Hi! I‘m
Arnold Rauers.
Since 2012 I create video games
with various talented people
as Tinytouchtales.
We've made GUNCHO, Geo Gods, Card Crawl Adventure, Gnomitaire, Maze Machina, Miracle Merchant, Card Thief, ENYO and Card Crawl which are available on the App Store and Google Play. I've also released a few games on Steam.
I publish Game-Jam games and showcase my game ideas and prototypes on Itch.io.
If you would like to support my work outside of buying my games, consider becoming a Patron.
You can subscribe to my Newsletter for regular updates and join our Discord community to hang out.
2018-10-11 - Ask
Game Mechanics
Sean asks: “When testing out a new card game, what would you say are the first game mechanics that you try to get right in order for the game to continue to grow in a positive way?”
Hi Sean,
each idea is different, but relies on a specific core mechanic to work. For me it’s mostly about analyzing the parts of your idea that are very crucial for the game to create the experience that you are looking for.
For example in Card Thief i wanted to create the experience of sneaking around and hiding in the shadows as the core of the game. I took me several month to find a proper core mechanic, the path that connects several cards and increases the value of them based on the number of steps you’ve taken. Once i’ve had this set of core interactions that built the core mechanic (select cards to form a path) i could build everything else around it.
I’ve learned a lot through Keith Burgun’s work on the Core Mechanic, the one central idea in a game, that should inform every other part of your design in a meaning full way. I highly recommend checking out his 3-Minute Game Design series on Youtube and also read his book Clockwork Gamedesign that goes into great detail about creating the core of your game.