This card has Trample. And Bleed. And returns from the graveyard. And is +7/+7. And it can’t be destroyed by effects. And- And- AND!
I’m sure you’ve seen something like this before in a card game. The more powerful the card, the more things it can do. To an absurd point. Every card can do everything. Nothing can stop it. Much less can you actually remember everything it does without reading the card a bajillion times. Sometimes there’s so much text on the card you need a magnifying glass just to read it!
We’ve all been there.
And that was something that Phil and I decided early on wasn’t something we wanted in our game. We wanted each card to do something unique. Trample wasn’t an effect to be given to a dozen cards. There was only one card with Trample (for example). That made each effect and each card special. These effects were something that no other card could do.
The card that exhausts an opponent’s ship? That's Wave in a Bottle. And only Wave in a Bottle. The card that returns one of your opponent’s Pirates to their hand? That would be Reef Ronin. And only Reef Ronin. In this way, each card has their unique slot that they occupy in your strategy. In other games there’s plenty of good design that goes into the use of keywords and abilities that are shared between cards. It becomes less of a question of ‘do I want this ability’ and more 'what flavor of this ability do I want'. That’s a cool decision for players to make. But since Here Be Monsters doesn’t have a mana system, that approach becomes a little trickier.
We learned that this philosophical gameplay approach was even more integral given the fact that cards don’t last long during an average game of HBM. Pirates can be destroyed, their ship can be sunk and even if they manage to hold on for awhile… after a player gets the Treasure, High Tide sweeps in and both players start from scratch. Having intricate 'Boss Monsters' that you spend tons of effort getting to play, no longer feel fun when they're only around for a turn. So instead, we put our focus on card interactions, instead of singular powerful cards!
Let’s look at Reef Ronin again. His effect is that he can send one Pirate at Sea (friendly or not) back to its owner’s hand. That is a really strong effect no matter what other cards you’re using. You can bounce back one of your opponent’s strong cards, forcing them to take the time to play it again. Or you could return one of your cards if it’s in danger. But it becomes a lot better depending on what you’re playing it with.
Take the Wave in a Bottle that we were looking at earlier. This card has a WHEN PLAYED effect that exhausts one of your opponent’s Ships and makes it so they cannot Fire the Cannons with it. That’s incredibly helpful if you don’t want your Ships Sunk! Each turn you have three Orders to spend, with this combo of cards, you can play Wave in a Bottle (Order 1), exhaust one of your opponent’s Ships, then play Reef Ronin (Order 2) and send Wave in a Bottle back to your hand and then play Wave in a Bottle again (Order 3) and exhaust another ship!
Now you might be thinking, 'but obviously some effects are stronger than others or have more synergy'. That's true, and that's something we've balanced in other ways (which will surely be addressed in a future article). And similarly you might be thinking 'you'll definitely run out of pirates to design if you keep each effect locked in with a single pirate'!!! You'd think so, but it hasn't happened yet! We've got over 100 pirates and are still coming up with new abilities and synergies every day!
We believe this focus on synergies gives more power to the players to discover new things and we love that feeling of discovery. Although, we fully admit that this can be a little intimidating for new players and we'd encourage anyone who isn't sure where to start, to focus on things that matter to you. Maybe you don’t like it when your opponent Sinks your Ships? Use the combo I mentioned above or add in a Kannon Katcher! Maybe you just like destroying your opponent’s Pirates, then you could use something like Flintlock Fury. Or you want to get cards out as fast as you can, then you might gravitate towards someone like Platypirate! And imagine if you played Platypirate and then Coconaut, what a cool combo (which is 75% of the way to one of the most classic HBM combos there is and will be the topic of an article in the future)!
And lastly, this emphasis on synergy is also thematically tied to the game. Pirates are always surrounded by their loyal crews and it's how they work together that makes them a formidable force!
There’s no right answer in HBM, that’s the fun of it! Try out cards, try out combos and see what is the most fun for you! Discover new things about the Monster Coast that no one has experienced before!
Related Posts
