Pharaoh - Solitaire Deckbuilder (Need Beta Testers)

I've been thinking a lot about this issue. I've been going back and forth between "memory games are frustrating" and "perfect knowledge of your deck can lead to analysis paralysis and lack of tension".

I think I may have a solution that addresses both of those, and which reinforces the theme as a bonus: an imperfect view of your deck's statistics as a report of the various "silos" of your deck.

I have a prototype working, and it looks like this:



When you press-and-hold on a deck (either your discard or your draw), it pops up this dialogue and animates the histogram into place. Each card in the game is assigned to one of these eight "silos", such as industry, religion, military, etc., and the histogram shows the relative prevalence of cards in each silo in that deck.

This way, you can't know for sure how many you have of each card, but you can get a pretty good idea of what's coming up and what you've already gone through. It should also really help people survive the early game if they're agonizing over whether to buy that extra priest or something.

I'm still not 100% sure I want to include this. I want to play with it a good amount - and get everyone's feedback on it - before I commit. But it should show up in the next build for everyone to try out.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, everyone! You're really knocking it out of the park on some of your ideas.

 

Ooooh! That's tough! The temple is the gateway to another tier of play. The reserve that the temple gives you makes a huge difference in being able to achieve your goals quickly as your deck gets large.

Well, I'm always open to listen to suggestions. You weren't the only playtester to make some of these suggestions, so I felt there was something there. Like I said, it might not make it into the final shipping game if it makes the game less fun, but if it improves the play experience, it will have been a great addition.

You can always tell whether you've activated the long press because the card turns blue when you've activated it. In the next build, the long press time to activate is significantly shorter, which ought to make it less of an issue to activate. It was a little long before.

Well, what I've seen is that people like to use both buttons depending on whether they are left-handed or right-handed. Originally, I had it so that you only tap the draw pile to draw a new deck, and several lefties said that they'd prefer to tap the discard pile.

Yeah, that push-and-pull between needing to conserve and spend reign is one of the main challenges of the game. The histogram, I hope, will help in those few cases where you need to make a decision that could potentially end your game, and you just don't remember because you went and ate lunch since you started that hand. We'll see if it helps. I'm looking forward to hearing what the playtesters feel about it.

In the next build, I'm overhauling that tip system. The new build has targeted tips. I.e., there will be a scroll that says, "How do I build my pyramid?", and you can unlock that specific tip if that's what you're wondering right now. I'm also making it so that every "match" spin that doesn't result in an ankh results in a scroll. And I'm adding free tips that appear at the end of every game, leaving the scrolls for more in-depth strategy discussions. Hopefully, this system will be better; more free tips, faster unlock of the deeper strategy recommendations, and more targeted help.

I agree. This is already implemented for the next build! All the almanac entries for unlockable cards now indicate the conditions for unlocking them, so that once you get them, you know how to repeat it.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. The game was balanced for the boons not being in play, so I put in an option to choose which ones you want to play with. That way, if someone is feeling really magnanimous and wants to tip the developer even without getting access to the boon cards, they can do so. I support that.

Nice catch! This will be fixed in the next release.

That's an interesting idea. Let me think about the ramifications of that. My initial reaction is that it would make the game trivially easy once you get to the middle game. One of my playtesters was up to year 60 or so and had a reign requirement of well over 100, and was still not really having trouble making reign. My impression is that, if anything, I need to ramp up the reign pressure in the late game. But maybe that soothing tap-tap-tap game loop would make for a nice casual player experience. It's an interesting idea. I'll percolate on it.

Thanks again for your thoughtful feedback! The comments I'm getting from my playtesters has been uniformly excellent, and I'm really humbled by the outpouring of thought and encouragement I'm seeing. It's really gratifying.

 

Glad you're enjoying it!

That sounds doable. It probably won't make it into this imminent build, but I have added it to my issues tracker.

If you've been reading this thread, you probably know that this issue of how to convey the nature of the game to new players is something I'm trying to work out in this current round of builds. On one hand, I don't want to make the on-boarding tiresome and full of intimidating detail, but I also don't want people rage quitting because they don't understand some key point.

I know from experience that people just don't read rules documents and stuff like that, so I'm not convinced that manual page like solutions would really fly. I think I'm already pushing it with the almanac and the strategy guides. But what to do instead, then? I'm hoping that the updated strategy guide approach will solve some of the issues, but it's experimental at this stage - I'll see what people say about it.

Sometimes it's fun, after you've "beaten" a game, to go back to square one and do it over again. Those buttons are there for people who want to do that.

A statistics board sounds like it might be a worthy addition. I can see people being interested in that. Again, it won't make it into this imminent build, but I'll look into that for a future build.

