Hey everyone,
In preparation for the groundbreaking new Star Wars film coming out today, I've taken the liberty of trying to resurrect an old favorite of mine as a kid. Milton Bradley's very own Star Wars: Epic Duels board game! With this fun little tactical tabletop game, faithful Star Wars battles could be both re-enacted and re-imagined with unparalleled splendor. Once the game comes down to the wire, tensions rise and the last man (or woman) standing is declared the winner.
Online play for this game is already possible in the form of Tabletop Simulator and the Vassal engine, but you need to pay for Tabletop Simulator in order to play, and the Vassal engine has one glaring flaw in it... The fact that programming in expansion sets is rather bothersome if not already released, and since there are so many of them, it only makes sense to go through the brunt of the work in creating the mechanics first and then adding new expansions to it seamlessly as we go... which is exactly what LackeyCCG has to offer.
Resources have been gathered from the Vassal engine (if Tabletop Simulator card scans are of higher quality, I might end up replacing the cards with those), with a few additions to spice up the gameplay and make the Lackey version a little more unique.
- Vassal card scans have been very slightly enhanced.
- Figurines have had the white space removed to create a transparent background for the game pieces!
- Figurine lightsabers have a glow effect added to them!
- The ability to change which direction the characters are facing is possible with the same function as flipping cards over (so CTRL+Left click)
- Vassal engine denied the use of Character Charts to keep track of hit points. This takes the fun out of the original nostalgic feel of this unique game mechanic, so I've managed to include the character charts of each deck and added hit markers in the form of tokens. Spawn one to move along the damage card as you wish, or spawn as many as you want to set a hit marker with each point of damage taken! It's totally up to you!
- High-quality game board scans!
- Is your character using the Force or flying with a jet pack? Click the "Lift Character" button to simulate the effect by allowing the game piece to hover over the board!
- Vassal limits you to 6 players per game. With LackeyCCG, toss in as many players as you want! You can wage an all-out war in no time!
- Plan on playing several games in one go? Keep track of how many victories you've earned with the victory counter global stat, as well as the turn counter stat if it ever comes into play.
- Official rulebook included in PDF format.
EXPECT IN THE FUTURE!
- Expansion sets for characters, decks, and maps as they're requested!
- Optional sound effects (at least for canon characters so far) integrated into cards and a few figurine actions!
The only downside???
Rolling the dice is tricky in this game... A six-sided die that features numbered results that aren't as simple as 1-6 means I needed to get kind of creative with the way it was rolled. Players have two options to roll the die in Epic Duels...
- Click the "Roll Dice" button to randomly have a die outcome transferred from the Dice zone to the table. It will make no sound as it does this. After you see the result, you are then expected to drag the die outcome back into the Dice zone. No shuffling is necessary for this option.
- Click the Dice zone and drag one of the six concealed die outcomes from the zone and onto the table. Doing so this way will give you a dice roll sound effect. After you see the result, you are then expected to drag the die outcome back into the Dice zone and shuffle the Dice zone.
Here's the plugin, continue reading for an explanation of how to play!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ufe7gl3glx8rx7s/Star%20Wars%20Epic%20Duels.zip?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bfmp04kph3fpkiy/Game%20Boards.zip?dl=0
____________________________________________________________________________
1. Extract the plugin in your plugins folder, and extract the game map images into the root LackeyCCG backgrounds folder.
2. All decks are already pre-made. They can also be found in individual character packs in Deck Editor.
3. Load up a deck and connect to the server.
4. Find an opponent, and begin the game!
5. Both you and the opponent decide on which map to play on. All players will need to manually go to their Appearance and background settings to adjust the map accordingly.
6. Pull out your character chart from the Character Charts zone and place it on either the left or right column (all areas that display the outer space background are used for damage cards and action card placement).
7. Go into the Tokens tab on the right interface and pull out however many HP markers you choose to position on the damage card "blue dot" slot as best you can.
8. Pull out your characters from the Game Pieces zone and place them on their corresponding spaces on the map.
9. Click the Draw Card button four times to draw four cards for a starting hand.
10. Players decide among themselves who goes first. Then the player whose turn it is rolls the die, chooses to draw a card or not, and moves their selected character one space at a time along the tiled squares. Play the game as you would normally, and the player with the last character standing is declared the victor!
Have fun everyone! I plan to put in those sound effects soon. I've been busy with work, so unfortunately, the final product was a little more rushed than I would have liked, but it's complete enough to unveil just in time for The Force Awakens to arrive in theaters. :) Post on this topic if you'd like any possible changes or improvements to happen, and I'll do my best to grant you your wish. Also post links to expansion sets, and I'll get right to work on adding them to the plugin.
Enjoy the game, and as always, may the Force be with you. ;)
Quote from: Snoogy on December 18, 2015, 11:38:42 PM
Just a quick note. You can slap
<definition><kind>SITONSAMESIDE</kind><value>yes</value></definition>
in to your plugininfo.txt file (at the bottom) to make players sit in the same side of the table regardless what seat number they are in. Just another undocumented feature of Lackey~
Oh, excellent! Thank you very much for this useful tip! :) I've updated the plugin to include this, now there's no need to worry about seating during play!