H4Ck3rs_ (Abbreveated H4X) is currently online only, like many other CCG's, but the time is drawing VERY near that our game will be going to print, and thanks to that we're Rebooting the game and starting over with new set divisions and a new card layout, which we will reveal here shortly, but currently are debuiting on Legend Zero. H4Ck3Rs_ will be a game that you will not only be able to play via Lackey, but also now a live action cards-in-your-hand TCG that will be avalible for sale online soon.
We're not going with the tradition sink-your-trust-fund-for-a-shiney-card method, however, and will be selling "Tactical Packs", or 36 card packs that contain enough cards for one simple mechanic of the game. Purchasing two of these is a great way to get started in the game as you can pick and choose from the two to build a pretty good 40 card deck. There will also be compleated decks that will have some better cards at a slightly higher price, and the ubiquitous starter kit that will contain two decks, playmats, tokens, and all the bells and whistles.
While we're working on the new version of the game, we're going to take the Hackers Website offline and will probably stop updating our Lackey Plugin until we re-image all the cards for the new format, so if you were thinking about learning how to play our game sit tight for a week or so and we'll promise you it will be worth the wait.
As a thanks for reading this, there's a bit of a taste of the card back here:
(http://www.legendzero.com/forum/MGalleryItem.php?id=1385)
So what are your thoughts on a TCG that WONT cost you your life savings?? Can it survive in today's Market as the "player's TCG?"
Here's hoping, but make sure to let us know what you guys think.
The cost of CCGs is due to 1) development budget 2) gaming store overhead. You can reduce the cost by about 50% by avoiding gaming store overhead, but you'll lose out on market penetration and inventory sales. You can not have a development budget, but your art will suffer and that will doom your game.
So fundamentally, I think trying to make your CCG cheap will likely be an example of "You get what you pay for."
That being said, your new card back is a major improvement. Although, I can see pixels on the edge of the green blocks and gray circles, you might want to make sure that those are anti-aliased and smooth at 300 dpi before you start printing. You might also consider giving the gray circles a slight transparency.
Who are you using for printing? GoBRG?
Nope, we're using a new website thats Print on Demand that specialised in making Indie games and helping release them to the public.
We already have a few deals on paper to sell the TCG locally in some of our hometowns, and our art is foud via searching the internet for aspring artitst and getting licencing rights or through our own in house art team. There's a good budget of our site revenue dedicated into finding art for the different sets as they are released, and in combination with our in house art team we're getting ready to move on to this step.
That template is the lo-fi version, I linked the wrong one. I will update that when I'm not on my phone later today, and the circles are at 70% alpha already.
And as far release we're not going for world domination and complete market overhaul, but more a small scale real world test of Hackers and how it performs in controlled markets that we can gauge our playability overall as a game against others. We're not trying to take on Magic or YuGiOh, not yet at least.
Who are you using for printing? I'm sure they would love you to toss their name around since they like customers.
iv never heard of this game, only seen aardvark have the plugin. can you link me to the oplugin and rules so i could try it out on lackey?
@Tokimo. It's called The Gamw Crafter. Thier website is their name.
@Ripplez. We have to update now with the new layout but you can find the old one at www.hackerstcg.com. Site may look like crap right now. Were updating it before rerelease.
I quite like your site (http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/71.gif)
The Game Crafter seems awfully expensive though, you might consider shopping around a bit.
We have been. If games seem expensive there blame those users. Were estimating maybe a 20-30 investment of a user to be a competitive player in hax on first level play.
It runs like cafepress, no high prices are just greedy developers I guess.
where are the rules? also the set seems bugged.....
effect of binary fusion knight : this card can only be uploaded by the effect of 0110. once per turn, if there are no binary counters on the field, place 1 binary counter on 1 character on the field. if this card battles a character with a binary counter on it, this card's
and then it stops.
alot of the images are missing as well. is there a more complete version available? or that can be hosted on megaupload (though please not rapidshare)?
the game looks okay, ill try it out when i read more of it
also complicated solution is actually wrong. the final result is 2 + 1 - sqrt(-1). the square roott of -1 isnt -1, so it wont add up to 4. in fact the square root of -1 is a totally diff number not expressed as a real number. so.... yeah :S
Game Crafters is about twice as much as Guild of Blades for simple printing. Game Crafters has advantages though, including distribution (you really don't want to spend all of your time distributing cards, that's no fun) and no upfront cost (were you to pre-print one 36 card highlander pack, it would cost you about $270 from Guild of Blades for ten packs, even if you didn't sell any of them).
