Just a thought that's been running through my mind, what about a game that has say 6 or so different win conditions, none of which involve getting/losing a set amount of points or running out of cards in your deck? I mean, like, really specific win conditions.
Assuming a Star Wars (Decipher) location set up, one win condition could be to have a specific character at a specific location when you transfer a certain item from one location to another. So basically just really specific scenarios. It would seem like they'd all be unlikely to happen quick enough to be 'competitive', but if all the scenarios had an equal amount of steps but were different enough to make them interesting play with or against, it would even out and be a really fun game... at least I think it would.
As a side note, I've been trying to make a Harry Potter ccg based on the movies for awhile, and this might be the right kind of rules set up for it. Each win condition could be the big victory from each movie, Protect the Sorcerer's Stone, Defeat the Basilisk, etc etc. That is sort of a different story though, just wondering what everyone thinks of the initial win condition idea.
The current Doctor Who CCG does something similiar to this and in my view it definately hurts the game more than it helps. The difference being that it only has one win condition, however how to get to that condition is different depending on the goals played. So many of the cards require specific circumstances (and specific other cards) that it makes deck building a pain and takes away alot of the player's ability to adapt on the fly.
Mahoujo has an interesting victory system. You have a very small pile of Narrative or Story cards. At the beginning of the game you reveal your first narrative, and your opponent reveals their narrative. When a narrative is completed, the next one is revealed. Each player tries to complete their sequence of narratives as quickly as possible.
The end result is a positive win condition (in a 3 player game you have 1 winner, instead of one person who gets knocked out on turn 4 and another person who gets knocked out on turn 17 leaving the first player to watch a rather long game), with dynamic win conditions.
After writing this the idea occurred to me that players could take turns revealing narratives, and both players would race to complete that same narrative, thus preventing someone from specializing to excessively for one objective only. Idea only at this point, but I like it so far.
I would advise against having "you complete this task" victory conditions as this can lead to it feeling more like a solitaire game. You want as much interraction as possible between players, and not have your opponents merely trying to "do their thing faster" or impede you.
My friend player a Star Wars (Decipher) game against me in which he used one of the many "you win" objective cards in the game. It was called Kessel Run and he competed it with little interaction from me. It didn't feel like I was actually playing in the same game as him. Not fun.
I realized that after posting. It would be very easy to get two decks that don't do much if any impedance and end with two separate games going on. I do like the dynamic victory conditions though, so I'll probably focus on ways to make it more interactive.
My current best thought for greater interactivity is that by having only one objective on the table at a time that either player can complete, you'll still get a nice "competition" feel without making the game directly and always about "beat the crap out of some goblins"
Of course, I could always just emulate the sailor moon game and do the whole good guys vs villains thing.
Sometimes games use objective cards, and there is a different reward for you and your opponent.
Its your card, so you expect to complete it, but if they complete it, they get a reward.
I think Harry Potter CCG does stuff like that.
I suppose personally I don't mind the solitaire feel to some games, being a fan of both Star Wars and Middle Earth, which both can have pretty separate feeling games some times.
With Star Wars the Solitaire games really come from poor deck building though. Its not quite the same as most games out there where you can just build your deck to achieve its goals, but you also have to be looking at how you are going to stop your opponent from achieving theirs. So your deck was not built to stop a Kessel Run deck (which I used to run in tournaments for a little while, lol). If you had a deck with lots of presence in space or a good amount of the stronger Bounty Hunter in Ship cards you probably would have been interacting quite a bit. I personally like when games can have so many different ways that they can play out, instead of always being fully interactive (or vica versa).
In the context of a Harry Potter game (just because that's what I'm using as an example) you could have fairly un-interactive games in which both player's are essentially racing with their good guys trying to complete different goals, and only really interacting with hazard cards to trip up the opponent. However, there could be games with lots of interaction in which one player is playing as Death Eaters with the goal of, say, killing Harry Potter or something, and the other player is trying to destroy the 7 Horcruxes. Of course all of these goals would need to be balanced power wise.
I also like the idea of games in which you build a "hero" deck and a "hazard" deck because it opens up a lot of meta-game strategy. Not only do you have to carefully balance your hazard deck against what hero decks will be out there, but you also have to make sure you aren't playing a hero deck that will fall to the most popular hazard decks at the time. (to use Middle Earth terminology).
I feel like its an untapped market that some gamers are really looking for more options in, at least that's the impression I get seeing how big an underground scene there still is for Star Wars and Middle Earth.
Thoughts are appreciated, thanks for all the feedback!
