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Quickplay Matchmaking, Friend Challenges, and Reconnects

The biggest recent step for Hidden Path Dojo is something simple that changes everything about how you play here. We now have a Quickplay matchmaker . You and another person can just be on the site at the same time, click Quickplay, and the server will pair you into a game. No manual room codes, no sharing URLs, no setup screens. Just queue and play. You also do not need to be logged in to use Quickplay. It takes you straight into the queue using the current Quickplay server settings. Current Quickplay defaults Right now, the Quickplay queue runs with a specific default ruleset. You can think of it as the “standard ladder” for the site. The current Quickplay defaults are: All cards are enabled The mode is always Master’s Path The Spirit’s Breath air elemental is enabled 25% of the time If the air elemental is present, there is a random number of wind cards between 0 and 5 These numbers and choices will probably evolve as more people play, but this gives us a cons...
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Combining Expansions: Shadows & Spirits

Shadow Duel on its own is already a weird little pressure cooker: two Sensei, two Disciples each, and a hidden Ninja on every side. Once you start flipping on expansions, things get even spicier. Turn on Spirit’s Breath and suddenly there is an Air Elemental in the center. Turn on Hidden Forms and the card pool now includes special dual movement Sensei cards. Add Wind move cards from Spirit’s Breath and you have turns where a single card can move three different pieces in sequence. To keep all of that understandable, we had to lock in a simple rule about what the Ninja is, mechanically:  The Ninja is a non-Sensei player piece. It is not neutral, and it is not the Sensei. Any rule that talks about “your pieces” or “non-Sensei pieces” includes the Ninja, unless that rule clearly says otherwise. Everything below follows from that one decision. Three kinds of pieces Under the hood, most combined rules only care about three broad categories: Sensei – your leader and win condition ...
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Shadow Duel: Fighting With a Blade in the Dark

The Shadow Duel game variant takes the familiar Shrine board and shrinks your visible army down to the essentials: a Sensei, two Disciples in the back corners, and a Ninja that starts hidden next to your Shrine. The core turn structure is the same. You play a movement card, you move a visible piece, and you are still trying to capture the opposing Sensei or reach their Shrine. The difference is that every turn now has a second layer sitting on top of that: your Ninja can also move with that same card, in secret. This mode is all about playing normal Hidden Path while constantly asking yourself, “What if there is a Ninja here?” What actually matters in Shadow Duel There are three things you care about on almost every turn: Is my Sensei safe from both visible pieces and a possible Ninja jump What can my Ninja do right now if I let it move with this card What does this card tell me about where their Ninja might be You still cannot ignore the basics. If you walk your Sense...
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Bringing the Ninja Into the Dojo

The upcoming Hidden Blades expansion is the first time the Hidden Path Dojo will include hidden information. Up until now, every piece on the board has been visible. You can see every Disciple, every Sensei, every movement card in play. If you lose, you can think back through the game and point to the exact turn where things went wrong. The Ninja changes that rhythm completely. It moves in secret, it can share a square with another hidden Ninja, and sometimes the game literally asks you, “Are you sure they are standing there?” and lets you commit to that guess. This post is about the Ninja itself and what it took to make that one piece work inside a system that started life as a pure perfect information game. How the Ninja behaves The Ninja uses the same movement cards as everything else, but it sneaks in a second move each turn. On your turn you still start the same way: pick a card, move a visible piece according to that card’s pattern. That part has not changed at all. The Ni...
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Hidden Blades: Ninjas Enter the Dojo

 Hidden Blades is the next expansion coming to Hidden Path Dojo, and it does something none of the other modes on the site have done yet: it adds a truly hidden piece to the board. The expansion centers on the Ninja , a piece that moves in secret, can share spaces with other hidden Ninjas, and can sometimes win or lose the game on a single well-timed guess. Hidden Blades is still in active development and early testing on the site, but the core rules are already working well enough to talk about what it brings to the digital dojo. This post is an overview of the expansion and the Shadow Duel game mode that showcases it. What Hidden Blades adds At its core, Hidden Blades keeps the main structure of the system: Players still control a Sensei and Disciples . Movement still comes from a small shared set of rotating cards. Victory still comes from capturing the opposing Sensei or reaching the Shrine with your own. The expansion layers the Ninja on top of that familia...
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Leaning Left and Right: Why We Enforce Card Balance

Every Hidden Path game starts with the same structure: five movement cards are selected, two go to each player, and one becomes the spare that will rotate into play. As the card pool grew, a problem emerged. There are cards that mostly move pieces backward. With only a few of these in the system, this was fine. Once there were enough of them, a bad random deal could look like this: Most of the useful moves pointed backward. Neither player had a good way to advance. The “correct” play was often to retreat, pass, or stall for several turns. Technically the game still worked. Practically, it felt like the system had slipped out of gear. The fix was to stop thinking only about what each card does individually, and start caring about the direction mix of the five cards as a group. How cards are classified For card balancing, each movement card is tagged with a simple direction : Left if its main impact pulls pieces to the left. Right if it pulls to the right. ...
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Hidden Forms: Mastering the Sensei Dual-Move Cards

The Hidden Forms card set includes four special movement cards: Elk , Deer , Spider , and Scorpion . They all share the same rule: When the card is used to move the Sensei , the bottom grid on the card is used. When the card is used to move any other piece , including the Air Elemental , the top grid is used. Each card contains two move patterns, and which one applies depends on who is moving. Hidden Forms is enabled by default, so whenever that card set is active, these four dual move cards are part of the pool. This single rule adds a new layer to the Hidden Path system. The card in hand is no longer only “what can any piece do with this pattern”, it is also “what can the Sensei do if this card is saved for it instead”. What dual move cards add to the system Dual move cards give the Sensei a distinct movement identity without changing the basic rules of the game. Piece specific movement without extra rules text The Sensei already matters because it is tied directly to vic...
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