Mere
Mere is a water-wielding character designed for a collaborative elemental card game. They are an ocean personification who creates and controls water terrain, built from the ground up over the course of a game design class.
Overview
Meet Mere
Mere is a playable character designed for a collaborative elemental table top game, developed as part of a game design class assignment. Each student designed an individual character that would interact with a shared world and other players' characters. Mere is a personification of the ocean and is a genderless, abstract water drop who creates and manipulates water terrain on the board. The final deliverable consists of three components:
- 1 Character card deck
- 2 Character miniature
- 3 Character game bits
These components were designed together as a cohesive physical package, with each piece reflecting Mere's identity as a water-creating, terrain-shaping character.
Concept
Finding the character
The ocean personification concept came early, but Mere's personality emerged gradually through the design process. The decision to make Mere genderless and visually abstract as a simple water drop with a face opened up a distinct voice for the character. The silly, understated personality formed through writing flavor text, where short deadpan lines like "A small wave. Just a little one." shaped how the whole kit felt.
Ability Design
Building the kit
Early ability drafts were reworked significantly after a class critique revealed that the world would not have water by default, reframing Mere from a water-dependent character to the primary water source on the board. This constraint shaped every ability in the kit. Mere's kit was redesigned from a character who benefits from water to one who creates it. This process included editing existing cards and adding new ones.
Character abilities before and after
When Mere is in water, heal passively for 2 Health.
When Mere is in water, cleanse of all current effects and heal for 2 Health. Triggers once upon entry.
Mere reduces a targeted opponent's movement points by half for 1 turn.
Any opponent on the board must discard 1 card from their hand and their current position becomes a water hex. Consumes 2 moon stacks.
Mere pushes opponents 2 spaces in a selected direction, repositioning them on the board. Consumes 2 moon stacks.
Mere pushes a targeted opponent 3 spaces in a selected direction, repositioning them on the board and making the hexes they pass water hexes.
Mere creates a large wave that deals 4 damage to a targeted opponent and makes the hex they are currently occupying and any adjacent tiles a water hex. Consumes 3 moon stacks.
Mere creates a large wave that deals 4 damage to a targeted opponent and 2 damage to any adjacent opponents. Makes the hex the targeted opponent is currently occupying and any adjacent tiles a water hex. Consumes 3 moon stacks.
Card System
Stacks, draws, and discards
Professor feedback restructured the moon stack system from a character-specific token mechanic into a card-driven system with dedicated moon stack cards and a discard mechanic. This added a layer of strategic decision making around when to build stacks and when to spend cards for immediate stack gain. The deck was organized into three categories: The Identity, The Stack, and The Kit. This reflected the three functional layers of Mere's deck design.
Sample of Mere's character cards
Collaboration and Iteration
Constraints that shaped the character
Designing Mere within a larger collaborative game introduced constraints that shaped specific decisions. The hex-based movement system, shared card draw structure, and elemental reaction system all informed how Mere's abilities were scoped and balanced. Lull and Deluge in particular were reworked around how other characters interact with water terrain.
Elemental reaction system table
Final Character
Mere, finalized
The final deliverable includes Mere's character sheet card, passive card, deck list card, and a 32 card playable deck organized across The Identity, The Stack, and The Kit, alongside a character miniature and water tiles for use during play.
Final Deck
Flip through all 32 cards
Mere's full character deck is available to view below.
Reflection
Notes & Takeaways
Designing Mere meant working within a larger set of world rules rather than building a system from scratch, which was a different kind of challenge than designing a full game.
Designing within
shared rules
I learned how character mechanics and abilities needed to fit into universal rules on a deeper level, while still making Mere feel distinct within a set of constraints shared by every character. Finding that balance pushed me to think more carefully about what actually made a character unique.
Learning to design
more concisely
I also learned how to design more concisely. Mere's moon stack mechanic was originally its own token system, but after critique, I revised it into the character's deck as cards instead, which made the kit cleaner and opened up new discard-based decisions for players.
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