Quote from: Alastair on November 11, 2009, 05:16:26 AM
The current Doctor Who CCG does something similiar to this and in my view it definately hurts the game more than it helps. The difference being that it only has one win condition, however how to get to that condition is different depending on the goals played. So many of the cards require specific circumstances (and specific other cards) that it makes deck building a pain and takes away alot of the player's ability to adapt on the fly.
Sorry to double post but I wanted to touch on this as well.
The Dr. Who game, to me, seemed overwhelming overcomplicated and vast. Whereas someone who follows the show might be able to see how these things are supposed to interact, I was completely lost. Not that I didn't understand the rules, but I didn't understand why some of the rules/cards were the way they are.
I would definitely be taking a simpler approach to how the cards work together for a game, and use much less specific wording except on the win condition cards. You would need to quickly adapt your play style on the very first turn after the win conditions are revealed, and then again once you figured out which hazard build they were playing. But if the general cards were multi-purpose (not just if X is at Y and Z does B, C, and D then A which a lot of the Dr. Who cards felt like to me) then I think the adaptation of play style would be moderately easy to achieve.
I would like to remind all CCG designers that simplicity is something to be strived for. Simple is NOT the same as easy. Lots of complexity can go in a game whose parts in and of themselves are simple.
Consider a game of magic where you have two 2/2 grizzly bears creatures and he has one 3/3 Hill Giant creature. There is a lot of strategy in how many of those creatures you put in your deck along side of other very simple cards like Lightning Bolt, Giant Growth, and Terror. All of these cards are as simple as they possible can be, but the strategy they can create is extreme and rich.
A lack of simplicity in a game is a failure in the game's creators to find elegant solutions.
It does seem like a failure point to me that kessel run decks can just bypass a player who isn't prepared at some level in my mind. At the same time, it seems a common theme for single cards to be capable of winning the game against unprepared decks. (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4881 destroys a tribal deck without DEs or counterspells at the ready, as can Worship, just off the top of my head).
There are certainly many ways that decks can be made just unfun to play against. Getting mauled by a Stasis deck in magic is one of the least amusing experiences I've ever had. Certainly that was me vs them, but it still felt an awful lot like a single player game since I never got to cast anything.
Perhaps for this reason the two concurrent opposing games (heros vs villains) would work very well as you'd always be interacting heavily in at least one half of the game, and likely both.
Apparently I need to learn to play LOTR, HP, and SW. Anyone happen to have links to the rules for those?
But see, unless you are brand new to the game, those situations never come up in magic. Its either, you are playing tier 1, very complicated decks, and the interaction is high and brutal, or you are playing a casual deck and you may as well have not be playing at all. There is sort of a drop off in magic's beauty once you start playing at that level and realize your attempts are all in vain, you netdeck or you lose.
and like Tokimo said, playing against draw-go style counter/control decks is almost the same thing. There are always situations in games in which a solitaire feel can come into effect. I used to run Heartbeat. Me winning had nothing to do with what my opponent did, I had to live for 5-6 turns, then I won. If they killed me first, I didn't.
Also, nothing I've said thus far has pointed to my game idea not being simple. Just because you want a game to be simple doesn't mean you have to copy magic and not have locations, alternate win conditions, movement systems, and two-tiered meta-game strategies. I see why the most successful games (Mtg, pokemon, ygo, wow) are all so successful, because in their essence they are all the same game. Its a duel between two players in which they are the overall ruler of their minions, they bash each other until a set amount of life points have been lost (kudos to pokemon on the prize system... sort of).
I don't think adding a level of complexity in movement/locations or win conditions is an automatic lose for a game's chance of success, as apparent by the massive underground scenes for games that use these sorts of systems. I'm not trying to beat out any of the aforementioned big 4, I'd be happy with a small yet dedicated fan base.
That is unless you were talking about Dr. Who or some other game Trevor, lol. Usually I really do find your input constructive, that last one just sort of seemed like a general fall back answer without anyone really mentioning anything to bring up the level of complexity.
I'm thinking for a Harry Potter game the characters would only need maybe 2 stats and some keyword abilities, and only maybe 5 card types. In a way that's even simpler than magic.
@ Tokimo. I have never played LOTR by Decipher, I was talking about Middle Earth by ICE. Its an older game and is fairly complex, but there are re-written rules on the internet that help you get started. The Harry Potter ccg that exists now is fun, albeit kind of a joke. Really any license could have been slapped onto it, and it doesn't capture the feel of Harry Potter at all besides maybe casting spells, which really doesn't even happen that much in HP to begin with, its all about the quests! But Star Wars is amazing, my favorite game of all time until they got greedy and power ramped up everything to try and bring in new players. If one were to use only the first 10 or so expansions it would still be the greatest game of all time, IMHO of course.
