We're going to start a new feature here called "Card of the Week". We'll show one off every Friday. I'll talk a little bit about the card, the art, the ability, and how it works in the game.
The first card I wanted to start out with is the Beardarang.
The Beardarang is Lincoln's base attack, and you start out with 5 of them in your deck. What's interesting about the Beardarang is that you are starting out with a decent weapon… and by "decent" I mean a projectile weapon. So Lincoln can hit anyone in front of him in the level. As you play you may pick up Melee weapons that may be more powerful, but they can only damage the enemy that you are directly in front of.
A projectile weapon is great because your turn is not limited to just the enemies you can reach with your meeple, it also allows you to reach any of the enemies further down the level.
Now, the Beardarang only has a power of 1, but you are starting out with a solid base. If you get more projectile weapons, you can pile them on top of each other and take out higher level enemies further down the level.
Looking back at the creation of the Beardarang, it came out of the work we were doing on Pixel Lincoln: The Video Game. Lincoln would rip his beard off, throw it at enemies and then it would come back to him. This was his base attack there as well.
The Beardarang was always a challenge because there are frames in the animation where he doesn't have a beard, or it's partially grown back, and those frames need to match up with his current walk or jump frame. So it was always a little tricky for the programmers to sync up his frame depending on whether he had a beard or not.
I took one of my favorite frames to use for this card, but since the animation has been updated to include a really awesome frame of the pain Lincoln suffers every time he rips his beard off. I'd like to eventually make that into it's own card.
You'll also notice the Beardarang gives you 0 points, 0 suits and 0 coins. It can be a little bit of a deck clog later in the game, but you have the opportunity at each Checkpoint to get rid of them. Make sure you choose wisely!
And that's just about everything about the Beardarang. A light, ranged weapon that while painful to use, it can be super helpful in your early journeys.
Next week we learn about: Puking Turtle!
