In the last post I wrote about the time flow, one of the main mechanics that bring SUPERHOT to life in the card game. Now let’s talk about the glue that holds it together: the bullets!

Bullets are an ever present threat in the original videogame. Pick any random moment in the game and the odds are you’re reacting to a swarm of bullets flying in your direction. If a single one hits it’s game over and you have to replay the level.

What can you do?

The most intuitive solution is to dodge, but you must be careful. Time advances with every step you take and dodging a bullet can mean three others just got closer.

Time goes hand in hand with the bullets, but how do they work in the card game?

At the end of the turn the enemies in the Line will shoot. These bullets will go to the objectives discard pile. That’s right! The bullets don’t go straight to the Line. Just like the original videogame, you have some time to deal with bullets from distant enemies before they come back to haunt you.

When the obstacles deck runs out you shuffle their discard pile to form the new one and from this point onward bullets will sneak into the Line.

If a bullet leaves the line it will go straight into your hand – and stay there. This is a big problem because it has no use, takes up space and blocks you from drawing new cards at the end of the turn. If you get hit by four it’s game over!

You might notice it takes four bullets to die when in the videogame one is enough. This is where I had to bend the rules. In the videogame you push a button and the level instantly resets. In a second you’re back in the action. In the card game you would have to separate the cards and go through the setup again. Three minutes, maybe?

That’s too much. It’s punishing and it makes the players dwell on their mistakes rather than give them the will to try again. Making the bullets a growing hindrance instead of the end game also let me bring a key aspect from the videogame, but I can’t mention it without spoiling!

SUPERHOT: The Card Game is coming to Kickstarter very soon. The campaign preview is already up, and I’d love to hear your feedback!

SUPERHOT is a first person shooter in which time only moves when you do.

I’d like to tell you how I brought that core mechanic to SUPERHOT: The Card Game.

If you look at it closely, SUPERHOT is pretty much turnbased already. The super slow motion gives you time to look around and plan your next move, and the choice of when to speed it up is in your hands.

The mechanics in SUPERHOT: The Card Game are based on Agent Decker, whose core systems are deckbuilding and mission progression. The main thing that didn’t fit the theme was the Alarm, which is the main threat and the source of the hardest decisions.

This was the perfect time to bring in SUPERHOT’s core concept: “Time moves only when you do”.

At the center of the table there’s a line of six cards. They represent where you are, what you see and which enemies are there. Using the cards in your hand you can destroy or knock them out, changing the line.

In the following example you have used two cards from your hand. This means the last two cards in the line will be discarded at the end of the turn.

The remaining cards will scroll to the right and the line will refill back up to six cards.

It’s up to you. Use one card and the line barely moves. Use your whole hand and it can change radically. Time moves only when you move.

This change worked in both a mechanic and thematic sense but without the Alarm we needed a new source of tension. Something to make the players think twice about scrolling the line at maximum speed. Something that is coming in your direction.

I’ve got just the thing: bullets!

The final piece of this puzzle creates interesting dilemmas, which I’ll cover in the next article.

SUPERHOT: The Card Game is coming to Kickstarter very soon. You can stay up to date by subscribing to the newsletter.