CCG #1- Flavor and Function pitfalls.

Note: This post is about collectible card games.

Look! A blank card! It's up to you to fill in her abilities with something appropriate!

What would you fill the text box with? What would you pick up on? Okay. So I admit, you probably know nothing about the girl in the card box. Where could you even begin? Her name just sounds.. vaguely American and vaguely Japanese.

She's listed as a 'Major Character' so something grand, perhaps? She's also listed as a 'witch'.. which means.. err.. she should summon.. monkeys? It's rather hard to say given just the image and the name to come up with anything concrete.

Is she important? What does she do?

Let me provide some context:


Truly, a sign of greatness. Pause and bask at the greatness of 'Master Spark!' Clearly the card in question should damage other cards.

Great, so a mechanic like: Use this card. Hurt some other card would be quite fitting and it would be precisely in flavor.


This is a good demonstration of the first few pitfalls of designing from a strong context. Were we given no context and free range of what card could do, who knows what we would put on that box. The summon monkeys thing was promising.

Sadly, the context restricts us to fewer abilities to fit flavor. When you come up with a design for something, starting from a strong flavor base can give you ideas, but when your initial idea is 'Cool guy with a sword' there's only so many directions you can go.

Now, onto specifics:

There are a few issues with this combination of image/ability. Mainly because:

1. No context from the card itself. Unless you had the proper context, the picture and the ability doesn't quite synchronize. The happy smiley girl's sole purpose appears to be harming people. With what exactly? The broom?

Solution 1: Replace the image with something more fitting.

Looks painful, doesn't it?

Obviously, you can't just change the image on a whim. Mainly because you probably don't have the resources to requisition tons and tons of artwork for slight changes in abilities or ideas that you have. Which brings us to solution two...

Solution two: Provide context on the card itself.

Little story snippets, quotes and dialogue can help synchronize the disconnect between the ability and the card. It's a good deal cheaper than recommissioning art.

2. Doesn't push or pull the player in any direction. A card that simply deals direct damage is a very simple function. Depending on the game in question, it could be easily replaceable by some other card. It doesn't serve a unique purpose. Unless the card is very powerful or very undercosted, there is no incentive to use this card specifically.

People may criticize variants on the same idea for being 'boring' and 'unoriginal.' But the alternative is worse. You do not ever want to see a long slew of abilities that read: Deal 1 damage. Deal 2 damage. Deal 1-2 damage.

Instead, variants and restrictions allow different factors to push and pull them in directions.

3. It's boring. For a 'Major Character' having a boring ability is really bad. Tons of things simply 'hurt people.' You could easily imagine an archer having the ability to 'hurt someone.' A guy who throws darts could 'hurt someone.' While the flavor and function synchronize, the basic ability simply isn't attractive enough. This is a major flaw. While simple boring functional tools are good to have, it's criminal to put them on something that is considered 'Major.'


While this example is far from perfect, it makes an attempt at reconciling the basic issues of the initial simple design. It brings up the context level of the card to something understandable. It pushes the player to a certain direction (More.. whatever the numbers mean is a good thing.) And it's not quite as boring as the original ability.

Onto the next post, where I talk about where this version gets it all wrong...