What’s up gamers? This is my 2nd post in this introduction series for our upcoming game, Animon Arena. In this post I’m going to talk to you about ability cards. If you missed the first post, check it out here: https://www.animonarena.com/animon-intro-part-1-game-play-game-board/
What is an Ability Card?
Ability cards are cards that are used during the gameplay that enhances the battle, sometimes in significant and dramatic ways. Ability cards can be applied to the game board or to a specific animon or to a group of animon, depending on the ability card type.
- Ability cards appear at the beginning of the battle on the “shelf” just above the gem board, and just below the battle field.
- Each match the player is assigned up to a maximum of 5 ability cards.
- Only 1 ability card can be used during a turn, but the player is not required to use one during their turn. (Note: We are still determining on whether to allow multiple ability cards to be applied during a single turn)
- As of this article, there are currently 7 different ability card types. However, we expect to add more in the future:
- Shield
- Taunt
- Attack
- Health
- Recovery
- Ricochet
- Change Gems
Ability Card Types
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Shield
This is a shield ability card. It is only used once at the beginning of the match for the 2nd player. This ability card addresses the “First Player Advantage” in Animon Arena (i.e. since there is always 1 player that gets to start the match, the 2nd player is given a shield ability card).
The 2nd player can choose any animon on his/her team to apply the shield to. If a shield is applied to an animon, the shield will remain on the animon until that specific animon is attacked. If an animon with a shield is attacked, 100% of the attack damage will be stopped. The shield will be removed from the animon automatically after 1 attack occurs to that animon.
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Taunt
The taunt ability card can be placed on any animon and forces the attacks of the opposing player to be directed toward the animon with this ability card. For those familiar with Hearthstone, this is similar to the taunt minion ability.
Why would anyone want to “taunt” or force an opponent to attack a specific animon? It’s all about strategy. For instance, if you knew that your opponent was about to perform a powerful attack, then you could force them to attack one of your weaker animon, therefore, protecting your other animon. A taunt ability card combined with other ability cards such as the shield or ricochet can prove to be very effective in battle.
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Attack
The attack ability card increases the attack stats of your animon for 1 turn. It can be applied to 1 animon, or divided across all your team’s animon.
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Health
The health ability card increases the health of your animon at the time it is applied. It can be applied to 1 animon, or divided across all your team’s animon.
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Recovery
The recovery ability card increases the health of your animon but doesn’t apply immediately. It activates when an animon is attacked and will restore/recover a percentage % of their health (% depends on the card applied), then the card is discarded.
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Ricochet
The ricochet ability card will “ricochet” back an attack. If applied to an animon, when the particular animon is attacked by an opponent, the exact same attack will ricochet back to the attacking animon. The damage is still applied to the attacked animon.
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Change Gems
There are 2 types of change gems ability cards: 1) Change element to Health, and 2) Change Health to element. The change gems ability cards can be incredibly powerful during a match.
Change element to Health – Players will use this card when they would like additional health gems on the gem board. To activate, the player will drag and drop this card onto one of their animon. The gems on the gem board corresponding to the element type of the animon will be changed to health gems.
Change Health to element – Players will use this card when they would like more of a specific type of gem on the gem board. To activate, the player will drag and drop this card onto one of their animon. All health gems on the gem board will be changed to the element type of the animon the card was dragged on to.
That’s it for today’s post on ability cards. I hope you can begin to see how powerful ability cards are, and how they can significantly impact game play. We look forward to see how you will implement these during battle!
Alan
Next blog post in this series: Card Packs