WTactics CCG: Positions open

[snowdrop]

WTactics.org is, maybe in contrast to most of the games around here, a free, open source and fully legit CCG with no copyright infringements. It's designed to be playable with real cards as well as online and we also have paid artists creating original art for it.

Whoever is interested in the long term commitment that developing a CCG entails is very welcome to join our team. If you want to create a truly free game that belongs to the people this is your chance.



^{Notice that these are only early work copies that are used for internal playtesting. End product will likely vary.}

We've been around for over a year and make steady progress, worrying not about rushing it through but only about quality and doing it right. We're a small but competent crew and would love it if we got a couple of more members. We're envisioning this as a project that's community driven and high-quality.

If you have any specific skills or feel like the average joe that just wants to give developing a CCG a shot makes no difference: We can make good use of all individuals and there are plenty of tasks around for all stratas of expertise.

Please visit our site for more for more info and feel free to contact me in here or via e-mail at snowdrop [at] wtactics [dot] org



_{To mods: A similar post was made long time ago, but due to our account getting deleted in the forum mass-cleansing we couldn't maintain the first post via edits any longer, hence we took the liberty to post again.}

[Malagar]

Look and feel is excellent. I am working on a cardbased wargame myself, some of your concepts remind me of my own game. I like the artwork, its really original with a nice layout.

Searched for a rulebook on your site but found nothing, im curious about your core-rules. some rules-text is a bit "magic the gathering heavy", so i would like to read your rules and see how it differs from M:TG.

PS: Do I remember right that you worked on a cardgame called something like "Sub Nova" a while ago?

[snowdrop]

Malagar:

Thanks.

Artwork to the left is from BfW, one on the right is a sample of our original artwork that was made for this purpose. Brown original layout is inspired of an original Gary Simpson did long ago that i plucked asunder & re-vamped, and yellow one is mine... I wanted some kind of "saga" look of it while at same time keeping it classy, think it went well and will probably not change it unless somebody gives us a revelation.

Sorry about the rules link: Just noticed it was broke. Fixed. Here's the set that's being fiddled with >> http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/wiki/index.php?title=Quick_Rules
When I began with the project I intended to let anyone come into it and develop his/her own ruleset and cards, using our common resources such as template base and card art. Later on I wanted to pick the rule set I and the community found to be the best, and declare it the official one for WT. Sadly people are not prone to co-work and we have only my set (link above) and one more in the Wiki.

In essence, in the general design goals (found in wiki) we state that we don't aim at reinventing the wheel, thus being as original as possible isn't our mission. Being open source, fun and pro is, and they are all prioritized over being original in this particular project. With that said, main differences between WT and MtG except for us giving the game and freedom to people to do whatever with it, are most notably in this current minute:

• Spatial dimension: WT is played in two zones, which would equate two independent tables with two games on them in MtG. Most stuff happens localy in each zone. Also, creatures can move between them.
• Smoother resource handling system: No dedicated resource cards like lands, one currency, no tapping plenty of resources all the time.
• More creature centric: In MtG you can play and win a game without ever playing a creature and insta-kills of creatures are easy. That should not be so in WT.
• Avoid sibling cards: Instead of having 10 cards that are almost identical we'd rather have as few siblings as possible.

"Sub nova" may have been "subversiva". I worked on it until I realized I wasn't happy with the license of it and the way it was going, so I fired up this one instead and took my experiences with me from that project.

Edit: Just saw your site. We seem to have several goals in common. Now it's  my turn to ask you for the rules... I just saw a very quickie on the site. Cards look good. Do you have an artist or good legal source for the art? I'd like to see some more. If not, you should dev it in our world using our resources as a branch of its own, if it doesn't meet the general design goals. I think we'd have all to benefit and nothing to lose form any and all sorts of co-work. =) And oh, lastly, want an account on http://opencgs.org/ ? It's my attempt to make open ccg makers to join forces and create some kind of central hub... without success this far ofc

[Malagar]

Thank you for the detailled feeback Snowdrop,

I will chew through the rules when i am back from work, looks all very interesting though.

You will have to wait a bit for my rules to be released as my game is still in very early stages of develpment. I am using the site as a developers diary and step-by-step release tiny rulesbits wich have been tested and proven to be "right". some insights (sorry for the plug):

# im trying to convert a classical miniatures wargame or computer real-time-strategical to a cardgame
# battleground fantasy warfare tried exactly this, but they used the cards like miniatures and moved them around on the table, instead i divided the gameboard into a few zones, thus minimizing movement - but there is some of it
# the game goes very much into detail about combat, attack and defense sequences. various weapons have special effects and weapon types produce counter-effects when facing specific weapons. all armies are divided into classical unit schemes ranging from infantry, to cavalry and warmaschines. theese units have a relation to each other similiar to rock-paper-scissors.
# the game uses more statistic like most CCGs, this turns every card into a little "character sheet" like from an rpg game. it will be more complex and thus a bit more difficult and longer to play.
# all abilities, spells, attributes and equipment can be combined to build new cards for the game. this modular system automatically adjusts the point cost of a freshly created card. costs can be reduced by adding disadvantages to the card as well.

