Depth comes from the combinations a hand allows; the engine's job is to resolve them unambiguously.

Must-have systems

1. Card data — id, name, cost, type, text, and an effect spec (data, not code).
2. Zones — deck (draw pile), hand, play/board, discard, exile/removed; cards live in exactly one.
3. Draw + shuffle + reshuffle — draw from deck to hand; reshuffle discard into deck when empty.
4. Turn structure — phases (untap/draw/main/combat/end) as a state machine.
5. Resource system — mana/energy/actions that gate how much you do per turn.
6. Effect resolution — apply a card's effects in a defined order; handle targets and triggers.
7. Win/loss condition — life total, deck-out, objective.
8. UI — hand layout, drag/drop or tap-to-play, zone counts, targeting affordances.

Design knobs

Knob	Effect	Notes
Starting hand / draw-per-turn	tempo, consistency	More draw = less variance.
Hand size limit	hoarding vs. use	Discard down at end of turn.
Deck size (min)	consistency	Smaller = more reliable combos.
Resource curve	what's playable when	"Mana curve" paces power.
Card rarity / power budget	balance	Stronger cards cost more / are rarer.
Determinism vs. randomness	skill vs. swing	Shuffle + random effects add variance.
Reshuffle rules	deck-out, fatigue	Reshuffle discard, or punish empty deck.
Removal / answers	counterplay	Every threat needs an answer in the pool.