Quote from: Tokimo on November 11, 2009, 03:55:09 PM
It does seem like a failure point to me that kessel run decks can just bypass a player who isn't prepared at some level in my mind. At the same time, it seems a common theme for single cards to be capable of winning the game against unprepared decks. (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4881 destroys a tribal deck without DEs or counterspells at the ready, as can Worship, just off the top of my head).
There are certainly many ways that decks can be made just unfun to play against. Getting mauled by a Stasis deck in magic is one of the least amusing experiences I've ever had. Certainly that was me vs them, but it still felt an awful lot like a single player game since I never got to cast anything.
Perhaps for this reason the two concurrent opposing games (heros vs villains) would work very well as you'd always be interacting heavily in at least one half of the game, and likely both.
Apparently I need to learn to play LOTR, HP, and SW. Anyone happen to have links to the rules for those?
Stasis was a mistake and a card of that power level and lack of fun wouldn't be printed again. Modern control decks are more about counterspelling and mass creature removal, and those kinds of effects do not feel like a solitaire game.
Doing something and having it negated is not the same as not being able to do anything. The latter is a solitaire game.
Even if your opponent manages to counter every single one of your spells, you are still playing things and there is a constant player versus player interaction.
Quote from: Cyrus on November 11, 2009, 04:11:41 PM
But see, unless you are brand new to the game, those situations never come up in magic. Its either, you are playing tier 1, very complicated decks, and the interaction is high and brutal, or you are playing a casual deck and you may as well have not be playing at all. There is sort of a drop off in magic's beauty once you start playing at that level and realize your attempts are all in vain, you netdeck or you lose.
LOL Oh boy do we have different target audiences. I'm aiming for appeal to people who haven't played a CCG at all before. I'm sure a few bad games getting shut down by a white enchantment or two followed by a game against a blue control deck would scare them off forever.
Quote from: Trevor on November 11, 2009, 04:27:21 PM
Stasis was a mistake and a card of that power level and lack of fun wouldn't be printed again. Modern control decks are more about counterspelling and mass creature removal, and those kinds of effects do not feel like a solitaire game.
Doing something and having it negated is not the same as not being able to do anything. The latter is a solitaire game.
Even if your opponent manages to counter every single one of your spells, you are still playing things and there is a constant player versus player interaction.
I'm not really sure I agree with that. Last time I played against a counterspell deck (6 years ago?) there was no stasis, just a bunch of counterspells and control spells. It was still really unfun. I suspect I derive my enjoyment more from putting creatures into play than paying their mana cost, so when I'm continually blocked from playing anything, it's not much fun.
I'd say when talking about new players, which for some reason the focus is on even though I pretty much plan on writing a "If You've Played Magic Before" rulebook (this is a game being made on a great but fairly unknown program, especially unknown in non-magic terms, with licensed property I could never hope to own), it doesn't matter whether or not you are literally interacting, when playing against a control deck the first few times it feels like a slaughter. Playing against control is one of the steepest learning curves in gaming, I think. Learning how to bait counters and play around them and whatnot, also you have to know on what turn they plan to kill you so you can try and stave that off as much as possible.
And yeah Tokimo we probably do have different target audiences, mine being player's that loved and missed the old Star Wars and Middle Earth type ccgs. Once Star Wars died due to horrible decisions within the company no one has even bothered to make another ccg that is inherently complex to a slight degree.
Just to throw it out there, I've taught plenty of people how to play Star Wars over the years, and some have caught on to it quicker than when I taught them Magic (for no lack of knowing the rules, believe me). Some people just like the idea of having a physical representation of where their guys are and like to be able to employ 'flanking' or 'chasing' or other such strategies not represented in Magic.
My personal feelings on multi win conditions... make em valid.
Yu-gi-oh! is one of my favorite games of all time. The goal is USUALLY to just win by life points. However exodia added a different way to play, you dont want to lose but you also need to get the cards and recover them if something happens.
In magic you had one major way to win (and side ones of course) and a million ways to do it. This is how things should be when balanced, a million ways to get to the same point. However... I also have my game.
Mine literaly has multiple win conditions but is set ahead of time. For instance, the goal may be to hold the most pieces of the node, or it could be to just beat the other person, or it could be... its kind of like an rpg card game but the only RPG aspect is that there are multiple goals really. The victory can vary a little but deck construction remains the same, the only thing really change is when and how to make certain decisions.
If a game allows the player to set his own win conditions then there has to be a way for the other person to be involved as Trevor said.. yes I could have exodia but losing my hand still limits that idea.
Multiple win conditions can enhance gameplay, but you have to be very, very careful with it.
If you create a win condition that goes too much outside normal gameplay, it will not only take away interaction, it will force players to include cards in their decks that they do not want. Players should be able to hinder ANY opponent's win condition with a normal deck. Take a look at most of Magic?s win conditions, the more or less all fall inside the normal Magic gameplay. If you can keep it like that, it will surely enhance gameplay, but multiple win conditions will also decrease interaction..
