Front Page

Contact

Gallery

Highlights

Description

Rulebook

Gallery

Print It

Buy

License

How It Was Created

Epic Soundtracks

Fluons

History

Highlights

The presented game is a tease of version 2, but the linked rulebook is still for version 1.5, which is significantly different.

Two-player, competitive, fast paced card game.

Scifi-themed cards with artwork, lore and name.

Single deck of 180 cards, playable out of the box.

Player-designed custom cards can be used strategically.

Setup: Shuffle the cards. Each player draws 7 cards.

Two-phase turns: Obstruct with total card valor which is at least what the rival played during a plot. Plot with card valor which has to be obstructed by the rival. Combo actions can be made with card abilities, and add together the card valors. Each non-obstructed plot is a loss, and ends a round.

Objective: Win the last turn of the game. To get advantages for the last turn, win as many turns as possible.

Typical duration (when the rules are known): 30...45 minutes.

Minimum player age: 12.

Description

The presented game is a tease of version 2, but the linked rulebook is still for version 1.5, which is significantly different.

The Worlds Asunder Card Game (WACG) is a competitive card game for 2 players, with a science fiction theme and atmospheric artwork and lore.

Main mechanics: randomness from shuffled cards, card drawing, hand / ops capacity of 7 cards, card playing / engaging, turns, rounds (multiple turns), card abilities (rules applied when cards are played), combo actions (combination of the abilities of multiple cards played in a single turn), experience cards (extend the capacity of the hand, cards are reusable, upgrade cards), adventure cards (start cooperative rounds), and management of limited resources. There are no tokens or counters to move around and account for.

The players are mostly relieved from having to decide which actions they have to execute at each turn, since they may mostly execute only the actions of the abilities of the cards from the hand, which makes the game easier for beginners. The gameplay is about adaptation to the environment on the spot.

The charm of the gameplay, and its appeal to advanced players, comes from the diversity of the rules of the abilities, and has an emphasis on the combo actions which emerge fluidly on the spot. To master the game, a player has to master combo actions.

The rules create a fast paced and balanced gameplay, but also create the potential for decisions which can easily switch the balance. There is just enough pressure for the players to feel that they might lose at any moment, but without making the casual players feel like it's impossible for them to win against advanced players. At the end of the game, you realize that you're playing for fun and for twists in what you thought was your win.

The goal of the game is to play more valor (numeric card value) then the rival during each turn, but the game is won by the player who wins the last turn of the last round. Everything builds toward that last turn.

Playing consists of turns during which the players may execute various actions, and rounds at the end of which the winner gets some advantages which will matter for the finale of the game.

Most of the time, a player has to play from hand, during his / her turns, cards whose total valor is at least the total valor of the cards played by the rival, thusly successfully obstructing the rival.

Normally, during a turn, a player may play only 1 card, but the abilities of the played cards allow for more cards to be drawn, played or moved to other play zones. Playing multiple cards in a series is called combo action. Combo actions with 10 cards are not rare, and even with more than 20 cards have been seen.

Sometimes, a player will fail to obstruct the rival because he / she will not be able to create combo actions which are powerful enough, and will lose the round. In such a case, the rival will be rewarded so as to slightly increase his / her chances to win the last turn of the last round, and the game.

Rulebook

The presented game is a tease of version 2, but the linked rulebook is still for version 1.5, which is significantly different.

Here are the rules in PDF format.

Here are the rules in LibreOffice format. This is for anyone who wants to edit the rulebook.

Gallery

In version 2 of the game, the cards will have AI art. The visual style is a work in progress, using Midjourney's style reference feature.

Most of the example styles below are irreproducible across prompts, which is why it's difficult to choose a style. To get to this point, about 900 reference AI images were tested, generating about 60'000 images, in order to understand what they can produce across prompts.

Sample front of cards:

Sample back of cards:

Print It

If you want to print the cards yourself, download the archive with cards (saved as image files).

The simplest way to print the cards is at a photo shop, on 125 * 88 millimeters / 4.9 * 3.5 inches (B7, ISO 216 format) photo paper.

The cards are so large because it feels very nice to look at the large images and read the lore. If the cards were normally sized playing cards, it would feel claustrophobic to look at the images and read the lore, but it can be done to reduce the cost.

The texts of the cards can be seen here.

