A Tale of Two CCG: Fight Card Showdown and 5 Minute Waltz

A pal of mine, who happens to be a really decent game designer, has put together not one but two card games. Both are available now on DriveThruCards, and I honestly recommend them. We play AD&D 2e together on the weekends, and I had a chance to play both of the following CCG (Collectible Card Games) with him.

The first is called Fight Card Showdown, and features a deck with enough cards for two players. I played on Tabletop Simulator, though I have a physical copy, and truly enjoyed it. I even won (against the creator)! 

Each character has special abilities you can use, and each card you draw works as an element in your action phase. For example, an UP and DOWN arrow can be combined to perform a specific action your character has. Play is very akin to most card games, with a draw and discard phase and a limit to the number of cards you can have in your hand. The art is also downright cute in the best of ways. It's not necessarily meant to be, but it's charming in its style.

Interestingly, you can attack high and low (as well as mid), so it is not just like a game of War where you trade blows and draw cards. There's a bit of strategy to it, but not so much that it becomes a slog. I played over Tabletop Simulator and we had a blast with it. Altogether, the runtime is about an hour. It could have gone longer, or ended earlier, had I known how to play before we started. But that's the best way to learn a game, if you ask me!

The second CCG is a play on Solitaire with a truly artistic flair. 5 Minute Waltz: A Swan's Sonnet is a solitary card game based on dance moves. Not unlike the aforementioned Fight Card Showdown, a lot of the play is similar to traditional card games in that you have a hand of cards and you draw a card each round, and so forth. However, the purpose of the game is to draw and combine the right cards to perform dance moves. You want to exhaust the cards entirely to end the game, which took me a little over 30 minutes.

The gameplay is fast and fun once you get used to it, and I found myself in that same state of zen you get into playing Solitaire or Tetris, which is rare for me these days. I don't know that it improved me in any way, but I forgot how much fun that kind of focus is. Plus, I was learning dance moves and terms I did not know. Not much of a socialite I, again, do not know that this improved me in any way. I simply had fun. It would be a really cool game for anyone who dances, though.

5 Minute Waltz: The Swan's Sonnet and Fight Card Showdown are available exclusively on DriveThruCards.com. Also check out Stormforge Productions on DriveThruRPG.

© The Weirding, 2026