Spellfire by quadtree

Win the Spellfire Tournament by destroying all opponents! But beware, you only have a limited amount of space on your rune grid with which to cast spells.
Click on the cards at the bottom, and then click on your rune grid on the left to cast spells. Most spells cost SP, which is listed in the upper left. When you're done, press End Turn. Sometimes after the opponent's turn you'll get a reaction phase, where you can cast "Reaction" spells if you have the SP.
Press M to toggle music.
| Link | https://quadtree.me/ld/ld54/html5/ |
| Link | https://quadtree.me/ld/ld54/win32/ld54.zip |
| Link | https://github.com/Quadtree/LD54 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/spellfire |
Ratings
| Overall | 316th | 3.024⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 324th | 2.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 227th | 3.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 155th | 3.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 320th | 2.714⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 270th | 2.524⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 225th | 2.306⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 324th | 2.475⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 12🗨️ |
I am a bit iffy on the two phases. You certainly could have easily squashed that into a single one. Thematically it makes sense, but in practice you're just clicking next turn twice.
Obviously in a full version, you'd be building a deck as you went along, and maybe even building a grid. I think adding rogue-like elements could be quite fun in this format.
The game as-is has some balance issues, as is to be expected from a jam game, and it's a little confusing. Particularly, I wasn't sure how my grid matched up with the other side's at a glance. That should be made more intuitive somehow. Also, I was never quite sure which reaction cards I would have available until I ended my main phase, and I also didn't quite understand if cards refreshed or I drew more or if when I used them they were gone forever, etc.
Always fun when card games use physical space as an element, and this is a version of that I haven't seen before. I wonder if you might consider making the grid more literal, as in representing it as soldiers on a battlefield or something. That might make it make a bit more sense, bc right now casting your spells in a grid doesn't make the most intuitive sense.
This is a very cool central concept that could really be something special with more refinement and a few more iterations on the core idea. Nice :)
EDIT: Oh, also I really enjoyed seeing what happened when you choose not to cast anything in a turn
Great job at making a fairly complex system and game in such a short time!