A Godot card game template: a real-time card lane battler

Build a card loadout, spend elixir and send a 3D army down the lanes against an AI rival. It is a 3D Godot 4 project in GDScript, open source under the MIT licence, and free like the rest of Flockbay.

Drag-and-drop card deployment on a regenerating elixir economy.

Eight cards: five units, a building and two spells, each defined in one card catalog script.

An enemy AI with its own elixir and deck, towers, crown scoring, a two-minute timer and sudden death.

Card unlocks, upgrades, coins and loadouts that are saved, on a touch-first layout that also runs on desktop.

In the Flockbay app, press New from template on Home, pick Card Lane Battler and press Create. On a first run, answer 3D and then Template, and Continue makes the game. Flockbay downloads the template into a new game folder and opens it in the Godot editor as an ordinary Godot 4 project you own. Tell Flockbay what to change first: it writes a short brief from the template, asks before it builds, and plays each change before you do.

What people usually ask for first: a flying card that attacks ground units; a second arena that unlocks after five wins; an enemy AI that saves elixir and counter-pushes.

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A card lane battler is a real-time strategy game whose units come from a hand of cards: the decisions are when to spend, where to drop and what to hold back. A deckbuilder is turn-based and built around a deck that grows during a run. A tabletop card game is rules on a table, with no board to move across. They share card art and almost nothing else in code.

This template is the first kind. If you want a deckbuilder or a digital tabletop game, its card catalog and elixir economy are still useful references, but the battle loop is not the one you need.

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The engineering is done: deployment, the elixir economy, towers, the timer, the AI opponent and saved progression. What is left is the design, and it is most of the game. Every card you add changes the value of every other card, so balance is a loop of playing, measuring and adjusting rather than a number you set once.

Give the AI opponent the same care. A rival that spends elixir the moment it has it is easy to read; one that saves, defends and counter-pushes makes the cards matter. The template's enemy has its own elixir, a weighted deck and placed spells, which is the right starting point for that.

Make the art your own early. A lane battler is a genre with very recognisable looks, and your game will be judged by its own.