No, the art is not mine - its taken from all over the web. I know this point is critical to a game but its just a hobby and i dont have more sparetime/money left to pump into the art department. the textures are open-source and the next version will feature icons wich are open-source too.

As much as i like the idea of collaboration, i really want to keep my original concept and design. my games are like babies to me and its a passion to work on all the tiny bits once in a while. this being said, please understand that i dont want to give it up for something different.

but - there is absolutely nothing against co-work when its about exchanging ideas, brainstorming and playing with new concepts and ideas. if you have a forum (something i did not implement yet) we could come together to form some kind of "opencgs development group". similar to a games designers forum.

btw: yes, an opencgs account is appreciated

[xchokeholdx]

Hi Snow, XchokeholdX here.

I wrote a whole ruleset for the WTactics game, but unfortunately, it was not chosen to be used. I hope I can still be of some help for other things, like rule balancing, card balancing or general annoying comments let me know.

[snowdrop]

Malagar:

Sounds exciting and I'd personally love to see something like that working on a table.

My own thought is that your greatest challenge is to solve the movement issue (without including more extra equipment beyond the cards). I totally agree that the way they did it in BF is a really bad idea: It just isn't smooth and tedious in the long run. Main issue is that it's hard to move around cards on a table. It's hard to pick them up, and also doing so without moving all around them. It also gets even worse if there are cards attached to as card.

To be honest, I don't think the movement issue is really solvable in a physical way. Especially if your game will be a DIY & if you don't want to include extra stuff beyond the cards themself, like helping tools. To solve the problem you'd either have to keep movement to a minimum, which would be the level where it added depth to the game but not above (that's what I did in WT). Or, you would have to reinvent how we'd perceive movement or re-label it and still use it's main benefit - the spatialness and what it brings into strategy. An obvious example is: Instead of moving cards you play new ones on top of the old that simply get replaced (and that could be used for something maybe later on, who knows). That would work wonders with formations and grid systems of cards and casue no problems really.. there could be one global grid or one for each player (global is better though, especially if they're somewhat large, else if players have one each its hard to match/translate positions between the grids).

I know the feeling of wanting to be in control and charge of your creation  - one has a vision in the head and it's easy going astray if external forces start mixing it all up

Within a week I'll fire up a forum on opencgs in order to put some infrastructure there and also an account for you on the site. I'll get back to you via PM in here then. Think it's great to create a meeting ground, just as you write, a bgdf but for open card game devs. We'd however be the only two on it,... but still


xchokeholdx:
Your rule set is still on wiki, placed in "abandoned" category recently by me.

We have not chosen to not use it - I think that's a missunderstanding. It was never tested.

What happened was that you began work with it and then disappeared For anything to be evaluated we'd need a playable game. Somebody needs to create it. That somebody is you and your crew, if any. The way WT is setup is to allow anyone to form a dev team and to do the devving themself. Now we have your rule set, but we lack all your cards. I believe I told you to create them using what resources we have, which is plenty - we have art for over 120 creatures and plenty of other stuff as well, and new stuff is being created as we speak.

Summed up: Your ruleset hasn't been playtested by anyone due to the lack of cards, hence it can't be evaluated or tweaked further by you or anyone else.

On a sidenote: If  you need a modified template for your rule set and don't know how to pull it of in inkscape I'd be happy to assist you if it isn't overly complex changes that need to be made.

So, come on by and finish what you started or, do help out with the original rules concept we're working on - all up to you to choose what you think you'll enjoy the most.

[Malagar]

@snowdrop

Well, so we have our first discussion topic: Simplified movement in CCG's: A possibility?

Maybe we find a few other people who are interested. We are really lacking a platform for serious discussions about CCG-Creation.

More later, work is calling...

[Cyrus]

I'd love to be part of a ccg design team, but I can't commit much time at the moment. I thought I'd have a lot of time to work on my own game, but with lack of interest of other people in the playtesting department, as well as my own time restrictions becoming more apparent, I had to cut down on it. But I like to talk about games almost as much as play them (sometimes more maybe). My game also requires a great deal of cards, and thus art, so that sorta deterred me as well.

I'd like to get in on that new site/forum you guys are talking about. Although you may have more luck sticking to a forum that already had a userbase instead of creating a new one, but who knows, perhaps being more focused will be helpful.

