[2019] Wow, this is good!

Thank you! I will respond with my own stream of consciousness. Glad your first game was so close! Showdowns are usually pretty rare, but I love seeing them happen.

I'm glad we agree on only getting points for kills. I'm a big believer in design determining type of play and this was an area where we wanted to reward players who are actually participating in the fight.

From an art perspective, our wizards, like all art, are a subjective style choice. People will have opinions different opinions about it. That is what makes it art. We get a lot of compliments on it. We also get comments like "it looks like ps1 graphics". Both opinions are valid, but at the end of the day we like what we made.

There is no bonus for picking all of the same color. Mostly because we want to encourage people to experiment with different spell mechanic combinations, but also because players sometimes pick all the same color just for the novelty of it: no need to give them more reasons. There is always one more spell than there are players, so there is an aspect of counterpicking, however a lot of the counterpicks are subtle. There are also counterpicks between spell types, but more importantly, building your own combos is probably more important, or blocking someone else from snagging a combo can be equally important.

Everyone spell isn't always present each round. It's possible that one of the spells starts with a 0 quantity. It is also possible that a spell has a 1 quantity and you snag it right away, blocking anyone else from picking it. This favors players who are behind, which is the point of the draft system.

We don't have any sort of aesthetic-based "this is better than this because water beats fire" because this leaves too much assumption on player knowledge. Rather, once you know what all the spells do mechanically, you can infer counters without actually playing the game. From a design perspective, I find this to be the most ideal. e.g. Rock Block and Vanguard counter Bull Rush because you can't run through a wall/shield, however Deflect only works on projectiles so it is susceptible to Bull Rush. Another example would be picking Vacuum because you know someone else has Boomerang and will try to snag that lethal combo.

Hope that answers your questions!

Brett

None of the spells are strictly better than others, so it's really not a "bigger gun" scenario. Everything has strengths and weaknesses and those all depend on the situation and spells you have already. Rock Block does indeed block projectiles, but it's also a stationary wall. Vanguard only blocks one side of you and it slows your movement slightly. Like I said, pros and cons to everything. We do have a wiki! https://magequit.fandom.com/wiki/Spells (still need to add nature spells to it yet)

Okay, I literally JUST realized who you were and that your advice was ENTIRELY solicited by me. HA! Absolutely no worries on feeling like you are oversuggesting. I absolutely did ask for this.

And sorry for the delay in responding to this last one (there's a lot to digest here). I seriously appreciate you taking the time to check the game out after I gave you a key and I'm flattered that you liked it as much as you did. You have some very good suggestions here.

100% agree on showing previously drafted spells somehow. We simply haven't seen what counterpicking even looks like in its current state since we are relying on memory, which like you said isn't interesting (or obvious to people watching). I'm thinking a hotkey that can toggle previous picks to overlay the player cards (think league of legends or overwatch stats button). Same thing could be done for showing the upcoming stages. In this way, we allow veteran players access to this information without cluttering the UI for new players who wouldn't even know what to do with that information.

Regarding your criticsms on the wizard faces -- we actually do plan on adding an "expression" option to the wardrobe system at some point so you can unlock different eyes for your wizard. I also think spending a little more time on the face shape and having them blink occasionally would go a long way too.

I'm still torn on the explicit spell synergy idea. I love how much your Spitfire idea reminds me of MTG (last for 2 + X seconds where X is ...). This and your other ideas are creative and I can see your point about emphasizing the choice between counterpicking and picking for yourself, but I don't want to sacrifice the importance of natural emergence between spell mechanics and letting people discover what those are instead of giving them a prescribed "this is good with this" formula. However, this gives me another idea: Passives. What if the opening draft actually snaked back on itself and you draft a passive (let's say only 4 different ones are randomly available) and then your primary spell. So last person to pick a passive would be first to pick a primary. This would do 2 things: 1. Even out the randomness of the starting pick, and 2. Create interesting counterpick scenarios. E.g. a passive called "Superhero Landing" where your wizard creates a shockwave around himself when dropping from a height. If someone had this, you would try to counterpick them from getting spells like Somer Assault, Geyser, or Time Bomb that create opportunities for upward (and then downward) force. This creates more interesting choices in drafting while still preserving the exploratory nature of emerging mechanics, and even adds more emergence. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.