Ace of Tears

*** If the browser version is slow or bugs out, there is a Windows build available for download.

You've persevered, trekked through the night arduously,  climbed the great mountain... to play cards with the sky?

The sky (they/them, btw) presents you with cards, cards that you may tear apart. You take turns playing cards with the sky for points. It's not a serious game. You're not gonna die if you lose. And you're not gonna slay a demi god if you win. What will happen is a casual game between mortal and immortal, with no stakes, for fun. The sky is patient; they will wait all night for you to make a move. "Finally," they think, "a mortal who isn't insane enough to believe they can kill me."

~~~ Some game rules explanations

Basic controls: W/S to change view, mouse to move and tear cards from the top corners of the card

This game is a mix between Gwent and Marvel Snap. There are 3 lanes you may play cards in: Left, Mid, Right. The goal is to score the highest in at least one of the lanes. If you fail to score the highest in all 3 lanes, you lose. So you only need to score the highest in 1 lane. Don't worry, the sky won't feel bad about losing - they are happy you are playing with them at all. 

The middle lane is special, in that your score is inverted (multiplied by -1), so this is where you primarily want to play torn cards with negative score. If you've played Marvel Snap before, it's basically a permanent "Bar with No Name". In this game, however, you may only play 1 card at a time, similar to Gwent. 

Some cards have the double sword symbol, each giving +1 multiplier. I didn't really add any counterplay or unique ways to multiply your score, so having more double sword symbols in a lane basically guarantees a win in that lane. In this game, it's not always possible to win every hand (like if the sky draws a full hand of double swords and you don't), similar to Blackjack where you're meant to bite the loss and go next. 

Once you play a card, it is confirmed (no take backsies!), and the sky will play a card. You take turns doing this until both players pass their turn. You may pass your turn to say you are done playing cards for the round. The enemy will continue playing cards (if they have any) if you pass your turn, and vice versa. You are forced to pass your turn if you have no cards in hand. 

When you win a round, you get card "rewards" depending on how many lanes you won. When you lose, the sky will still continue to play with you. They will play for as long as you wish - they have no other plans, don't worry. 

Before the next round starts, you will be forced to play certain types of cards in a certain lane. This basically locks in cards before the round begins, potentially giving you an advantage or disadvantage depending on the cards you chose to play to fulfil the condition. 

Disclaimer: there is currently a small chance that you will be asked for pure hearts when you can't play a card with pure hearts, and you will be soft locked. The game unfortunately has to be reloaded. 

~~~ Long writeup of some of my thoughts on the jam if you're interested

My favorite game genre is card game, so naturally I had to make a card game. I wanted to add a twist I haven't seen implemented in a card game before (at least I haven't seen it). I thought, what would be something /forbidden/ to do in a card game? And tearing cards is an aberration in the genre, especially if you're playing a physical card game, and the game doesn't belong to you. My god, the owner of the torn card would hate you. 

But in a digital game, no one would give a cucumber about a card being "damaged", or whatever negative thing you could do to a digital "card" (I guess except nerfing it, but that's game balance related). I hadn't seen card tearing as an actual mechanic in a game before. I'm aware that there are games where card tearing is a thing, but it mostly only represents the card being destroyed or something to that effect, not a mechanic actually embedded in the game itself. I want to show a possible concept of a game where the cards being torn have a real impact on the game. With a long game jam like this one (also my very first game jam!) I felt compelled to experiment with the idea. I didn't actually expect to even be able to make the card tearing mechanic work in a workable way for a game at all so my original scope was only to make a card tearing simulator, where you tear famous cards (like a holo Blue Eyes White Dragon) as an aberration. 

While I don't believe my game, implementation, or concept is by any means spectacular, and there's so many ideas I want to implement that are just too overscoped, I felt genuinely excited by the project and I hope the game at least made you think a little differently!