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Firest (in design)
Firest is a board game I'm currently designing. It is a 2 to 4 players asymmetrical card game where you play as either a mysterious Forest or as the Wildfire that threatens it. The Wildfire, represented by face-up cards, must burn down the Holy Tree, hidden among the face-down cards.
During its turn, the Forest boosts its trees with 2 cards from its hand, and then the Wildfire can attack an adjacent tree, enhancing the attack with 1-2 cards. If the fire has greater strength, it turns the tree face up, on the burned side. If it loses, the tree returns face down, but the Wildfire gains a bonus power for the next attack.
For this game I was intrigued by the concept of exploring asymmetric gameplay in a light and fast card game. After an extended session of Star Wars Rebellion, I had this question lingering in my mind: can I distill the core conflict of this game with just French-suited playing cards? I started analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each side in various 2-player asymmetric games, which led me to the decision of basing my conflict as a confrontation between a blunt and powerful side against a weak but subtle opponent. That's when I stumbled upon the idea of a fire, strong and unstoppable, against a forest made by seemingly identical trees concealing their true strength. The french-suited cards presented a challenge in representing both players at the same time, so I came up with the idea of one player controlling the face-down cards and the other controlling the face-up cards, reinforcing the theme of secrecy versus blunt force. After the core gameplay was set, I started creating special effects for the cards.