Influence Cards (pt. 3)
August 11, 2018
Hey everyone! This is the final installment of the influence card series. Today I wanted to show you the Cheating Influence Cards, which cost integrity.
Starting off, Hack School Wi-Fi is one of the new cards that deal with Essays. I like this card a lot because it gives you a lot of useful information about an opponent and how many RP they have. It also lets you move an essay when it suits you, which could result in a large Resume Point swing. Because of this, the integrity cost is fairly significant, making you lose a minimum of 3 RP. I’m looking forward to see how this card ends up being used.
Bribe Teacher is one of those Influence Cards that helps people get Recs or use teacher abilities that are harder to get. I feel that the trade-off is sufficiently significant because it is a permanent loss for a temporary gain.
This might have my favorite flavor text out of all the influence cards, and is somewhat inspired by a book called The Price of Privilege. In this book, the author talks about how she sees a lot of parents be over-involved in raising their kids through her work as a psychologist. I wanted to make a card that followed a similar theme, especially since parents are strangely absent from most of this game.
This card has been a popular card to purchase as it makes taking the FUN a lot less painful and random. When designing the FUN, we wanted a system that was random in order to reflect the ACT/SAT- so it made perfect sense to make the FUN a dice roll. Another important element was having players who were unlucky have to take the FUN a second or third time, kind of like how one can retake the SAT or ACT as many times as they wish. However, I also felt that having such a luck-based mechanic was not ideal, and so thats why there are several cards (including this one) that help players take the FUN.
I really like the design of this card because it drains Integrity but also grants you RP- enough to make purchasing it worth it in most circumstances. However, because of the fact that Integrity can never b recovered, it is also a risky Influence Card in the sense that it may prevent a player from then purchasing another better cheating influence card in the future. I do feel that this card could go to 4 Integrity or maybe a lower RP value, to create even more of a difficult trade-off to make.
Caffeine pills has been in the game since the start, and been one of my favorites. I think that it is one of the best influence cards in the game, if not the best, as it is one of the only ways in the game to get additional cards (fun fact, this card was initially the main reason each deck has 21 cards instead of 20). However, it does come with a significant Integrity cost and gives Stress at the end of every year, which makes this card a lot harder to play.
Get Answer Keys is a very simple card that used to be a special action. However, after many attempts to balance a card like that, it became clear that it wasn’t very fun to play as a special action. The problem was mainly that the reward was not instant, and the fact that special actions prevent players from playing their turns normally, which is where a lot of the fun in the game lies. Therefore, an instant effect is not only a lot simpler, but more fun to use in my opinion.
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