Hey there Poker Monsters! We are back with another update! This time around, we are looking to smooth out the playability of the game even more with a list  of tiny changes.

Updated Bookmark

You can already see it in the image to attached to this Devlog post. We are changing the tiny little bookmark that pops up whenever an ability is in play. This newer version takes up more screenspace but we think it's worth it if it helps with the overall game experience.

I'll make an example to explain why it was needed (it's a bit of a deep cut but I'm sure true Poker Monsters can follow along), imagine this:

The druid plays a card of clubs, in a monster slot and that card happens to be an Evocard too! 

Now, this scenario is a nightmare because 3 effects are about to start, and some of them might require the camera to move around to different parts of the table. If a player doesn't know PRECISELY the order these events play out, it can be troubling to keep track of exactly what effect is happening on screen.  A bigger bookmark, containing the whole artwork of the entity whose effect is in play (and a small text to accompany it) certainly helps, not to mention it give us a chance to add a bit more flavour to the game.

Evocard visual effect

Along with the updated bookmark, we've also added a little visual flair that happens whenever an Evocard is played. These cards are one of the most interesting mechanics of our game so we felt it was appropriate to "celebrate" them with something extra. It's really important that the player feels the power of these cards when they play them, especially compared to regular cards. We hope you like it!

Hero Rotation

We made a small change to the Hero rotation. In previous versions of the game, the Hero  of the current Turn would position itself in the middle of the table, between your combos and the Book. We noticed that, with the limited colour palette of our characters, the further they are from the camera the harder it is to distinguish one from the others. We adressed this issue by positioning the Turn's current Hero closer to the player. It makes a lot more sense.

Deck "healthbar"

We LOVE that in our game the number of cards in your deck are your HP too, it really is an interesing risk reward game mechanic. That being said, some players might not understand it right away, and they might not be aware when they are in "danger" because they have very few cards left. We added a little healthbar beside the deck to solve this. The look is in no way final, but it's there. Tell us what you think of it!