Cactus Game Design Message Boards

for the past 6 months or so, I've been hearing faint whispers (figuratively) about Redemption dying but the questions I have and im very sure all of us as the redemption community as well as an online Christian community, we could all together do some thinking and research to answer ourselves these questions:

Why is redemption dying?
How can we as God's community come together to help Redemption survive and thrive?

as you all may or may not know, I've been in the game ever since 2005 and will continue to stay in the game and I know this is beside the point but I will make every effort to never EVER quit this game. this game means so much to me being not just someone who loves games, but also as a growing Christian and to know, see and hear the things about the game that are so negative it breaks my heart. im not about to just sit here and let almost 20 years of a legacy just crumble like an old concrete wall that hasn't been maintained. there is so much more that could be done with the game that could help grow God's kingdom and we act as if this is just any other game. I want to make the effort to help this game survive but I cannot do it alone. if anyone else loves this game as much as I do, then there must be something about the game that could be tweaked a lil to help it keep going. call me obsessive, call me naïve, call me crazy, call me whatever you want, I really don't care. but what I do care about is this game's survival cause call this what you want to, I call it Rob's ministry for God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To be honest a lot of it is the high learning curve. It took me a long time to get down the standard rules of the game and even still we have questions come up even when two top tier players are playing. This is a rather large problem . When my brother first introduced me to MTG I understood every rule of the game by pretty much the end of the game and when I encountered a new ability, after that first game, it explained it right on the card. Sure I don't know how to play the game well yet because I haven't played it a lot but I can still play knowing the rules and knowing what will happen when I play a card. With a lot of new players to redemption they look at their cards and have no idea how certain cards will affect the game.

However, after you do learn the game and become a more advanced player it is by far one of the most fun games I've ever played. Their are so many different strategies to explore and knew deck concepts to be built. Even as someone who has played awhile I'm still discovering new potential in cards. That's one reason I do enjoy the game so much.

However, with others leaving the game and tournament attendance being low I can't justify putting a lot more time and money into than I already have and I decided to cut my losses and sell out.

To be quite honest, to get knew players in redemption we would probably need a reboot because it's just too convoluted for anyone young to enjoy. We know how short kids attention span are and they become even shorter when they don't understand something. The starter decks were a good push in the right direction but once you get to a higher level of play it just becomes that much more complicated.

I truly do hope redemption survives and grows because it has great ministry potential and great game play potential. So, I hope to stick around and give my voice on things going on and hopefully one day, if I do sell out, pick up a starter deck and start the journey over again.

Probably the most important things in a reboot would be to get rid of interrupt prevent and negate and replace it with one thing that has the same general idea but isn't so complicated. Again how MTG works is fairly straightforward with counterspells and really only gets complicated when people start piling up the stack but even that isn't too complicated. That is probably the most convoluted thing in redemption for a new player to understand.

Second thing that would need changing is to trim down on the keywords in redemption. Right now we have protect, capture, discard, remove, set aside, repel, ignore, instead, return, and probably some more that I'm forgetting. Now MTG again certainly has a lot more but on every card with that ability they explain what it does so you never have to ask. This is another thing I see new players struggle with.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is somehow making color matching and type matching more easy because I've seen so many new players try and drop AoCP on Four Squads of Four or something like that. Maybe not to that extreme but you get the idea. It should be easier to know the purpose of each card and what to put where.

1. While I understand that competing at a top level in redemption can create convoluted situations I would argue that the game in General can be learned in 20 minutes and one game.  Does everyone have a need to compete at the highest level of redemption?

2  You keep comparing redemption top level play with MTG beginner play and that's apples and oranges.  Do you honestly have a chance at competing with top MTG players no matter how long you spend playing the game?  My assumption is no.  I don't anticpate very many people competing on a national or world level in MTG.  However, thousands of people purchase cards and at for fun with friends.

3. Redemption provides an opportunity for people like me to learn the game and become a high level player in a year or less.  MTG doesn't have that to offer.

