Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Its has been a very long time since I have been active on these boards and been on the tournament scene. This game made a positive impact in my life and  I have been on keeping tabs on rule changes and sets since I left the tournament scene both as a host and a player.

I want to speak to 2 really big things that have decreased this game to the glory days of old.

First of all the game is now overly complex to teach to new players.  When I started this game you could teach an 8 yr old to play this game to where they could have some fun and success in a tournament. The "need" for a new card type every set was a great asset early on. Weapon class enhancements an forward created a big power discrepancy that derailed the focus of the sets into a witch hunt for what the most over powered meta game was at the time. The sets focus was no longer what power can we give a card for it to be useful against said meta game at the time and less of what game mechanic makes this character similar to how they behaved in the bible.

Second thing that has made this difficult to stay interested in for me is inconsistent ruling with certain words.  This game had a very concrete hierarchy that could be explained to new players. For those that remember paper rock scissors rulings. Words also had a concrete meant as to who chose if an ability was to activate or what it was to target. I'm going to pick on the Goliath ruling here for a min. this was probably one of the worst rulings since I have left the game. Wall of Protection (Place this site in your territory. No character MAY be brought into battle by an opponent.)  By the standard execution of this verb age (May) the holder of Wall of Protection could have elected to allow them to be brought into battle. Goliath returning heroes to territory and wall keeping heroes from entering battle just because they are in play makes now sense. 1 Wall of protection says may and its protecting my cards. Biblical argument by this logic David could have never killed Goliath. Game play argument I am elective protecting (may) the Heroes and EC's in my territory I should be allowed to send a second Hero into battle if I choose.

I would love to get back into the game but, whit not being able to teach this game to young players that can really benefit from the game like I did and meta game witch hunt its really hard for me to convince my self to take the plunge back in.

Redemption needs to be more complex than it was when it first came out, the complexity adds variety and fuels people buying cards. Buying cards is the only thing that keeps the game alive.

Second thing that has made this difficult to stay interested in for me is inconsistent ruling with certain words.  This game had a very concrete hierarchy that could be explained to new players. For those that remember paper rock scissors rulings. Words also had a concrete meant as to who chose if an ability was to activate or what it was to target.

The issue with current rulings is when they mix with older wordings. We now have concrete definitions of the multiple things that before had a variety of meanings. "Cannot be blocked by" "May not be blocked by" "Ignore" "Repel". It's getting better, but we're having problems with older cards that are worded weird.

Which is why Set Rotation would be really nice, but I understand why Rob can't really do that.

You had mentioned the Goliath ruling in your first post. I actually like that ruling because it caused some folks to take Wall of Protection out of their decks. That opened up all the fun of banding to your opponents characters again. I enjoy playing Deborah's Directive after my opponent plays a "discard/remove all" like Joseph in Prison and they have the misfortune of using OT heroes.

The reg is a downloadable PDF. The rules were not changed. It's actually the most consistent ruling overall.