Po10tions: Silver Path

Background Story

Arial Bachblume is the adopted daughter of the local pharmacist, Hans, who owns a potion workshop called Po10tions. The name is pronounced as po-ten-tions, which obviously means ten bottles of potion. When the snowstorm hits every winter, the Bachblume family has to stay at home for more than half a month. To entertain his children, Hans brought out the game of Silver Path designed in his youth. The game is based on his experience of running his business, and has been popular in taverns for about 30 years.

Match Mode

Match mode is a fast-paced business competition for 2-4 players. The goal of each player is to earn 1500 Sickma quicker than their opponent. The match takes place on a 2D map, just like Monopoly. The player can build sites to produce three types of goods: industrial (IND, red), consumable (CON, green), and potion (POT, blue). Then they can sell these goods in towns, which is (almost) the only way of earning Sickma. 

There are multiple types of special cells on the map. Sites built on red, green, and blue cells produce IND, CON, and POT, respectively. Brown cells are towns: characters must stand in them to trade with the towns. The Supply (SUP) and Demand (DEM) of each town are limited, and players have to compete with their opponents. Black cells are ferries, on which characters can move to any other ferries with no step cost. 

The following types of matches are supported:

• 1v1

• 1v1v1

• 2v2: Both players must have 1500 Sickma to win.

• 2 in 1: Two players play as one, share the goods and sickma, but each has their own deck, and can only operate their own characters.

Deck and Strategy

To make things more interesting, each player can have a deck of characters, spells, potions, and other useful types of cards. Cards cost goods when played, and the cost is marked on the top-left corner. A card may cost multiple types of goods!

Each character has 3 attributes: commerce (COM), attack (ATK), and defense (DEF). COM is our special feature: it offers better pricing for trades. 1 BUS means +1 Sickma/goods when selling, and -1 Sickma/goods when buying. So, a simple strategy is to instruct high-COM characters to trade, and high-ATK characters to protect them and the sites. Of course, you can also let high-ATK characters destroy your opponents' characters. The player can choose to be more aggressive (blue deck), more greedy in trades (green deck), or more focused on construction and production (red deck).

In a standard Match, a player should have a deck with 1 shopkeeper (which will be automatically summoned with no cost at the beginning of the game) and 18 - 36 cards.

Action

At the beginning of each player's turn, the player draws 1 card, and all their Sites will produce once, regardless of whether there is a character. Then, the player rolls 2+1d4 (add 2 to the result of one 4-sided dice) as their Step, and chooses to obtain an unlocked Potion card. Then, they can operate in arbitrary order, play cards from their hand, or command their characters, until they choose to end their turn.

The player can summon characters from their hand, at their Starting point, or any ally Sites.

The player can also select characters to open the Action menu for the following basic operations (that do not cost ACT):

• Move: Cost step to let characters move towards a selected cell.

• Buy: Buy SUP-type goods from the town where they are located.

• Sell: Sell DEM-type goods to the town where they are located.

• Dismiss: Remove the character. This is usually to free POP for more powerful characters.

The player can also use the character's ACT for the following operations:

• Build: Build a Site at the character's position. The cell must be Buildable and does not contain an existing Site.

• Attack: The character attacks its own position, and your opponent chooses which character to defend. If there is an opponent's Site that is not Breached, the character can only attack the Site. Range characters can attack remote cells in their range.

• Instruct: Use their active skills. Most Instruct cost 1 ACT.

Story Mode

Arial and her friends, Miller and Ella, found a box of old Silver Path cards, taking them back to 80 years ago. There (or actually, then), they met Aria the White, the hero who sacrificed herself saving people from a snowstorm! The three young protagonists will start their adventure with Aria, using their knowledge from the future to solve challenges from the past.

In Story Mode, players play multiple match-mode-style games with randomly built decks. At most 3 players play as the three protagonists (insufficient players will be replaced by bots), and compete with opponents from all over the Arctica Continent. In addition to winning with Sickma, special events may bring totally different goals. Before each game, players may receive resumes (for character cards) and visit the Academia to attend lectures (for other types of cards).

Story mode is currently under development and will be coming soon!