Source of Thought began with a direct question: if ThoughtMap can show relationships between works, can those relationships become decisions inside a game?
Works instead of characters
Most card games collect creatures, heroes, or weapons. Source of Thought collects books, philosophies, scientific discoveries, historical texts, and personal works. One saved work becomes one card. Its parameters are derived from its thought profile rather than written as unrelated flavor.
This changes what deck construction means. A deck is not only a collection of individually strong cards. It is a composition of ideas whose affinity, conceptual distance, position, and generated skills affect one another.
The goal is not to decorate a card game with philosophy. The goal is to make relationships between ideas playable.
Why ThoughtMap remains separate
ThoughtMap is a semantic research platform first. Search and collection remain useful without the game. Source of Thought consumes saved works downstream, converting research data into card stats, resonance, and skill candidates without forcing game behavior into the research interface.
The first playable structure
The initial rules establish a ten-card deck, five deployed cards, a 5×5 formation, and 5 vs 5 automatic combat. Mind, Human, and System form an affinity cycle while Karma remains neutral. Position affects attack, defense, and hate; adjacent cards affect one another through resonance.
What development must prove
The project succeeds only if a player can recognize why a work behaves as it does and why moving it changes the battle. The current development focus therefore prioritizes readable systems—Battle Prep previews, target priority, and controlled skill generation—before final animation and spectacle.