Pyrotechnics: The Pretty Little Card Game That Goes Boom

This is adapted from the script of Episode 100: “Pyrotechnics Review, Playing With Dystopia, Surrendering Secret Wars”

One of the principles that has crystallized for me after 100 episodes is to be ruthless about external dependencies. If you really want to do X, but you’ve made X dependent on Y, which is a person or event or piece of software or some other nuisance, I make it my job to reimagine X without Y and get the lessened version of X done at all costs. Or scotch it and move to Z. 

This triage can help train someone out of that kind of thinking where personal projects get as far-flung and fragile as pre-COVID supply chains. I’ve actually come to believe that these Byzantine webs of dependencies masquerading as plans are actually a way of saying, “I’m scared to try,” because there’s always something too expensive or somebody who won’t call you back. You always have to be on guard against the recreant and daydreamer in your head. (“Recreant.” There’s your vocab word of the day. Look it up, coward.)

Pyrotechnics: Be the first to empty your hand by setting off five firework patterns before your opponent does

I got stuck briefly in one of those pouty throw-up-your-hands fits when I was excited to try out my copy of Pyrotechnics, one of the pile of indie games I previewed for you two episodes ago. But the schedule sagged because it’s a two-player game and I put it off because I didn’t want another repeat of my last two boring multiplayer sits.

I was slipping sideways into that same old trap: “I can get this written up IF I can line up X and Y and IF they like it enough to figure out what makes it work and IF they don’t take 45 minutes of breaks in a 20-minute game or quit the game early to show me some bullshit on their phone…”

So I awoke three days before Episode 100 was due and realized I could just ad lib my own crude bot opponent for my first series of this card-shedding, hand management, and action selection morsel. You’re trying to be the first to research, discover and set off five kinds of fireworks before your opponent can. The goal is to be the first player with an empty hand by using card effects and smartly managing the game’s micro-economy of tokens, called Sparks.

My bot’s name is Farto the Lakeside Festival Arsonist, who is patented and highly trained on three decades of articles from every newspaper in Indiana from 1896-1916, but you can’t use Farto without subscribing to my service. Again, check the intro and outro audio of Episode 100 to learn about my new giveaway, which could also include a free enterprise subscription to Farto that comes with up to 50 seats. That’s 50 motherfuckers you can lay off right now. 

As far as proof of concept goes, I used Farto’s proprietary capabilities to help me simulate enough of the game so I could see how the three actions and the card mechanics delivered on the box’s promise of a short, but chewy, 10-minute contest.

I know Twilight Flare isn’t all that popular because of the little unpleasantness from last year, but I have jiggered the mix and the burn and now it’s designed to cause 30% fewer injuries

In a game of Pyrotechnics you each start with five cards in your hand and a supply of five cards in the middle, each depicting a kind of firework display. There are three actions — Research, Discover and Display — on each card with icons telling you how to resolve the effect you want to trigger.

The first step on your turn is always Research, which has to be done with one of the cards from your hand. On the second step, you can Discover or Display using one of the face-up cards in the common market. Discover lets you gain or manipulate more Sparks and Display lets you use those Sparks to make the sky go boom and get that card out of your hand.

Spark tokens come in six colors that move to the supply, your pile, or your opponent’s pile depending on which of the three game actions you take. Putting on a successful Display means paying some amount of Sparks, either in common red-yellow-blue Primary Sparks or rarer purple-green-orange Sparks, which require intervening exchange moves to get your hands on.

The movement of Sparks and cards create two poles of interesting tension: You’re always forced to put the card you used for Research face up into the market, so think about what kind of actions you’ve just made available to your opponent. You’ve also got to make very efficient Spark acquisition moves in the game’s little microeconomy. 

I was grinding my gears a bit and even poor Farto was totally out to sea. After my first few games, I did acquire a starter-kit repertoire of a few no-nonsense opener moves. Farto’s job was mostly taking random actions based on a die roll.

One of the rules Farto lived by was that it always set off a Display if it had the Sparks in hand to do one. Little MFer actually beat me the first game, but soon after that I was intervening in Farto’s base programming, optimizing some of its trade actions so it wasn’t out-and-out wasting turns.

Because the experience is so recent, I can’t help but compare it to another short-player I reviewed last episode — Battle Card from Postmark Games — because these games both offer almost comically compact playtimes.

Battle Card’s strong suit is the beauty of its maps and the junctures on them where chance and daring mesh with the actual historical battle you’re playing. These games run about the same playing time, but I felt I there was…just magically somehow more game in Pyrotechnics just because of the how it felt when my brain started to run increasingly high-stakes figure-eight patterns of decisions around the card drafting and Spark management poles.

I think it’s the tightness of the play in Pyrotechnics’s three acts and the way the Spark supply and actions take on distinct dimensions in such a short time: An opening series of more forgiving moves where you simply bring some Sparks in to get started, a middle rush of displays being put out, and a tight end run of agonizing turns where you’re trying to dump that last card before Farto does. In this instance I refer to your friend Farto from college, not my advanced AI. The headspace Pyrotechnics occupies is all out of proportion with the time elapsed. I found it both brisk and pleasantly displacing.

I would love to session this over a beer or two with a friend; this feels like a gem that formed in carefully tended mathematical rock. Of course, an opponent will bring to the fore potential that Farto couldn’t: Nasty Spark theft at the right time, resource denial plays, and those “bluffs and feints” that the box copy talks about, although I’m not yet seeing that at my current level of experience.

But I want that experience to grow with this tightly orchestrated display of pops, crumps and bursts on the game table. This was a buoyant and stimulating break from what I’ve been playing lately, and I can’t imagine two hobbyists or casuals who wouldn’t delight in knocking down five or six matches over lunch.

Right now the game is still in prototype phase, fuse burning down to the last inch or two. You can stay updated on when the finished box is ready at The Seahorse and The Hummingbird website or head to Midnight Market on Nov. 7, a virtual three-day indie game market hosted by LunarPunk Games, at which Pyrotechnics will be available.