It also depends if multiple win conditions are in the RULES, or on CARDS.
I was thinking of having them be in the rules, but with cards to physically represent them so at the beginning of the game you reveal which win condition you're going for.
For my idea for a game, each win condition would involve characters around roughly the same group of locations (how many unique places do they really go in the harry potter movies?)
the only problem is balancing out when both players are playing as "good guys", there might not be a whole lot of "duelling"
Or I might just use a totally different rules set for this unachievable property, lol.
Thanks for all the input
As I've said previously I think multiple win conditions are important and I dont think you should have to state at the start of the game which win condition you're going for (you wouldnt reveal your objectives to the enemy prior to going to war). In Magic you can win by decking your opponent (forcing them to run out of cards), getting their life points at or below 0 (of which there are multiple ways of doing that), and various other special conditions like poison counters, etc... as well as many ways of defending against such tactics.
it would really depend on the mechanics of the card game itself, some lend themselfs to multi-pull win conditions some dont. If the set up for the win condion is possible, but hard, then sure. But make it so that a player could not build a deck where all possible (6?) win condions exist in one deck... unless of course thats what your after...
My idea was to have 6 or so win conditions that each had the same amount of steps, need of resources, and specific cards involved, and you'd basically be trying to tune your deck to do just one of those things really well while trying to also have cards that would foil other strategies.
Regardless I don't feel like starting work on another game, haha.
The game I am mainly working on has two win conditions, basically one for aggro and one for control. The "Aggro" or "Point" Victory is a lot like mtgs, each player starts with 30 points that represent their Hold on the area you are fighting over, and if you reduce these points to 0 for your opponent then you win. The "Control" or "Absolute" Victory is acheived by shutting down your opponents ability to Recruit new Units. I'd have to explain the entire rules for the game to explain how that really works, but I think its a good couple of win conditions, seeing as the Absolute Victory really just cuts out the last few turns of the game that the controlling player would need to achieve the point victory, but allows for decks to be fine tuned to achieve one or the other more specifically so it opens up some more deck building strategy.
Skipping the last few turns might be frustrating on a close game for an aggro deck since they might have enough in play that they'll pop the control deck before the control deck can pop them in a fight to the death.
Quote from: Tokimo on November 22, 2009, 08:31:40 AM
Skipping the last few turns might be frustrating on a close game for an aggro deck since they might have enough in play that they'll pop the control deck before the control deck can pop them in a fight to the death.
Well, here's some more in-depth rules to explain what I meant.
A player can only Recruit new Units to a Kingdom Location or an Outpost. Kingdom Locations are the three Location cards you start with in play, and Outposts can be set up on other Locations with specific cards and Leader-type Units throughout the game. A Kingdom Location becomes a Besieged Location when an Opponent gains Control of it (has Units there while you do not). It would go back to being a Kingdom Location if you were able to gain Control of it again. A Location loses an Outpost if your Opponent gains Control of it as well.
So a Control deck is really more of a Swarm deck that can protect its swarm in my game. The objective of which would be to Besiege their entire Kingdom and stop them from building any Outposts. If they do manage this rather difficult task, the Opponent would have no Locations to bring in new Recruits to, so rather than playing out the rest of the game without being able to play anything (Units are very important to my game) and slowly dying from your Opponent's Influence (which I will get into in another post sometime) you instead just lose immediately. It is also a design decision to limit the playability of decks that use very few Units. The game should always be about tactical movement and battles between Units, and this encourages that.
Fortunately, this victory condition it is not as easy as dropping three Units and moving them over, because there are three Location Placeholders between you and your opponent's Kingdom Locations that you must move your Units over, and most Units can only move over one space a turn. Also, just because you can lock down one Besieged Location doesn't mean they can't Recruit Units at one of their two remaining Kingdom Locations and get rid of your Units nice and quick with battles.
My idea behind what would be a Control deck is a Deck that utilizes the faster Units in my game (ones that can move more than one space a turn), and cards that somehow prevent the Recruiting of Units at certain Locations for one turn. That way you could move in and take out their first Units while using your carefully placed Action cards to stop them from backing up their Kingdom Locations.
However to stop a winning player from completely dominating once they have an advantage, after every battle there is a Reinforcement Step in which the losing player draws cards equal to half the damage they took during the battle, rounded down.
Wow I really started rambling there, I've just started tweaking the game rules again and I'm pretty excited about it, haha :D
Okay, that sounds like a good time to skip then. In my experience I tend to concede a lot of magic games right after my draw phase when it becomes apparent that nothing I can pull next turn will save me.