Game Introduction & Deconstruction:

"Wildfrost" is a deck-building game that incorporates auto-battler mechanics and elements of high randomness, complemented by exquisite art and an excellent soundtrack.

In the game, cards are divided into several categories, including action cards, leader cards, and monster cards. The player's game flow is also distinguished accordingly, which I will introduce one by one.

For non-action cards in the game (i.e., monster cards), they are divided into normal monster cards and leader cards. Leader cards have higher values and abilities than regular minion cards, but they must be played at the beginning of each battle round. At the same time, the priority of leader cards is the highest in the entire game. Once your leader card is taken down by the enemy, the game will end immediately. This leader mechanism is not only present on our side but also in the battle matchups. Once the opponent's boss is defeated, the battle will end directly.

In the game, leader cards are further divided into three factions, each corresponding to different abilities. Since this part is rather lengthy and not closely related to the gameplay mechanics, I will not elaborate too much on it here. Players need to choose one leader from the three randomly drawn from the three factions at the beginning of the game. (That is, the game will roll a leader for you from each faction during the starting phase, and you can only choose one of these three, which introduces a great deal of randomness.)

Each monster and leader card in the game is designed with an auto-battler mechanism. The number at the bottom of each card represents how many turns it takes for the card's effect to trigger. The number on the right is the card's attack power, and the number on the left is the card's health. In addition, each card has its own inherent skills.

In addition to the previously mentioned monster cards and leader cards, the game also has a multitude of action cards, such as attack cards with damage attributes, snowball cards that can increase the opponent's auto-walk count, and many cards that can apply buffs to the monster cards on the field. There are all kinds of action cards with distinctive features or comprehensive abilities. The game's action card pool is extremely large, but players need to draw them during the course of each round to add them to their deck.

Having covered the types of cards in the game, let's move on to the turn-by-turn process and game mechanics within the battle rounds. The turn process in the game can be divided into several stages. First, players need to play the leader cards they currently hold in their hand. Once the leader cards are played, they will enter the auto-walk mode, automatically attacking enemy cards based on a fixed number of turns and their own abilities.

After the leader cards are played, the game enters the official combat round, and the round counter at the top will start counting. Both the player and the enemy can play action cards or monster cards each round, and the corresponding auto-walk actions (such as attack) will occur.

Worth mentioning is that beyond the regular combat mode, the game has incorporated a dual-track chessboard influenced by geographical location. The chessboard is divided into two from the middle (left for player, right for enemy). The enemy and player distributed on the left and right of the chessboard will attack according to the standing positions indicated on the cards. Players can also adjust the positions of the cards on the field at any time, resulting in various modes of attack such as penetration, sweeping, and AOE. Many monster cards have a tank mechanism that can protect the cards behind them. Moreover, there are linkage mechanisms between different cards, which are closely related to the dual-track geographical influence factors in the game.

In summary, "Wildfrost" can be referred to as a "Counting Dual-track Auto-walk Turn-based Combat" (self-created name...). The auto-walk counting mode enhances the randomness and playability of the game, while the dual-track geographical location influence increases the strategic nature of the game. In addition, the game has also made corresponding optimizations in card performance effects and match experience. Due to space limitations, detailed explanations are not provided here.

Next, I will provide a detailed explanation of the game's deck-building content. The game strictly follows the "build then battle" mode, and although the route selection seems non-linear, each step is based on this principle. After each battle, players will encounter two branching paths, and these two branches simply correspond to different pure deck-building contents (such as shops, drawing action cards, drawing monster cards, acquiring gold, etc...). They all lead to the same battle , giving players ample time and energy to prepare for the next fight.

Regarding the card construction in the game, it's worth mentioning that the game has introduced a special mechanism called "attachments," which allows players to build specific cards outside of the match. In most games, card construction typically occurs within the match (for example, applying buffs to monster cards directly with action cards), and "Wildfrost" is no exception.

However, it innovatively introduces out-of-match card construction through the attachment system. Each monster card in the game can be equipped with attachments, which can be directly acquired from the gacha machine in the shop by spending money. Different attachments provide different buffs and abilities, allowing these attachments to be equipped directly onto cards for out-of-match construction. There even exists a crown attachment, which, when equipped, can transform your monster card into a boss card, enabling it to be played at the beginning of a turn just like a leader card.

In addition to the individual out-of-match construction of cards, there are also more comprehensive out-of-match constructions, such as building bases to acquire more powerful cards and incorporate them into the deck. However, this aspect of gameplay innovation is not substantial, so I will not elaborate further here.