I totally agree that I couldn't become a top level player in MTG. No chance. But what I'm comparing is starting the game of MTG vs. starting the game of redemption. In MTG I can start with starter decks and understand the game fine in one game. Same goes for redemption I agree. However, I can play with the best and most powerful cards in MTG and still understand what they do and how they interact. In redemption however once you add cards outside the starter deck, the game gets a heck of a lot more complicated. This isn't even advanced play yet. It's just playing with cards that are more advanced and come from outside the starters. I've tried to teach the game to multiple people and they just get totally lost once you add more advanced cards in. This is something that I don't find in Magic at all. Now it could be the way I'm teaching the game that doesn't make sense to the people and that's possible and fair. Maybe I'm just not a good teacher. But I think players should be able to sit down, read the rule book and be able to find how each ability works. Our rule book currently does that for the starter decks but probably wouldn't help much when it comes to the more advanced cards.

Second thing that would need changing is to trim down on the keywords in redemption. Right now we have protect, capture, discard, remove, set aside, repel, ignore, instead, return, and probably some more that I'm forgetting.

well there's convert too though but I see what you mean. I mean im still struggling as a player with the whole concept of repelling and trying to understand it but it would make things a tad easier if we just got rid of prevent, interrupted, and repel cause for interrupt and prevent, we have negate for that and most of the cards we're seeing now are just negate or cannot be negated which is roughly enough both interrupt and prevent and taking out just interrupt and prevent would just make things easier and as far as repel goes, like I said I can't understand it or how it works and im sure there are other people who are struggling with it as much as I am which is why I think that should go. but what about the rulebook in the reboot? what would make things easier so people can understand, other then providing visual aids? but speaking of keywords and I have to confess, I myself play MTG and it certainly is easier to learn to play and watching other people play on youtube and in person makes it a lot easier but in MTG that have so many keywords that it's just nuts.

Yes well...my point exactly...

I would like to start stating that when it comes to Redemption, I'm more of a collector than a player.  But, in my limited experience as a player I agree that this game can be hard to learn.  When my wife and I tried playing the game the rules on negate, prevent, interrupt, repel, etc,. confused us also.

I came across the Redemption CCG sometime around 2003. 

I started going back to church in 1999 after being out of church for almost 24 years.  During these years I played mainly RPGs and computer games.  Many of these game were also hard to learn, but I did learn them through experience and I was able to find others to game with.  In my 20+ years of playing RPGs (mainly D&D), I not only became a good player, but additionally I could design adventures and DM them. 

However, in 2002 I started Bible college and I felt that playing these games did not honor God, so I quit.  The bottom line is:  Many games are hard to learn but playing frequently and with other players you learn how to become better.  These are the biggest reasons I have not become a better Redemption player is the lack of playing time and finding a group to game with.  I live in lower Delaware and I do not know anybody in the area who plays Redemption.  Whereas there are several gaming stores within a hour drive where I could find groups to play other games.

To me this is a big area where Redemption is lacking in.  That is, a lack of venues where players can get together to fellowship and play games on a regular basis.  I totally agree that Redemption is a very good game to play and is an excellent alternative to the many worldly game that are out there.

Thanks for the advice.  I have learn some about this game just this past month by joining this message board.  Once I better learn some of the card abbreviations and game terms, I could potentially pick up more about the game.  I enjoyed the discussions on the various decks and I have printed some out so that I can build them.  I plan to use some of them when my wife and I play some games.  At the moment she is my only opponent.

I do not use any social media and I have been on the Wiki a couple times.  A do understand that you need to learn from someone who knows the game well.  This was my point, for example, I learn how to play D&D in college from someone who had played the game for awhile and in the beginning my characters had a very short lifespan.  I got better with experience and being around other players.

Well, anyway, currently my wife and I are involved in a vicious Rummikub tournament (we are both first-borns and we are a bit competitive).  -Update on our 5 night tournament:  Final score 10-10 (1-3; 3-1; 2-2; 2-2; 2-2).