When I started building Vladers, the first idea was simple:
I wanted virtual football cards that actually felt like game cards.
I looked at what already existed and found plenty of football collectibles, but very few matched what I had in mind.
Most were built around a player portrait, a rating and a few numbers.
I wanted something closer to a real TCG.
A card with a strong visual identity, useful information, statistics, rarity, abilities and, most importantly, a reason to exist inside a game.
So I started creating my own.
Very quickly, that part became addictive.
I experimented with layouts, borders, backgrounds, player portraits, rarity treatments and effects until the cards started looking like something I genuinely wanted to collect myself.
But once I had the cards, another question appeared.
What should players actually do with them?
From Football Cards to a Reflex Game
I did not want Vladers to become only a collection.
The cards needed to be useful.
The first gameplay idea came directly from football itself.
Passing.
Defending.
Reacting quickly.
So I started with a very simple concept:
What if Pass and Defend became reflex-based actions?
The first version was extremely small.
A pitch.
A couple of actions.
A basic objective.
But it worked.
And once I had that base, I could start adding more depth around it.
The Core Rule: 10 Passes, 3 Goals
The main rule is deliberately easy to understand.
Reach 10 passes to score a goal.
Score 3 goals to win the match.
That creates short, fast-paced sessions where a player can understand the objective almost immediately.
The idea is that you should be able to open Vladers, play a match in a few minutes, and still feel like you can improve.
And there are two main ways to improve.
The first is simply by playing.
You learn the rhythm.
You react faster.
You understand when to Pass, when to Defend and when to use an ability.
The second is by improving your squad.
That is where the collectible cards become part of the gameplay.
Understanding the Card Stats
Vladers uses football statistics that should feel familiar to anyone who has played a football game before.
PAC — Pace How fast and explosive the player is.
SHO — Shooting How effective the player is when finishing a chance.
PAS — Passing How accurately and effectively the player moves the ball.
DRI — Dribbling How well the player controls the ball and beats an opponent.
DEF — Defending How effective the player is at stopping attacks and recovering possession.
PHY — Physical The player's strength, resilience and ability to compete physically.
Goalkeepers use a smaller specialised set:
PAC — Pace How quickly the goalkeeper can react and move.
KEE — Keeping The goalkeeper's overall ability to stop shots and protect the goal.
These stats are not there simply to make the cards look like football cards.
They are part of the match engine.
The Stats Actually Matter
Once the core gameplay was working, I started connecting the statistics directly to actions.
PAS influences the chance that a Pass action succeeds after the player reacts and taps.
DEF affects defensive actions.
PAC can be used as a tie-breaker between two opposing players, giving an advantage to the faster one.
And that is only the visible part.
A Pass action does not always involve the same player.
It can come from your attacker, midfielder or defender.
The same applies to a scoring opportunity.
One of those players may be selected to attack and then be compared against the opposing goalkeeper.
This means the same action can have a completely different probability of success depending on which cards are involved.
A strong attacker against a weak goalkeeper may create a big advantage.
A defender unexpectedly taking the chance against an Elite goalkeeper can be a much harder situation.
That randomness helps make every match feel different.
There Is More Happening Under the Surface
Some statistics also influence less obvious mechanics.
PHY, for example, can help a player recover from a failed Pass.
DRI can create a chance to stun the opponent for one turn.
These effects happen underneath the main gameplay without making the match harder to understand.
That is important to me.
A new player can ignore all of this.
They can simply:
Pass.
Defend.
Reach 10.
Score.
Try to win.
But underneath those simple actions, the cards are continuously influencing what happens.
You can enjoy Vladers without thinking too deeply about your squad.
But if you are playing against a strong opponent with weak cards, the difference will eventually be noticeable.
And once you start understanding the system, the statistics stop looking like decoration and start influencing how you build your team.
Special Abilities Added Strategy
The game evolved quickly after the first rounds of testing and feedback.
One of the biggest additions was special abilities.
I wanted cards to do more than simply provide better numbers.
Some abilities can reduce the number of passes you need to score.
Others can increase the number required by the opponent.
Some can protect you from a mistake.
Others can improve a player, interfere with the opponent or change the conditions of the current round.
There are now more than 20 special abilities in Vladers.
That creates another question when building a squad.
It is no longer only:
Which card has the highest rating?
You can also think:
Which ability works best with this team?
Do you want to play aggressively?
Do you want to slow the opponent down?
Do you want a card that gives you a second chance after a mistake?
Do you want to make scoring easier?
That adds strategy without removing the fast rhythm of the match.
Simple on Top, Complex Underneath
That is probably the best way to describe Vladers' gameplay.
On the surface, it is simple.
React.
Pass.
Defend.
Score.
Underneath, there are player statistics, random player selection, goalkeeper comparisons, recovery mechanics, stun effects, card abilities and squad composition.
Those systems interact continuously.
The player does not need to understand all of them before having fun.
They can learn them gradually.
That balance is something I have spent a lot of time trying to get right.
