I’ve always wanted to make a multiplayer tabletop card game. Thought I’d finally give it a go. So I took a break from Wilt, my dream project- and started prototyping something smaller, just to see if I still had it.

I wanted to design a fast paced game, while also maintaining the strategy element, so chess felt like a solid place to start. The rules are familiar, the structure’s there. All I had to do is tweak a few things and add limitations.

Summoning: 

Classic chess has way too many pieces. I stripped it down.

• 2 Pawns 
• 1 Rook 
• 1 Bishop 
• 1 Knight. 
• 1 Queen. 
• King.

By default, the king starts on the board. The rest of the pieces can be summoned from your hand. You can summon only one piece per turn without any cost.

Board Structure:

The board was huge, so I scrunched it down to a 5x5 board with zones.

Backline: Only for big pieces (Queen, Rook, etc.)

Midline: Pawns go here (They could also be spawned in the backline)

Frontline: A lot of the action happens here (probably)

The board seems pretty small, but I really wonder if I should scale it up a little

Actions:

By default, you can move any piece one tile in their standard direction. It only makes sense to move them one space because the board’s small enough.

Now, every action, including attack, movement, and special effect is played through cards!

Attack cards dictate how a piece attacks and how much damage it costs. To add to the chess motif, certain attacks scale better or are buffed based on which piece you attack with. For example, the bishop could differ from the pawn by dealing ranged diagonal damage.

Movement cards grant your pieces mobility in unconventional ways they couldn’t otherwise have.

Tactic cards are basically special effect cards. Retreats, swaps, healing, pushbacks, discard effects etc. And fusion cards! They allow for two pieces to combine both piece’s capabilities. Imagine a Knight and a Bishop! (or a pawn and a pawn?)

Traps:

I gotta admit, this was quite Yu-Gi-Oh inspired. 

I wanted a game where map control was imperative. So why not a trap system? 

You pick 3 traps when building your deck but you can only place 2 in a game! You can place one adjacent to any of your pieces, and it’s all about using them at the right time. 

When placed, they’re face down and take up a tile. When they’re stepped on, they trigger certain effects like forced discards, poison status effects or straight up damage. 

These traps can also affect your own pieces if you’re careless.

Winning:

Kill the King! Simple as that.

If you can’t it’ll probably fall back on a point system earned from killing units and chaining card effects. 

Progress:

It’s my first turn-based multiplayer card game, and it's coming along super well.

So far, I’ve implemented all the basics, and all that’s left now is card effects and trap activation.

I’m super proud of this because multiplayer networking is new to me. I’m a little traumatized by Unity’s Netcode, though. I might switch over to Mirror and post updates when I do.

If any of this sounds interesting, or if you've got any suggestions (especially around networking ugh), drop a comment. I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for reading! :)