Game Analysis:

• The highly randomized gameplay offers more opportunities for chance occurrences

When it comes to the most distinctive aspect of "Wildfrost," it's the pervasive randomness. The selection of leaders requires a random roll from a faction of leaders, followed by a choice of one out of three. The attachments responsible for out-of-match card construction must also be randomly rolled from a gacha machine. Many monster cards in the game have a random attack auto-walk mechanism. Coupled with the inherent random card drawing element of Roguelike, this makes the game highly random. Furthermore, the deck-building phase in the game does not have a skip option, and there's only one opportunity event specifically for discarding cards, which players may not encounter in a short time. This means the randomness of deck construction in the game has a greater impact on players.

The high randomness in the game significantly increases the opportunity aspect. Compared to classic Roguelike card games like "Slay the Spire," the randomness in "Wildfrost" is particularly prominent. This further weakens the game's out-of-process construction (such as already unlocked characters, fixed decks available for selection before the game starts), and instead focuses players on the random construction within each process.

This design greatly enhances the thrill that randomness brings to players, but it also deprives players of the sense of control over the game's card deck process, further reducing the game's strategic element.

• The dual construction system, both within and outside of the match, enhances the strategic of game

I previously mentioned that the game's high randomness mechanism leads to a further decrease in strategic depth, causing players to lose their sense of control over the process. To mitigate the pain points brought by randomness, "Wildfrost" has put a lot of effort into its construction methods within the game itself. In addition to the inherent in-match construction, it has also introduced out-of-match construction for monster cards.

Players can not only use their action cards to strengthen and construct monster and leader cards during turns (such as attack, health, auto-walk countdown, etc...), but they can also construct cards individually outside of matches through attachments, and this construction persists throughout the entire game, effectively acting as a permanent construction within a single playthrough. (This form of construction involves adding new skill keywords directly to monster and leader cards, which are unique to the attachments themselves.)

Compared to most Roguelike card games, the out-of-match construction in "Wildfrost" is clearly innovative, providing players with more strategic space to specifically construct their monster and leader cards before the turn-based battles.

Unfortunately, the game's shop only sets up gacha machines for players to draw attachments, which means that although the attachment-based out-of-match construction is very innovative and enhances the game's strategic depth, all of this is based on the game's high randomness, and the strategic experience it brings is still limited by randomness.

In addition to out-of-match card construction through attachments, the game also ensures the player's overall out-of-match construction experience through strict alternation between construction and battle phases. After a battle, players immediately choose a construction path and then undergo three random constructions. This strict distribution of battle and construction ensures that players have ample time to construct their entire deck before each battle, and such strictly regulated out-of-match construction enhances the overall strategic experience of the game.

• The dual-track auto-walk turn-based combat ensures a diverse match experience

The count-based dual-track auto-battle system is one of the most brilliant aspects of the game's turn-based combat. The game innovatively combines card battles with auto-chess mechanics, assigning an auto-walk count to cards, which determines when they will automatically attack or take action. Players adjust the positions of monster and leader cards on the field during each action turn, while also playing the appropriate action cards to support their own monster cards or to apply debuffs and launch attacks on the opponent.

The dual-track board design also adds a geographical positional factor to matches, further highlighting the distinct design of different leaders and monster cards. Monster cards can be categorized into "attack type, debuff type, defense type," and players can maximize the effectiveness of different monster cards by utilizing the right positions on the board, greatly enhancing the game's strategic depth. The development team has clearly recognized this, designing synergistic abilities for many monster cards, where specific adjacent monster cards provide various buffs. The attacks of different monster cards also depend on their placement and geographical position on the board; for instance, monsters without piercing bonuses can only attack the enemy directly in front of them, and to attack other or multiple enemies, players must use action cards to grant bonuses or directly adjust the card positions, reminiscent of tactical chess games.

This count-based dual-track auto-battle system significantly enriches the diversity of player matches. To some extent, cards act independently of direct player control, requiring players to calculate their moves in advance, increasing the strategic nature of combat rounds. The positional and geographical implications of the dual tracks also introduce more possibilities to matches, enriching the player's experience.

This design fuses the high strategic nature of auto-chess with the randomness of card Roguelikes. The balance between strategy and randomness creates an excellent turn-based combat experience in "Wildfrost," although this is limited to within the combat rounds and does not encompass the overall game flow experience.

Player Research:

• The importance players place on chance and randomness

"Wildfrost" stands out for its pervasive high randomness, which is evident in every aspect of the game. Initially, this design was quite appealing to players, but due to its excessive leaning towards randomness, the game experienced a surge of negative reviews shortly after release. However, a simultaneous spike in positive reviews also subtly indicates that players' appreciation for the game's randomness and opportunistic elements is growing.

Many card games, due to difficulties in compiling decks or vast card pools, require players to invest more effort and time to get started, and the gameplay experience tends to demand greater strategic and tactical skill from players. The high randomness introduced in "Wildfrost" addresses this issue, albeit perhaps a bit too much, which I will elaborate on later.

