Tessera Trading Card Game

T E S S E R A

Trading Card Game

Author's Note

Triple Triad has been my favorite card game since it's debut in FF8, and a huge shoutout to Dylbill for the incredible work of bringing the game to Skyrim and having it be a permanent fixture in my load order. Over many years I'd worked on my own Triple Triad projects from Python to React, and with the release of Meridian UI I could finally bring a lot of that work into Skyrim. Many of the cards are inspired by TES: Legends, along with several new lore-friendly cards.

Getting started with Tessera is straightforward. Ask any general goods merchant to buy a Tessera Album, which costs 100 gold and includes 8 starter cards and a prebuilt deck. You can open the album from the inventory item or by pressing F7 by default. In the album window, you can view your cards, build up to 20 5 card decks, review your game journal, check tournaments, and view rule tutorials.

Once you buy the album, you can challenge players. Ask an eligible NPC, “Care for a game of Tessera?”, or look at them and press F8. Choose your deck in the lobby and play. While many players are open for a game at any time, some will only accept a challenge after you've established yourself as a respected player in the hold. There are over 260 unique players across Skyrim and Solstheim, each with their own skill level and card collections. You can increase your reputation in each hold through matches and tournaments.

How to Play

Each player has five cards to play on a 3x3 game board and takes turns placing a card on the board. Each card has a strength values for each edge of the card. When placing a card on the board next to an opponent's card the touching sides are compared: if the placed card's number is higher than the opponent's card strength on that side, the card is captured. The player who controls the most cards including cards not played when the board is full wins.

Rules

Tessera has several rules that change how the game is played. Players experienced with Triple Triad will be familiar with many of them, and there are few new additions for some interesting deck building and strategy. Each hold begins with a set of rules that all players in that hold use. The player can can carry over rules from the previously visited hold to the current hold, and may add one of the rules to current hold's rules if asked. Foreign rules can be spread to other holds by doing this. There is also a small chance that a rule will be abolished in the hold when playing with combined rules.

Open

Both players' hands are visible.

Three Open

Same as Open, but 2 randomly selected cards are hidden.

Same

If a card is placed with two or more touching ranks equal the adjacent cards, those enemy cards are captured. Combo then flips any lower adjacent ranks. In the example, the player plays Deepwood Trapper, with both sides equal to the adjacent cards (2 = 2, 4 = 4) so those cards will be captured. Combo will then capture the Bruma Armorer (4 beats 1). Same requires only one of the touching cards to be enemy controlled, and Combo only triggers on captured cards.

Plus

If two or more touching pairs add to the same total, those enemy cards are captured. Combo then flips any lower adjacent ranks. In the example, the player plays Dwarven Ballista, with both sides touching the adjacent cards adding to 8, so those cards will be captured. Plus requires only one of the touching cards to be enemy controlled, and Combo only triggers on captured cards.

Reverse

Lower ranks capture higher ones. In the example, 1 will capture 4 and 2.