Buddy Wars

A Game Inspired by My Childhood

This project is inspired by Maganic Wars, created by Maguas, a Flash card battle game from the early 2000s. Its turn-based duels, attacks, spells, and character upgrades made it a memorable part of my childhood. You can find the original on Maguas’s Newgrounds page.

I wanted to revisit that feeling while bringing my own ideas to life. This game is a personal tribute to something I grew up loving.

Choose Your Cards. Plan Your Next Move.

Face off in strategic, turn-based duels where every card can change the course of battle.

Each fighter starts with five cards and plays one card per turn. At the end of each round, both fighters draw back up to a full hand. Your goal is to bring your opponent’s health to zero while keeping yourself alive.

Decide when to attack, recover, strengthen your fighter, or disrupt your opponent’s plans. A well-timed card can help you survive a dangerous turn or set up the finishing blow.

Attacks, Buffs, and Status Effects

Build your strategy with direct attacks, healing, increased damage and defense, regeneration, counterattacks, and critical hits.

You can also put pressure on your opponent with status effects:

• Poison: steadily drains health, but cannot deal the finishing blow.
• Bleeding: deals ongoing damage and can finish off an opponent.
• Curse: weakens the affected fighter’s defense.
• Freeze: cancels cards the affected fighter tries to play.

Special cards let you remove negative effects, strip away enemy buffs, or play your next card twice.

Effects of the same type keep their strongest value rather than stacking, so timing and choosing the right upgrade matter.

A Different Hand, a New Decision

Card draws are weighted by category and rarity. Holding a copy of a card reduces its chance of appearing again when other cards are available in the same group.

This encourages more varied hands while keeping duplicates possible. Choose whether to strike now, prepare a combo, or deal with a dangerous status effect before it becomes a bigger problem.

About the Card Artwork

The card artwork is intentionally downscaled to a low resolution. This is a deliberate visual choice inspired by the look of the cards in Maganic Wars.

A Personal Note About AI

I want to be transparent: AI is used extensively in this project, including programming and artwork.

I work full-time, so my time for developing games is limited. I also don’t currently have the budget to hire an artist for custom artwork. I would love to work with artists in the future, especially if my games eventually earn enough to make that possible.

For now, AI helps me turn ideas that would otherwise stay on paper into something playable that I can share.

I understand that some people prefer not to play games made with AI. I respect that choice, and there’s no pressure to play this one.

At the same time, I care about what I’m making. I’m putting time into keeping the artwork consistent, refining the controls and feedback, balancing the battles, and making the game fun. Using AI doesn’t mean I’m willing to release something without care or effort.

My goal is to bring my ideas to life and create something people can enjoy.