4 Cards That Will COMPLETE Your Homemade TCG | Talk TCG

so looking back on my own TCG I realized how lost I was now I had the drive and I had the passion but I really lack the knowledge and in this video I am going to share with you something I wish I knew from the start so if you are designing your own homemade TCG set then make sure you include these four categories of cards that I believe makes a complete whole me TCG because if your TCG is missing just one of these four categories then your players will likely just move on so let's keep your players around and I hope you stick around for this video as we dive into the first card category engine building cards the usual format for a TCG is for it to start out slowly usually by playing just one perhaps two cards on your opening turn by around turn five You' be expecting your players to be activating bonus draw Power bringing several Fighters into play in a single move and triggering card effects on top of card effects on top of card effects now what I am trying to see is does your TCG have cards within the game that allow your players to ramp up game play that is what we are referring to today as engine building cards your players need to build some form of system to score points the system starts small but then grows as the game progresses the way this is usually achieved it's through a combination of card mechanics that Compound on top of each other now as a player I need to feel like I am progressing through your card game so if your TCG doesn't ramp up in game play then what is the incentive for players to continue playing your game now me make sure your cards act as jigsaw pieces to create more elaborate effects as more cards are added to the field of play that way as we progress through several turns the power level of our Cards begin to stack on top of each other and that should give your players that lovely warm feeling that you get when you're progressing and advancing through a game this is the ramping effect that you get with engine building cards and I hope now you see how important that is to have in your own TCG and before I reveal the next three categories of cards I just want to show you this picture I drew a bit earlier isn't it really nice and look he's pressing the like button I wish I was like him pressing that like button don't you wish you could be like him well anyway on to the next category reset cards if your game doesn't have a way of clearing your opponent strongest cards of the field then your players are going to experience the Snowball Effect where when one player starts to show just that little bit more dominance over the other player they can start taking advantage of this the dominaing player starts to gain more access to more mechanics they get more freedom where they can inflict more damage on the losing opponent now you might not see this as a problem because the better players winning right but this starts to make your Trading Card Game look very very predictable as soon as you start to see the slightest Advantage you might as well end the game because you know what the outcome is going to be if you don't offer your players access to reset cards where they can wipe the slay clean and start fresh in the middle of a game with a Chance of coming back then players are going to move on to another game that will offer that now we don't just have to use reset cards in order to balance out the game in such a way I've addressed game balancing in another video which I'll put a link at the end of this video so be sure to check that out but not until you're done with this video first thank you now a reset card can either Target one big enemy for one good hit and clear out your opponent's boss monster which will severely weaken them or you can have a reset card that could hit a little bit less but hit several enemies essentially clearing your opponent of all their little Annoying mobs that might be giving them that field advantage or you can even go to the extreme and just say this card wipes out everything on the field but I don't think we have to go that far and because if you create a card like that it will just become a stable in every single deck you see and as a TCG Creator like yourself you want to see as many as your cards used as possible but no matter what type of reset cards that you put in your game make sure that they have a large cost attached to them these types of cards shouldn't be used every single turn these cards need to be reserved for when you have your back against the wall it should leave your players drained of any resources they have left that way it's also resetting the player that used it and not creating such a drastic swing in the balance of play Trash cards now trash cards are usually just there to fill a slot this category of card is more of a byproduct of a TCG rather than the design feature of a TCG now to categorize a card as a trash card it just has to be below the power curve to put it simply it is a card that isn't as good as your other cards so why have I included trash cards in one of my four categories today yes the main purpose of trash cards is mainly to make your good cards look even better by comparison but that doesn't mean that you can't give your trash cards a purpose within your TCG if you design a system that targets cards of certain types elements factions Clans whatever it is then trash cards always have the potential to be that little Cog in the machine that helps the big cogs go trash cards can also have the role of having card effects that very rarely trigger only in obscure circumstances this offers your players a fun challenge in figuring out how to actually incorporate those types of Cards into the game now another role that trash cards can have is being cheap to get into play a trash card can have a rubbish effect or no effect it can have low stats but it can be cheap to bring out onto the field this can be excellent if you have players that are trying to conserve their resources for more important cards later in the game sometimes a cheap card just to get a bit of field presence or just for an easy hit is worth putting on the field to conserve your energy for that next big hit that you're planning but like I said before trash cards are mainly there just to make your good cards look better and if you try to make every card useful some cards will just become trash cards anyway so is it better to make the power Gap WI to make your best cards look even more powerful by comparison let me know in the comment section below what you think about this one thank you now I've got one more category of card to show you today and what better way to finish this video than with this category of card game finishing cards have you ever been in a game where you just wish it was over when you were play testing your trading card game make sure it is finishing just before you wanted to now this is a fine balance to get right because anyone can make a game that is way too fast and anyone can make a game that is way too slow what you want your game to be is just a little bit too fast that way your players are left wanting to play again think of it like how someone might not be willing to commit to a 20-minute YouTube video but that same person is more than willing to go through Tik Tok or YouTube shorts for 20 minutes just scrolling scrolling scrolling it's the same amount of time this is the same for games that reset right before the bordedom kicks in allows players to continue for much longer because with a brand new game you have the potential to do anything so design powerful game finishing cards that will allow your players to finish off the game right before the point of bordom and then they'll play the next match and then they'll play the next match and before you know they have been playing your TCG for hours and hours and hours and if you can do that then you have created a wonderful magical trading card game and that's just amazing thank you goodbye

Channel: Shard TCG

Views: 7,963

Keywords: Shard TCG, homemade tcg, making a tcg, making a homemade tcg, starting a homemade tcg, homemade tcg idea, how to make a tcg, tcg design, homemade tcg lessons, card game design, card game design mistake, homemade trading cards, htcg design, homemade tcg design, indie tcg, how to make a homemade tcg, how to make indie tcg, trading card game, make trading cards, htcg ideas, make htcg, htcg help, homemade tcg help, starting a htcg, carde game design, tcg card design

Id: rWJurFECcxE

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023