The high chance and randomness of "Wildfrost" also lower the barrier to entry to some extent, transforming a game that would typically focus on deck synergy and strategy into one that relies heavily on luck. This approach resolves the difficulty of getting started and, through various opportunistic events, brings a lot of excitement to players, giving them a thrill in the midst of the game's high randomness.

• Players' demand for diversity in card strategy

Whether it's "Wildfrost"'s innovative design for out-of-match card construction or its in-match count-based auto-walk dual-track setting, both are attempts at diversifying card construction and strategy. Judging from the positive feedback from players, these aspects indeed appealed to many, reflecting the demand for diversified card construction and strategic depth.

More diverse in-match and out-of-match card constructions imply an enhancement in the game's strategic depth, addressing the issue of the single-track construction found in most Roguelike card games and expanding the thought process behind card game construction.

The count-based auto-walk dual-track combat mechanism also presents higher strategic challenges to players during turns, solving the problem of insufficient strategic depth in most game rounds, catering more to card game players' preferences.

Design Analysis:

• The core issue of the severe imbalance in the proportion of randomness

The key to card game design is to balance the elements of randomness and strategy. "Wildfrost" has made its own innovations in these two aspects, but the proportion of randomness is noticeably imbalanced. As detailed earlier, "Wildfrost" introduces high randomness in many parts of the game, and this randomness significantly affects the game flow and overall deck construction.

The excessive randomness in the game flow makes it hard for players to assemble a suitable deck based on their own strategy, and the entire game flow, which was supposed to emphasize decision-making and route planning, to a certain extent, has turned into a game of luck. The severe imbalance of randomness has significantly reduced the game's playability and greatly lowered the proportion of strategic elements in the game flow.

Moreover, the game did not make any compromises or optimizations on the basis of high randomness, which directly plunged the game experience into a low point. For example, at the beginning of the game, players need to choose one leader from three randomly rolled factions to start the game. However, the quality of the leaders rolled is often mixed because their skills are also randomly rolled. Players often struggle to roll the leader they want from their desired faction, but the leader has a huge impact on the entire game (since there is only one leader, which basically determines the faction and deck strategy for the whole game). Therefore, players often have to re-roll many times at the start of the game. But "Wildfrost" is even unwilling to design a re-roll button, forcing players to constantly exit the process and restart, which is a tedious process that anyone would find frustrating.

There are many similar situations where the development team forces players to depend on randomness in many parts of the game, making the entire game beyond the player's control.

The solution to this problem requires changes in the underlying design of the game, reducing the proportion of randomness. Considerations could be made to optimize the existing randomness (e.g., a one-click re-roll or one-click skip) to balance the player's random experience and neutralize the game's compulsory randomness. Alternatively, the game could reduce its current high randomness setting by removing certain random elements (e.g., allowing players to choose their leader from their card library), which could also decrease the proportion of randomness in the game.

• The stringent auto-battle turn system diminishes players' combat experience

Players familiar with classic card-based Roguelike games should understand the importance of the Save & Load (SL) feature, where players can save or load their progress in a match with a single click, according to their actual situation. This design also provides players with opportunities to experiment and learn from their mistakes. Sometimes, using SL to "turn back fate" after realizing a strategic error can be part of the fun in card games.

However, "Wildfrost" not only lacks a Save & Load feature for players but also introduces a count-based auto-walk dual-track battle round system that demands even more opportunism and strategy. This setting not only increases the "error rate" for players but also significantly reduces the game's "tolerance for errors," and the combination of both leads to a serious decline in the combat experience.

The improvement method is straightforward: introduce the Save & Load mechanism on top of the existing game mechanics. Players of "Wildfrost" have even created their own SL plugins, eliminating the need for an official update.

Summary & Outlooks:

• Introducing more diversified construction modes in card games

The innovations that "Wildfrost" has made in out-of-match deck construction could be applied to other card games that focus on deck building. In addition to the immediate construction within battle rounds, introducing more out-of-match deck construction options that affect the entire game process, whether it be constructing with individual cards or building the entire deck, could enhance the strategic aspect of deck building in card games, thereby increasing the overall playability of the game.

• Integration of auto-battler mechanics

"Wildfrost" adds an auto-battler mechanic to the foundation of real-time card strategy, enhancing the player's role as a decision-maker and introducing more uncertainty into the strategy-focused battle rounds, thus achieving a balance between strategy and randomness.

This fusion with auto-battler mechanics could be adopted by more games known for their strategic depth. For example, in tactical board games, additional auto-battler elements could be implemented, allowing certain characters to have their own auto-battler mechanics, rather than requiring player control at every turn. Players act more as decision-makers and observers, which increases the demands on players' tactical decision-making and adds more uncertainty to the original board game, enhancing the strategic depth of the game.