Progress Report

Greetings, everyone!

Everything that goes up has to come down again, apparently. Around the time of last week's progress report, I got hit by a stomach bug. While I thankfully didn't get outright sick, I was still left physically exhausted and mentally drained by the ordeal, and I didn't get better until the weekend. I did my best to catch up, but you can do only so much.

So, what did I do? Well, I added some more card art, meaning that there are now only 5 cards remaining. Almost done with that part, in other words. I also started preliminary work on the main musical theme of Supermodel: Defenders of Desire. It's a bit early to start focusing on that, I know, but it's an essential part of that game. I should at least have a vague idea of what I want to do with it once I get the opportunity to really dedicate time and effort to it. Some of this work might also benefit Snapshot due to at least one (but possibly more) track that needs to be added before version 2.0, but we'll see. I have many ideas, but they take time to create and polish. And none of these ideas are worth doing if they don't sound fantastic.

As for this week's card preview, this is another one I picked because it demonstrates something entirely absent in Snapshot's first release. "Concentration" is another level 1 Engine, and this one represents a whole new "skill tree" of sorts, with its own themed Upgrade cards following the same pattern. And what a pattern it is! These cards will require an entirely different way of thinking about your Engines and Upgrades, most notably because it does not generate Heat whatsoever. In fact, it almost does the opposite. You've made a huge mistake if you don't have other Heat sources when this card is in play. 

The Drain effect is new to version 2.0 of Snapshot. When you are told to Drain something, you must pay that amount of resources at the specified time. The big twist with Drain is that a failure to pay this resource means the card gets discarded. Pretty scary stuff. In this particular case, the Drain effect is a precondition for the second effect to even happen in the first place. If you can't pay the 1 Usable Heat that the Drain effect demands, Concentration is discarded before it even has a chance to damage any Challenge cards.

This card is doubly interesting because Skill cards rarely damage multiple Challenge cards at once. This is the forte of Confidence and Trust. Using Confidence and its upgrades, Skill decks suddenly have a viable and repeatable source of mass damage that can handle many problems their regular attack cards might not. But it comes at a cost, especially seeing as Skill decks are already low on Heat generation. How do you cover this discrepancy? Luckily, other cards introduced in 2.0 might help with that. More on those cards later.

Until next time!