In the first of a series of interviews with players of other card games, both online and on paper, I talk with Jeff, a former Elements player, about what he liked and didn’t like about the game, the meta, and other Elements-specific details in order to gain insight into how some other card games operate.

Every video game idea starts off with a set of core rules, also called the ‘core mechanics’ of the game. Zems is no different, although the inspiration behind Zems originally developed not from a desire to simply innovate in an already-established genre, but instead from a desire to address perceived problems present in physical card games and their distribution (http://www.zems.com/blog/zems-development/zems-a-new-fantasy-online-trading-card-game/). However, this doesn’t mean that we skimped on the actual game fundamentals, which are addressed here.

After careful analysis of several card game interfaces for both real-world and virtual trading card games, we finally settled on our own interface that was minimalist, functional, and unique. This post describes the 4-month process that led us to our final interface conceptualization.

Zems is an upcoming free online card game currently in development. It is fantasy based, with many game elements inspired by real-time strategy, board, and virtually all the popular card games. The unique combination of these elements, along with several victory conditions, is what separate Zems from the many other collectible card games currently out there.