Shadow Cards by Matt Christian
Shadow Cards is a stealth action card battle game where you sneak through a facility filled with patrolling enemies. Use Attack, Evade, and Counter-Attack cards to dispatch enemies in secret, defend yourself if you are seen, or barter your way out of a tricky situation. Don't get caught without cards though, or your mission will be a failure!
Developed by Matt Christian in 48 hours as a compo entry for Ludum Dare 41.
Controls:
WASD - Move/Navigate Menus
Mouse - Look
E - View Cards
Space/Mouse 1 - Stealth Attack (within range)
Escape - Quit






| Windows | https://submattermatt.itch.io/shadow-cards |
| Source code | https://www.dropbox.com/s/jwqkroqvronlsja/ShadowCards_Source.zip?dl=0 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/shadow-cards |
Ratings
| Overall | 260th | 3.523⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 454th | 3.091⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 92th | 3.864⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 73th | 4.159⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 279th | 3.409⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 226th | 3.182⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 497th | 2.167⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 175th | 3.405⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 11🗨️ |
i love the unexpected combo of stealth action and cards, but since both are very familiar it was super easy to pickup immediately, so brilliant way to combine! it was fun to do the sneaking around and the attack from behind and it was fun to rifle through my cards to find a good option. also i was able to win, so that felt nice. also i liked how you managed to set a decent stealth action mood with a little tension through music and opponent behavior. the minimalist visuals worked in your favor as i imagined what kind of place i was in and what kind of people i was up against. very effective!
i do feel like it was too easy, but that's hardly a major complaint since it allowed me to experience the entire game concept. if i had to pick one main thing to complain about, i'd say i wanted more visceral feedback with each card played. possibly more audio visuals to tell me if i was making progress and doing what i thought i was doing. that said it felt good whenever my opponent disappeared, so the minimal feedback was still communicating just enough, i think.
great job! glad you did this, and if i'm not mistaken, congrats on your first game jam! (: you actually kinda killed it just by finishing and having a solid complete game loop experience. you even had music! bonus points for bothering with that.
However, I was initially drawn in. I think if the combat was extended upon and there were more cards introduced (more defend options) then this would be a pretty enjoyable game. Nice job, man.
If I were to be nit-picky, I would say that the difficulty level should increase a bit. I found it far too easy to avoid enemies, and found no reason to fight them. That being said I do realize that if you were to make one area different it could affect other aspects of the genres you chose.
The game feels very smooth. I enjoyed moving around and looking at my deck of cards. I think it was very important to my user experience.
Nice work!
As @Colin Misbach mentioned, i also found it a little too easy to avoid enemies at times. I think giving the player some extra rewards for initiating & completing the combat phase could counter this.
It could be that giving a secondary purpose to the cards outside of combat & rewards from combat may fix this, giving the player the option to balance their resources in combat vs non-combat activities.
Absolutely loved the atmosphere & mood created by the minimalist style & non-interfering background music, only minor point if i were picking issues would be that the card changing noise is a lot louder than the other sfx & music and feels a little jarring.
Overall fantastic game, great work! I can't wait to see if you do more and take the project further :-)
I think the TCG base allows for a lot of expansion in the choices department but as it currently stands it was a bit lackluster. I could finish the levels without using a card and when I did, it was mostly a simple choice.
I would like to see this idea go forward but it needs some polish in the implementation, as is, it doesnt have the umph that the idea really promises.
Solid idea, good job
Really good execution on the tutorial. I love seeing tutorials integrated directly into the game world I always think that's a good way to do it.
Wish there were more missions! Felt like I was just getting warmed up and excited and then the game ended.
The concept is very innovative with sleek design ! The fact that you can finish the game without having to use the card mechanic (by avoiding the enemies) is a bit sad... Maybe a bigger area of view would have been a bit better ?
The core mechanic is kind of simple, which made the learning curve really short, although it worked pretty well, the only thing I would change in the game is the difficulty, I finished the game in less than 3 minutes ( and got a "Stealth Master", I do not know if that makes any difference haha) and I am under the impression that the game could be much harder, with more tiny levels, more enemies, maybe some cameras or stuff like that.
Overall it is a solid and nice entry! Keep up the good work!
I liked the concept of the idea of using what cards the player has in their deck but unfortunatly I was able to get around the AI very easily. Possibly by co-ordinating the AI path to force the player to take more action (Stun them) making more use out of the card mechanic.
I did have an issue where the vision cone was able to hit the player through the wall.
All in all, a very good concept, it just needs expanding a little. Well done though!