You can download all the card images, as wallpapers, from here.

Buy

You can purchase a professionally printed copy from GameCrafter. The price is just the production cost. This print is merely a convenience for people who want to have one, it's a non-profit operation.

The cost is significantly higher than if you were to print the cards at your local photo shop because GameCrafter doesn't offer bulk prices when buying one game copy at a time. They do offer bulk prices when buying multiple game copies at a time, and the price can get reduced to half for many copies.

Advantages of the GameCrafter cards: they are also printed on the back, the handling and shuffling are much better due to the card stiffness and rounded corners.

The card size is 136 * 86 millimeters / 5.4 * 3.4 inches.

The box size is 229 * 156 * 57 mm / 9 * 5 * 2.3 inches.

License

See the rulebook.

How It Was Created

The cards were created with Mosaic.

The images were generated with AI.

For the general design principles, see What is a game?

Epic Soundtracks

For soundtracks to listen to, for an epic experience, see this.

Fluons

You can read here a technical / mathematical explanation of what fluons / portals are.

History

Version 2.0.0

2024

Massively revamped the rulebook. The overwhelming part of the rules remain compatible with previous versions, but the terminology has changed to some extent, and new rules were added.

Made it explicit that several turns make a round, and that players can win rounds.

Removed factions. This makes the game more flexible, and more balanced with the new mechanics and abilities.

Added upgraded cards (for the experience cards).

Added adventure cards which require the players to cooperate in order to meet a goal.

Merged all the abilities; some were previously listed as custom abilities.

Added the "Maven" ability which allows the players to select any other ability to execute.

Added the "Legendary" ability which makes cards significantly more powerful than the rest.

Added the "Translocation" ability which allows a player to take cards from the rival's reserve.

Added the "Reserve" play zone, separate for each player. Cards are usually "Exhausted" to this play zone. Custom cards are put in this play zone at the beginning of a game.

Cards discarded to the void are removed from the game.

Renamed play zone "Timeline" to "Arena".

Renamed term "Recruit" to "Energize".

Renamed card text area "Sway" to "Valor".

Renamed ability "Valor" to "Sway".

Renamed ability "Enlist" to "Energize".

Renamed ability "Covert" to "Cloak".

Removed abilities "Omen", "Persuasion", "Rescue", "Ruin", "Triumph" and "Vengeance".

The rules of the "Vision" ability have changed to be similar (and improved) to those of the removed "Omen" ability, to better fit the concept of vision.

The existing cards are slightly changed.

There are now 180 cards (48 new).

At the end of a round, the round loser doesn't have to exhaust / discard a card, but the round winner may energize / recruit extra cards.

Version 1.5.1

2023.09.20

Added epic cards.

Added some clarifications.

Version 1.5.0

2023.09.07

Changed the name of the game from "Gardener of Thoughts" to "Worlds Asunder".

Significantly revamped the rulebook. The rules remain compatible with previous versions.

Made it explicit that several turns make a round, and that players can win rounds.

Merged the reserve area into the experience area; cards may be put in it only with abilities.

Merged all the abilities; some were previously listed as custom abilities.

Added unlocked abilities, with massive strategy implications for advanced players.

Version 1.0.15

2014.06.22

Replaced the "Secondary ability" with the "Recruitable" custom rule.

Version 1.0.13

Corrected the "Omen" ability rules: "The player may take and look at 4 cards from the top of the destiny, may move 1 of the cards to the ops, and must put the others at the bottom of the destiny, with their faces down, in any order. The card to move to the ops must have either no faction or the player's faction. This ability may be executed only if the player has less than 7 ops cards."

Version 1.0.8

Added the "Endurance" custom ability.

Version 1.0.7

Corrected a rule in the "Winning turn" section to balance the gameplay: "If the turn loser has no reserve cards, or there are no destiny cards and no ops cards (for both players), the game ends and is won by the turn winner." This correction is useful for when a player has a covert card during the finale, because engaging this card may have (until now) ended the game too abruptly.

Added a rule in the "Obstruct" section to balance the advanced gameplay: "If there are no destiny cards, each player must move the experience cards to the ops."

Version 1.0.6

Corrected the rules of the "Sabotage" custom ability.

Public Release

12.05.2014

Public release of the simplified version of "Gardener of Thoughts" card game version 1.