Collect, Play, Earn, Improve
Outside the match itself, the main progression loop is familiar to anyone who has played a collectible card game.
Play.
Earn coins and rewards.
Open packs.
Find better or more interesting cards.
Improve your squad.
Play again.
I did not want to reinvent that loop just for the sake of being different.
It works because it is satisfying.
Where I wanted Vladers to be different was in giving the collection more than one purpose.
Even cards that are no longer strong enough for your main squad can still be useful.
Send Squad to Battle
One of the additional modes is Send Squad to Battle.
Here, you choose four cards from your collection and send them away on a background mission.
You do not actively play this battle.
Your squad leaves for four hours.
During that time, you can continue using Vladers normally.
After the four-hour period ends, the squad returns and you discover whether they won or lost and what reward they brought back.
For now, while the game is still being balanced, the win or loss and rewards are random.
But this system has a lot of room to evolve.
In the future, card rarity, stats, squad composition or abilities could influence the result.
I particularly like this mode because it gives smaller cards another purpose.
A card does not automatically become useless just because it is no longer in your best four.
It can still go on a mission.
And it also means the game never completely sleeps.
You can close Vladers while a squad is away and come back later knowing something is waiting for you.
Five League Divisions
Vladers also has a League system designed to give players a longer-term competitive objective.
There are five divisions:
Bronze → Silver → Gold → Platinum → Elite
Players can progress through them by playing and winning matches.
The League gives individual matches more meaning because every result can contribute to a bigger objective.
It also rewards different kinds of improvement.
You can become better at the reflex gameplay.
You can build a stronger squad.
You can understand your abilities better.
Or ideally, all three.
The goal is to keep climbing until you reach the Elite division.
And, naturally, League progression also feeds back into the reward loop:
Play → Earn → Open Packs → Improve → Compete Again.
Clash Mode
Another mode is Clash.
This is inspired by the kind of squad-battle systems football-game players may already recognise.
You face computer-controlled squads of different strengths and try to earn the best results you can.
Some teams are manageable.
Others can be significantly stronger.
That makes squad quality and understanding your cards more important.
Your results also contribute to a ranking system, creating another way to compete and earn rewards.
Clash gives players a different challenge from a normal match because you can deliberately test yourself against stronger opposition.
Story Mode: Changing the Rules
The mode I am probably most excited about is Story Mode.
The first story is built around a special squad of Elemental cards.
There are four battles:
Fire.
Water.
Earth.
Wind.
But the difference is not only visual.
Each battle introduces a different gameplay modification.
The normal Vladers rules remain recognisable, but something changes.
An advantage may disappear.
A mechanic may become more difficult.
A new behaviour may be added.
The player has to adapt.
This lets me create more challenging experiences without making the normal game harder for everyone.
The basic match can remain simple and accessible while Story Mode experiments with more unusual rules.
And the Elemental team is only the first version of what that system can become.
The Game Kept Evolving
Vladers did not reach this point because I designed every mechanic before starting development.
Most of it evolved through play.
I would build something.
Test it.
Play several rounds.
Give it to someone else.
See what worked.
See what felt confusing.
Change it.
Then play again.
A lot of the work has not been about adding more systems.
It has been about making the existing ones feel cleaner.
The timing.
The match screen.
The feedback.
The start screen.
The result screen.
The action messages.
The sounds.
The countdown.
The goal celebration.
All of those things may look small individually.
Together, they completely change the experience.
Sound Made a Huge Difference
Audio was one of the biggest improvements.
The game now has optional music, action sound effects, countdown sounds and feedback during matches.
A successful action should feel successful.
A mistake should be understandable.
A goal should feel more important than simply seeing the score increase.
Adding those details made me realise that getting the rules right is only one part of building a game.
The feeling around those rules matters just as much.
My Small Football Game
At some point, I started joking that Vladers was becoming my own tiny interpretation of an EA Sports FC-style experience.
Not because it tries to simulate a full football match.
It does not.
The comparison is more about the fantasy.
Build a squad.
Understand your players.
Use their strengths.
Compete.
Earn rewards.
Improve the team.
Come back stronger.
I wanted to compress that feeling into something designed for short mobile sessions.
You should be able to play quickly without the match feeling disconnected from the rest of your collection.
Why I Like Where the Game Is Today
What I am most proud of is that the collection and the game now depend on each other.
The cards give the game depth.
The game gives the cards a reason to exist.
Someone can play Vladers purely as a fast reflex game.
Another player can analyse statistics and abilities.
Someone else can focus on collecting stronger cards.
Another can climb the five League divisions.
Another can challenge squads in Clash.
Another can return four hours later to see what their battle squad brought home.
And another can discover how the rules change in Story Mode.
All of that comes from the same compact core.
That is what I wanted.
A game that is easy to start, but still has enough happening underneath to keep becoming more interesting.
After all the testing, iteration and changes that went into it, I genuinely feel that Vladers has become the game I originally wanted the cards to lead to.
And it is still only the beginning.