Week two of the 1v1 match game project, and we already have a name! (As you can probably tell.) I hope you’re ready for a comprehensive rule/flavor rundown, because this one is a doozy.
Synergist frames itself as a duel between two fighters in a world in which technology, magic, and martial prowess all compete for cultural prevalence.
As for how that works into gameplay, there are four available classes from which each player can choose, each of with abilities based on their flavor and benefits for matching their corresponding tokens.
The first three classes- the Tinkerer, the Magician, and the Combatant- focus on technology, magic, and martial prowess respectively, but there is an additional class, the eponymous Synergist, representing a balance in use of all the fighting styles.
There’s already a lot written and I haven’t even explained how the board and tokens are going to work. I might as well get right into it.
The board is a 5×5 grid, filled with tokens that come from an inverted deck, as to always show the next token to fill the board.
There are six types of token: three Style tokens and three Boost tokens. The three Style tokens correspond to the different fighting styles and deal damage to your opponent. The three Boost tokens are Attack, Shield, and Ability. Attack allows you to permanently upgrade the amount of damage you do with a type of Style token of your choice. Shield allows you to negate one attack caused by a type of Style token of your choice. Ability allows you to activate your ability.
It feels somewhat needless to explain the mechanics of a match three game, but I figure that, for the sake of game design considerations, I probably should.
You are only allowed to move tokens by swapping them with a token adjacent in a cardinal direction. If you create a vertical or horizontal line of three matching tokens with this movement, you remove all three of them and activate their effect according to the token type.
When you remove tokens, you can replace them with tokens from the deck, placing the tokens in any space that is empty. If you assemble another line of three matching tokens, you can remove it and activate their effect.
Okay, that was comprehensive, possibly to the point of overkill. I had fun though, and the game concept seems to be fleshing itself out well too. I’m happy to have gotten so far into the planning process as always, and I can’t wait to bring a finished product to the table next week!
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