Mixed Martial Arts is a shuffle-building head to head fighting game. It’s a love letter to one of my favorite games growing up, Star Wars – Epic Duels. The rules can be taught in under 5 minutes (I usually teach them in less than 2) and games are lightning fast. There’s also a wealth of subtle strategy, while the gameplay constantly keeps you engaged even on your opponents’ turns.
In MMA, each deck of cards represents a different fantasy martial arts style. You take two and shuffle them together (get it, mixed martial arts!). Combine the defensive Iron Tortoise style with the tricky Swooping Crane, or the aggressive Storm Dragon with the overwhelming Crashing Wave. With 8 decks currently in testing there are already 28 possible combinations. That’s quite the roster of characters. When I add the final 2 decks, the number of combinations will skyrocket to 45.
I’m currently putting the game through the final balance tests. If you enjoy fast-based head to head combat where victory comes from knowing the mind of your opponent, feel free to give it a try.
PDFs for the decklists can be found here.
I’ll likely be writing up another post detailing the game’s design choices and why they work. I’m very proud of this one.
Note: The current art and card layout is just a placeholder. It uses the Epic Duels card layout, thanks to the versatile Epic Duels Deck Designer, and images pulled off of google searches. They’re not intended for a commercial release.
Dan Felder 