Designer Notes ItM #4 - Removing cards in Deck Building

When sharing board games I hear the comment a lot "I really like games that have something unique." I personally have a mix of reasons for what convinces me to buy a board game. The theme can draw me, feedback from friends, researching a bit about the board game geek page, and hearing about what makes a particular board game is unique can pull me in too.

From a game design point of view, there are a few aspects of Into the Mountain which I find unique, and the one I want to focus on in this post: constructs. Before I get into that, I want to write about deck builders and why people want to remove cards.

Removing cards

If you don't understand what a "deck builder" is, no worries. It generally means, all players start with the same or nearly the same deck of cards. Classically the choice is 10 cards, but some games vary. All players shuffle the 10 and draw 5. You're "building the deck" during the game by getting better cards. When you've drawn all the cards, you reshuffle the discard pile, so you're drawing the new cards. Many times when players first ever play a deck builder and discover there are ways to remove a card, they get conflicted or confused "why would I want to get rid of a card?" It can make a feel bad emotion in the player.

You want to remove the original 10 cards, because a logical design will make them weaker than the other cards you can buy. You're removing the weeds to improve the odds of the cards you draw in the future.

Personally, after I grasped that concept and began winning games of Dominion due to that strategy, it gave me quite the rush. Playing other deck builders I often prioritize being able to remove cards, even to a fault!

Constructs in Into the Mountain

In a previous design of ItM there was actually the ability to remove cards directly. After time, I realized an aspect making ItM unique, the potential to construct the cards, was competing with this mechanism, so I removed the "remove" ability. Take a look at simple steam below.

My original idea for Into the Mountain was a deck-builder with not one, not two, but three different functions. It was just an idea back then, but I quickly figured out where I wanted to go with it.

How to construct

During the game there a cards, places, and abilities which say build a construct. You choose a card from your hand to build, play the construct costs (in red above), and for the rest of the game the card stays in front of you, able to use for its construct ability (in green above). At the beginning of the game design, it just felt cool. Over time, I realized by constructing the cards, the players had permanently removed the card from the deck. I was achieving a well loved aspect of deck builders, in a novel way. Removing cards is a very deep aspect of deck builders, which I want to more deeply analyze.

What's better, removing cards or getting better cards?

This is a question I stumbled on during the design. A playtester, Florian, very proudly told me how he finished a game (close 2nd) after purchasing no new cards, only constructing. What's going on in the game when you remove cards versus obtaining stronger ones? Let's do a hypothetical scenario together!

Variation A (build two constructs):

The hypothetical deck starts with 7 cards yielding a single resource, and 3 yielding none. Assume with your first 5 card hand, you construct/remove a card providing no resources. Your second 5 cards you do that again. Then you get a reshuffle.

Now you have 7 cards yielding one resource each and one without.

A random 5 card hand will have an average value of 4.4 resources (7/8*5).

Variation B (buy two cards):

Same 7 cards with a single resource and 3 without. First and second hands you instead purchase two cards providing 2 resources each.

Now you have:

3 x zero

7 x one

2 x two

A random 5 card hand will have an average value of 4.6 resources (11/12*5).

Which variation is better? A or B?

It depends. The example above looks like 2 purchases would be stronger than 2 constructs/removes. There's another important aspect to consider: the reshuffle. When your draw pile is empty and you need to draw another, the discard pile is reshuffled. Meaning stronger cards obtained and in the discard are now ready to be drawn more soon.

This hypothetical situation also reflects a different game, not Into the Mountain. The current iteration of ItM has 8 one resource cards and 2 providing none. Furthermore, the constructs aren't simply removed, they remain to do useful things for you.

This post is getting a tad long, so I'll follow up this topic in the next post.

Do you agree with my calculations? Are there other aspects I'm overlooking? I'd be thrilled to hear what you think! Please write a comment, send me an email, or share this post with a friend.

Thanks for reading and best of luck in your future games (+designs),

Kevin