I decided to revisit the decision to remove all negative, power-down tarot cards. Instead, I’m going to try something different. Instead of the card affecting the player who picked it up, it’ll instead affect all other players.
For example, there’s the Crown of Thorns tarot card that will snare the movement of a player, making them extremely vulnerable. If a player picks up this card, all other players will be affected, leaving the player who picked up the card alone and able to make an attack.
I’ve also changed how cards act in team game modes. If a team member picks up a good tarot card (power-up), the card affects all players on that team. Similarly, when a bad tarot card is picked up, it’ll affect all players on the opposite team.
Here's an example of the Satan's Spawn card, which will turn everyone into an instagib death machine.
Tarot cards are still completely random and players don’t know which card they will be picking up, though this may change in the future by creating unique sprites for each power-up/power-down. These changes should make tarot cards much more enticing to use.
I also made changes to the Apocalypse card, which originally immediately killed all other players, but without earning the player a frag (or releasing souls, depending on the game mode). Instead, this card will earn the player a frag for each player it kills or will release a soul (again, in the game modes that use souls). This change also lead to changing when the Apocalypse card is included in the card rotation. Originally it was just included normally like any other card. Instead the card will only be entered (and pushed to the front) when there’s a big enough score gap between the player with the lowest score and the player with the highest score. It essentially acts as an equalizer since it’s neither fun to be losing significantly, or winning significantly.
On a unrelated note, I'm continuing to add small touches to the game. When a player teleports through a Hell portal, the effect is accompanied by some particles effects now.
