LD55 - Ritual of Cards by Reulan
Ludum Dare 55 - reulan + nicolekg
Ritual of Cards
Ritual of Cards - Itch.io Web Game
You draft cards from 5 different piles of cards. Each card has various effects that can trigger, when played, on end turn, when other effects trigger, or when you complete the summoning.
Your goal is to create a hand that will net you the highest score possible, there are currently 5 different creatures that you will be able to summon!!
To acquire cards you will need to spend mana equal to the mana value on the top right of the card. You gain 3 mana per turn and have 5 turns to create the hand of cards with the best effects!
Patch Notes:
v0.5 - Fix game breaking card effect loop for certain combos. - Updated title screen. - Added high scores.
v0.4 - Updated Resolution Settings so it doesn't squish together on many devices. - Repurpose burn mechanic to deck reshuffle for now.
Inspiration
We both play a lot of card games and really wanted to explore what a single-player card game that borrows drafting mechanics from Dominion combined with the card diversity from Magic: the Gathering!
Team
Made by two programmers with relatively minimal art experience.
Reulan's Itch.io Nicolekg's Itch.io

| Link | https://nicolekg.itch.io/ritual-of-cards |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/ld55-ritual-of-cards |
Ratings
| Overall | 1142th | 2.864⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1149th | 2.643⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 712th | 3.227⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 601th | 3.659⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1067th | 2.295⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 995th | 2.225⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1148th | 2.636⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
Pros: Made think a little about the combinations ahead of time, liked the variation, fit the theme.
Cons: Clunky UI, no sounds.
Great effort!
@Kseniya thanks for the honest feedback, we are both programmers and don't have much art experience and it really shows... Lots of animation and board readability ideas were discussed but we couldn't implement them in the scope of time we had unfortunately.
@nathan Thanks for the bug report, yeah we had some issues with resolution - but this was just hotfixed and the resolution scaling should work now! Glad to hear the game was intuitive, we really just wanted players to craft a hand of cards that would be fun for them to see play out.
@lehmy Yes, we actually have 2 coded mechanics that allow for deck manipulation though they were both scrapped. One was "burn" where you could burn a top card of a deck once per turn. We also had a deck reshuffle feature below the end turn button which allows you to reshuffle all decks twice per game. (reimplemented with the resolution hotfix)
But only 5 turns, 3 manas per turn, and some of the cards cost 5 or 6 mana. So there is no time to make combos.
IMO just with 10 turns instead of 5, with the ability to reuse a card slot, and cards that generate mana, the game would have been quite fun.
Also, adding basic UI animations and music would have improved the game feel by a lot without taking too much time (as it is a jam entry so you were allowed to use existing music).
It took me a while to understand how to play, honestly. A couple of passes until I could go into looking for combos and finishing up with more interesting summonings. The idea of it ending like a card combo is indeed capturing one of the nicest parts of any good trading card game, which makes it interesting from the get go! I feel that some UI elements being more reactive, and illustrating better costs and mutations of a card during highlight it(Even if just the instantaneous ones) would have made it easier to be eased into the game. Sound effects also would have gone a long way.
Also the UI layout itself was clear, I love the readability on the cards, I didn't feel the need to bend down to read them better or the like, which made it flow nicely. Visuals are important sure, but having a strong game with clean UI at this stage beats the need for flashy art or any of the sort, and that was a clear worry here.
It has strong ideas and I would like to see it further developed in the future, with the multidecks aspect being a worked on as a differential and the summoning combos this could be the start of a new, interesting full fledged card game system if you ask me!
I would have loved to have a goal besides summoning the monster. But we all had some time constraints!
As others have mentioned, i would have loved to habe the ability to erase cards (in exchange for some mana perhaps?) so that I could plan my moves more.
But overall, nice entry!