The rule is - across the board - that you can only buy one copy of any given card per pass through your deck. (Otherwise, your deck size explodes and it gets not-challenging fast.) If you've already bought a card this "year", then it will be marked "Sold Out". I've added an explanation of this mechanic to the Oracle Chamber - you'll see it in the upcoming beta release.

I'm fixing that by making them not discard when you tap them. The next build doesn't let you discard material cards like that. This has some ramifications for using the Temple with your deck, but I think it will far outweigh any frustrations you may encounter from this change; it's far worse to lose a Mason action than it is to have to wait a draw before playing something out of your temple.

Some other play testers have pointed this out, too. I'm planning on making alerts be "tap anywhere to dismiss". Again, won't be in this imminent build, but that feature should definitely make it into the build after that.

One of the main reasons it put it into a new dialogue is to have room to explain what's going on there and make it clear that there's a choice to be made here. But I kind of like the idea of still being able to see what cards are in your hand while you're in one of these dialogues. I have to be careful about screen clutter - especially on older, small phones, where screen real estate is at a premium - but it's definitely something I'm going to consider. Maybe I'll add little versions of the current hand down at the bottom of the screen while you're in one of these dialogues or something. I'll have to mock it up and see how it looks/feels.

Some people had issues with that. I've added an option in the options menu to turn off auto-draw for those people who find themselves doing it a lot.

I think the new histogram feature kind of covers this functionality - there are "reign" and "income" silos that pretty much map onto that concept. It does get a little tricky in the later game as the role of some cards begin to blur a bit, so a straight-up "number of reign cards" / "number of coin cards" won't exactly work (for instance, would I count the "Scribe" card in that count?), but I think the histogram gets at the core idea of needing some metrics to help you make decisions. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it when the new build makes it out.

Well, I'll say this: Your construction silo is very, very useful in terms of your long-term survival in Pharaoh. In particular, the Temple card ushers in a whole new tier of gameplay once you acquire it. It's obviously not worth losing the game for, so it's still wise to keep an eye on how many stonecutters, stone, mason, etc., cards seep into your deck. but if you neglect construction too much, it's just as dangerous.

Nice continuity catch! This should be fixed in the next release.

Thanks for all the thoughtful consideration and comments! Some really nice suggestions and feedback here, and it's given me a lot to think about. Thank you!

 

Yeah, it sounds like you have "broken through" to the next level. Now you're trying to ramp up your industries and get your pyramid built.

In the final game, there's going to be a "year cap" that puts some pressure on you from the other side so you can't just keep building your empire indefinitely. But the year cap hasn't gone in because I haven't figured out a good value for it. I'm *thinking* 60 or so. What year are you on? (That's the number in the upper right.)

Yes, typically, what happens when you get into that stage is that you get into this "flow" where you ramp up to your reign, and then bank/reserve reign, or go into a little reign debt to buy your cards as you go. Once you get to the level you're at, you can be pretty safe going a little into reign debt to buy that Altar or whatever if you've still got 60 cards in your deck. It's only an issue in that early game when you're trying to play precisely instead of the middle game where you're going more off of "feel" of your deck.

That sounds like a straight-up bug. Thanks!

 

Heh. Yeah, fanatics are dangerous. If they show up on the last hand, they can wreck your game. There are strategies that can reliably shut that danger down, but you of course have to have the right cards in your deck to implement those strategies. The Gardens, especially, is effective at shutting them down.

The key is to mitigate their spoiling effect while still keeping them around so you can get the benefit from them. In the next release of the game, I'm going to be adding a "Thieve's Den" card that you can build which will allow you to buy thieves and fanatics so that you can more precisely control how many thieves and fanatics are in your deck.

Right. Part of the reason for the fanatics' effect is to continue to put pressure on the player in the late game. They increase the speed at which your reign quota goes up, and they add uncertainty to that number as you draw to the close of your deck. Without them, once you get your deck quality high enough that your available reign outstrips your quota, and you can trivially increase your available reign by more than one, there would be no challenge.

I really like how the pressure in this game changes over time. In the early game, you're just struggling to make reign. In the middle game, you're struggling to get defensive cards out before fanatics can threaten you. In the late game, you're sprinting against the clock to push as much treasure and mummies into your deck to prepare for the afterlife (which also clutters your deck, so reign pressure starts coming back). It makes for a really interesting, dynamic feel, at least to me.

I hadn't thought of an "old age spinner"! That made me chuckle. That could be a fun little addition.

But I also like the thematic elements of what Misguided suggested, too - that there's a prophecy that is going to come to pass at some point.

