Back in 2019, I reviewed a pretty obscure game called Beatdown: Streets of Justice. One of the cool things about that game was the fact that they had a really cool system where you would overlay cards on top of each-other to form combos. I was inspired by this system because it was really creative and decided that I wanted to make a game using a similar system with my own twist on things. While I was inspired by Beatdown: Streets of Justice, I believe that the two ended up being extremely different.
The main twist that I am adding to this system is the face that the left side of every card is a restriction that limits where that card can be played within a combo. I think this is a very distinctive innovation because it makes the game puzzly and strategic rather than a push your luck game. I also worked hard to make this system the star of the show while throwing out any other systems that could bloat the game. For example, I originally had a health total in mind, but I found a way to remove that from the game and make it so that the cards in your hand also represent your health total. This also meant moving away from deck-building and towards a Gloomhaven-like hand management system. Making cleaner designs (essentially, less is more) is something I have been working on for a long time. I feel like I have gotten a lot better at avoiding bloat in my games after making a conscious effort to do so over the past year, which I am really happy about.