Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Game Design Teaser Part .III - The Heroes of NYC

The Heroes of NYC

We’re getting closer to the release of our newest set, so I thought I’d sit down with you all to share a little insight into the design process. I might only have a little time though as it sounds like there is a giant mutant crashing near my office in Seattle. I guess I’ll start with the good guys!

April O’Neil

April went through various incarnations where she revealed the top card of the rival’s deck, behaving as a “reporter getting the scoop.” It fit thematically, but was often either unfun, completely ineffective, or, worse yet, helping the rival! We eventually switched to a mill ability for that reason—she doesn’t need to reveal what’s coming next, she just needs to air out your secrets.

As a mill character who can mill on your rival’s attacks, April has the potential to run really lean on attacks herself. To balance that out, we reduced the effectiveness of her mill abilities a bit, then added a static that helps you play Ally attack cards. April doesn’t do a lot of attacking on her own, but others are more than eager to fight for her—and I felt like that came through well in the design.

Splinter

Splinter started out with this fun concept of “teaching.” He demonstrates an attack and says, “Do it like this!” As a mentor and adaptable fighter, that made a lot of sense to me.

Initially, Splinter could change all of his own attacks to match his biggest one, and he could ready one foundation whenever the rival attacked. Both of these effects turned out to be too repetitive and too strong, so we put in some tweaks and found our sweet spot pretty quickly.

Leonardo

Leonardo was very similar to how he is now, just more boring and straightforward—the boy scout of the crew. An early adjustment allowed his damage pumps to synergize with milling (these were initially disconnected), which gave him greater potential and a more direct game plan.

You might expect a mill based character to have the Fire symbol, but you have to keep in mind—if he did, he would have needed to be toned down more. Leo showcasing incremental self-mill in All gives us a great opportunity to design new tools.

Raphael

Raph ended up almost exactly as I first designed him—just with +2 health. He went through a few different iterations, but in the end, the most fun version was the first one.

Raphael is reckless, and in this particular version of TMNT, he’s extremely fight-focused. Giving him abilities that just buff stats made a lot of sense. The puzzle lies in how he goes about doing it. Having additional synergy with AoT fire cards was also a great way to emphasize those themes.

Michelangelo

I like characters who are easy to understand and play straightforwardly, but still have room for decisions and interesting lines. I’m hoping Mikey is one of those.

A few things you might not catch on the first read:

• Mikey’s Response triggers from every block, but only buffs the speed of your next Kick, Punch, or Pizza attack. You could build a deck full of those cards, so it functionally reads: “After your attack is blocked, your next attack gets +3 speed.” Or you could include just a few Kick/Punch/Pizzas so your string ends with something really fast. Might I suggest Hang Ten, or a Fa Jin Flurry?

• Mikey’s Enhance also has some great utility. Want to bring a face-down card back to your hand to play on your next turn? You can. Need a specific block zone out of your stage? Easy. Running behind on foundations and don’t want to disrupt your board? Just wait to activate until after your foundations are committed—then you’ll only bounce a rival foundation! Your rival will have to think twice before throwing out any ol’ poke.

Donatello

Donatello is my favorite turtle. I love them all, but if I had to pick one, it’s the geek. Donny likes to play defense, but once all his toys are charged up, he becomes a menace.

This was another character who ended up very close to his original version—but it really came together once Donny’s Bo Staff was revamped to fit his gameplan.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

This card is fun. It didn’t start out in the set, but eventually there was a desire to have an additional rare character—and we couldn’t just pick one turtle to fill that role. Since it was all of them at once, it needed to do something impressive, but it couldn’t actually be as strong as four characters in one.

We decided a 4-hander with a huge health pool would be a cheeky way to represent the boys as a band. Then we gave it an ability that wouldn’t make them a “fake” 4-hander, but would help with some of the typical weaknesses 4-handers face.

Everybody loved this one, and it’s just fun to have an excuse to play 1- and 2-check attacks. Where are my copies of Food Motivated at?

One thing to keep in mind about these boys is the ability functions even when the character is committed, so feel free to use them to pay for your stuff whenever needed!

It's been a blast, but I gotta jet before our building gets toppled. Wish me luck! Be sure you are finding Local Game Stores near you to pick up all of your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Booster Boxes, Starter Decks, and Accessories.