In fact, the above discussion has given me the idea of having some black-bordered "Prophecy" cards injected into your deck that could trigger the endgame. "Rivers of Blood", "Darkness", "Pestilence", "Hail", etc. Haven't really thought through it, but perhaps they start getting added to your deck around year 55, and they have some kind of effect that triggers an end game condition if they're not handled.

Not sure offhand how they would work, but just spitballing here, maybe you have until age 70 to live. When one of these prophecy cards comes out, it adds one to your age (representing the personal toll of presiding over a nation that is suffering). You can destroy these prophecies with your High Priest's canopic jars to slow their effect, but they'll still hit you at least once.

That would give some variance and player agency over when the "game over" condition arrives, it would make that trigger more dramatic than just "whoops, you died of old age!", and also force the player to make some tough decisions about what to put into the reserve, which I like.

Maybe what I should do is re-theme the current "plague of locusts" as one of these prophecy cards, and make that original card more mundane - something that represents civil unrest or poverty because it destroys reign cards. That would bring out all this mystical stuff in the end game, which could be kind of exciting.

But maybe all the above would be more complex than it needs to be, and just having you spin a spinner after age 60 or so would be more approachable, understandable, and fun for players. I like the idea of having these really epic-sounding cards coming out in the end, but I don't want to have the player feel punished over and over again by the game, either. As with most mechanics, I'd have to prototype it out and see how it feels.

Lots of food for thought here. Thank you!

 

Forcing the end of a year early is an interesting thought. My initial reaction is that it would be really "swingy", but it's still interesting.

A different approach might be to have a card that just blocks other cards from being played. I.e., a card that comes out and makes it so that you cannot play any other cards that hand, or moves cards from the draw pile to the discard pile directly.

I'll think about that. Thanks for your thoughts even when you're not play testing!

 

Thanks for sticking with the game!

I don't think you're necessarily doing anything wrong - it's all about balance. If you spam too much construction-silo cards into your deck, it might get a little hard to make reign, so be conservative. Also, you need to balance the risks that you take. It's always better to buy reign and coin in the early game, so if it's a choice between getting another priest or banking reign when you're under quota, do the latter, and save your opportunity buys for later.

What I often do when I'm playing the early game is to only buy reign until I make quota. Then, I grab cards by buying a little over, or maybe going into a little debt if I have a good amount of the deck left, to grab the cards I want. Sometimes, I'll take a risk and grab one of those two-coin Merchant cards if an opportunity presents itself, but I mostly just try to make reign first when it's sketchy.

Regardless, I always try to buy at least one coin and one reign per year if at all possible. If you don't, the next year will be even harder!

Usually what happens is that you'll barely make reign on several years - those are the years you only survive if you play conservatively - but then you'll get that lucky draw where you make almost all of your reign quota well before you're halfway through the deck. That's when you accelerate! Buy up stuff and use your scarab to get extra shots at Merchant and Priest card buys. You can obviously get yourself into trouble when you do this, so be careful with this strategy, but it has worked well for me.

Also, you might be stopping buying farmers when you get to three, but you might consider buying extra farmers, because they grant you more Nile cards (and more opportunities to buy up reign and coin after you have made quota). The more farmers you have in your deck, the more nile cards you are granted, so it's worth it to buy up a little if you have the opportunity.

But, seriously, it's a deck-builder game, so there's an element of luck. Even with perfect strategic play, the random-number gods can frown upon you and deal you a thoroughly awful hand. If you realize it early, you can often save yourself from this situation with a scarab, but it's not guaranteed. There are strategies that the cards afford to mitigate that randomness, but you cannot eliminate it completely. And since you take that risk every year, that randomness has a tendency to catch up with you if you can't outstrip the quota advancement significantly. But eventually, you'll be able to do it if you get good at recognizing when you have the opportunity to accelerate.

In the final game, there will be an "easy mode" of sorts. The payment model I'm going to experiment with is a pay-what-you-want model. The app will be free with no ads, but the player can "tip the developer". If a player does go ahead and tip, then they get access to some extra "boon" cards that can optionally be added to their deck at the start of each game. These cards are powerful enough to help make that early game a little easier, but aren't so powerful that they unbalance the mid- and late-game. (And I think a lot of players might even go ahead and tip and still not use the boons, since the game is balanced to be played without them.)

I'm also going to experiment with starting each game with one extra reign card and one extra coin card compared to the current starting lineup. This will show up in the next build coming soon! That will give everyone, on average, one extra year to ramp up their engines, and reduce those "losing by one reign" defeat from draws in the early game. Several players are having trouble getting started, so hopefully, that will help people feel like the game is a little more fair.

Again, thanks for sticking with it and taking the time to talk with me about it. I can't tell you how motivating it is to have people playing the game and making comments and suggestions!