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Domination

Game BoyPuzzleCard game

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    Overview

    Domination is a player-versus-AI, tic-tac-toe styled card game for the Game Boy in which cards are placed on a 3x3 grid. Cards take their power from the numbers on each side. When a card is placed on the board next to the other player's card, if the number on the placed card is equal or greater than the touching number of the adjacent card, the player takes that card.

    The game is based on the Triple Triad minigame from Final Fantasy. Its deck building and its ascension and descension rules were left out, as the deck building aspects would not work on the Game Boy given the screen size.

    It was built with the Game Boy Development Kit (GBDK), and its code grew large enough to reach the memory limits of the ROM, more than the author's earlier Game Boy project JP.

    Made by
    Graham Coulby (IonicLimb)
    Released
    2021

    Controls guide

    Start screen

    Button and keyAction
    AXPress twice to begin; any button works (the presses also seed the card shuffle)

    Choosing a card

    Button and keyAction
    Left/RightMove along your hand of five cards (wraps around)
    AXPick up the card under the cursor

    Placing a card

    Button and keyAction
    D-padArrowsMove around the 3x3 board (wraps at the edges)
    AXPlace the card on an empty square
    BZPut the card back and return to your hand

    Cheatsheet

    Rules

    Hands
    5 cards each, dealt at random
    Turn order
    You play first, then the AI; you play the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th card
    Capture
    Your touching number equal to or higher than theirs
    Combo
    A captured card then flips its own neighbours, but only if strictly higher
    End
    Board full; whoever owns more cards wins the round
    Score
    Round wins for you and the AI are tallied on screen

    Card numbers

    1
    About 4% of sides
    2
    About 10%
    3 to 7
    About 71%, evenly spread
    8
    About 10%
    9
    About 5%

    Tips

    1. You always place the last card of the round, and nothing can answer it. Keep a card with strong numbers for the ninth square.
    2. Equal numbers capture when you place a card, but the combo flips that follow need a strictly higher number, so do not count on ties to chain.
    3. The AI only looks one move ahead: it scores each spot by the cards it takes right away, plus the numbers it points at empty squares, minus the numbers it presses against occupied ones. It rarely plans for your reply.
    4. Because the AI likes facing its big numbers toward empty squares, a weak side you leave open can bait it into a spot where your next card captures it.
    5. Corners only expose two sides and edges three, so put cards with one or two low numbers in places where those sides face the wall.