Thanks for pointing out Binary Fusion knight, probably a bad copy/paste on our part.
We're still working on card art, one reason we're redistributing the sets into ones we're compleatly imaged out.
And wow, we had that function generated for us by a Math major. Boy will you piss him off! :P Nice Job
And yes GC is a bit more, but we figured the advantages of distribution are worth it.
And here's a rulebook link, card layouts will be updated soon as this is the last format, but general rules are still identical.
http://www.hackerstcg.com/rules/rulebook.pdf
EDIT: Temp site is up.
I drool at the new card back, drool y'hear! It looks a helluva lot better.
Now does this mean that you will concentrate your efforts on the print-n-play aspect or are you going to continue to release the game as a LackeyCCG plugin?
I know of a game or two that have done something similar. I can play online for free but have the option of buying a professional commercial type product via third-party vendors who specialize in that sort of thing. That's it, oui?
Kind of the plan. We're also looking into other online methods (Iphone App, Android, Hell maybe Xbox 360 Indie Game).
You know how YGO does the whole code-per-card thing? We're going to implement that too, but in a different way that we're still researching to finalise before making the 100% finaly complete total FINAL cards. More on this in a day.
Okay, time for today's daily update. We're finalising the new Core Set, Entitled (Suprise!!) REBOOT and it will contain 200 cards that are ALL imaged out. This set will go to print immedeatly after the completion AND become the new basis for the Lackey based plugin.
Card templates coming in later tonight!!
Update time!! Thought I would post the new Character card template for you guys to enjoy! I've taken a few of the points of advice from you guys on the old layout and also have made sure to accomidate our own community. Hope you guys like, feel free to comment!!
(http://www.legendzero.com/forum/MGalleryItem.php?id=1432)
It looks very good imo. I think you guys did a great job with the design.
Yeah a TON of work went into some new elements on the cards, including a rarity system (finally) and the QR tagging (that funky barcode in the bottom left).
Glad you like it.
I really like how this template turned out.
The only thing I could say is perhaps continue the blue along the top, and put the card name there.
And perhaps thin out the blue that's on there now?
But other than that, it looks really good!
We have always liked the vertical name. It's unique. Also for printing there is a thin blue border for the safe area, which is not in this image.
Figured I would update you guys!! We have finished converting all the previously "arted" cards we had, and are currently working to image out the remaining 70 or so cards we dont yet have images for. Estimated time, no idea, but we're working as hard as we can.
No rush. Quality takes time. Looking forward to it.
Glad to hear.
Also, for all you iPhone owners, we recently started looking into app development, so we may get some sort of Database or Tutorial or video or SOMETHING Hackers app out soon.
Okay, update loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo *deep breath* ooooooong overdue.
Kidding aside, we're back on track, and after taking a second look at the whole printing aspect, we decided it won't fit our game, as it takes the fun out of it, so we're moving back towards digital distribution, mainly on LakceyCCG and some iApps that are in development. So, just wanted to let you guys know we should have an updated Lackey plugin within the day or at the very most, the weekend.
Update. You can haz rulebook!!
http://www.hackerstcg.com/rules/rulebook.pdf
Also the update is out, update lackey from
http://www.hackerstcg.com/lackey/high/updatelist.txt
Quote from: Legend Zero on May 26, 2010, 09:12:35 AM
Update. You can haz rulebook!!
http://www.hackerstcg.com/rules/rulebook.pdf
Also the update is out, update lackey from
http://www.hackerstcg.com/lackey/high/updatelist.txt
Oh, there's an even better way to view it! Rulebook.swf (http://www.legendzero.com/flash/rulebook.swf)
(you're welcome, world :D )