Have you guys checked out http://www.thegamecrafter.com? Especially their forums. I just found the site recently but it looks to have a wealth of knowledge on their, as well as the ability to print your games for pretty cheap.

Also, is there somewhere I could download all the art you guys have available for free? Mixed with other open-source, uh, sources around the net it might be enough to at least inspire me to work on a new, perhaps smaller-scale project idea that I have in mind.

[snowdrop]

Cyrus

When it comes to us we have a good rule that takes care of all such problems: IRL first.

I've seen plenty of projects that require and expect people to live and die by the screen and where there would be drama and insecurities if a person wasn't logged on all the time or a week in a row. Truth is that it's not desired by a normal individual. He/she doesn't want to sacrifice the social life, the job or the education just to have fun and contribute to a floss project.

A person that has a family, a job or studies has very limited amount of time. It's a simple as that. Any crew that fails to recognize that and structure the project accordingly is building almost guaranteed poopage. Only people that can deliver that amount of dedication that some people expect online are the lone-rangers or the 14 year old kids with too much spare time, failing grades and an aspiring heart condition.

Developing a CCG takes time. I seldom meet people that understand that or stick with it. Most just spew out their ideas and then move on, 99% of the time accomplishing nothing. It's about patience and a focused mindset. Time isn't the enemy, even though we all have very little of it for free dedication. If one adapts to the facts of life instead of giving up on things we can still accomplish them. In our case it just means that development will take 4-10 times longer than it would have done if we all had heaps of spare time. Other than that, there's no problem. Not as long people know that whoever that is doing whatever will eventually get it done and there is some periodical communication and updates.

"Although you may have more luck sticking to a forum that already had a userbase instead of creating a new one, but who knows, perhaps being more focused will be helpful."

Yes, userbase wise you're right. New forums always fail miserably. So will this probably. That said, there are no existing ones around that are purely geared towards card game devs, that I know of and that also isn't somehow biased or a bi-product of it's real purpose. Bgdf is an excellent example of what is a very nice community neutral with a lot of very wise persons lurking around it. However, it's really not a forum for ccg:ers.

Have you guys checked out http://www.thegamecrafter.com? Especially their forums. I just found the site recently but it looks to have a wealth of knowledge on their, as well as the ability to print your games for pretty cheap.

That concept is a very good one. I have no experience with ordering from them and can't utter much about quality, but I guess as with all other things, you get what you pay for.

Also, is there somewhere I could download all the art you guys have available for free? Mixed with other open-source, uh, sources around the net it might be enough to at least inspire me to work on a new, perhaps smaller-scale project idea that I have in mind.

You can fetch it all from our trunk. Instructions are in our wiki if you haven't used bzr/svn etc before. Please share link to any project that uses it, would be nice seeing it and we could cross-link to each other. Do however keep an eye on licenses though - all open source licenses are not compatible with each other and aren't mixable really.

[Cyrus]

Are the rules for WTactics set in stone?
Anyway, I'll definitely sign up on your other forum and try to be semi-active over there. I've always got tons of ideas to throw out.

And as far as gamecrafters goes, I guess one of the games produced through the site won some sort of award for best indie game last year, so getting what you paid for may actually be getting a good product this time around? Who knows, once I've got some extra cash I'm down to try it out.

[snowdrop]

Are the rules for WTactics set in stone?
Anyway, I'll definitely sign up on your other forum and try to be semi-active over there. I've always got tons of ideas to throw out.

The rules I and some of the others work with are not set in stone, but pretty set out for playtesting. Parts of them will be revised as we go along. You can either join up with us and conform + suggest new ideas once you get acquainted with what's going on, or you can go han-solo and invent your own stuff instead, but still belong to the project.

WTactics was/is setup as a project where there is no conflict if you'd rather develop totally different rules - you'd just need to start up your own one-man (or a group filled with friends or others) development path. You'd get access to all the same resources as us and be free to devise any rules you want. Templates can easily be edited, and all is really up to yourself if you create your own rules. You would of course need to create your own cards for them as well, else it would be hard to playtest. All that is however "easy" as you have access to all material. Somebody just has to do the work

In the end one of the rule sets will be selected as the official one for WTactics. Whichever is more fun and strategical and in line with the projects General Design Document will be declared the winner. The prize is fame & glory and you contributing to the world with the first legal pro open source ccg.

And as far as gamecrafters goes, I guess one of the games produced through the site won some sort of award for best indie game last year, so getting what you paid for may actually be getting a good product this time around? Who knows, once I've got some extra cash I'm down to try it out.

Winning best indie game of the year says nothing about the quality of it's components, of it's paper, print colours, box, etc (unless that somehow and for some bizarre reasons was taken into account. as a criteria) It would be like saying that chess is a badly designed game because it is played on a crappy board with ugly pieces - makes little sense, does it? And vice versa.

I don't think I was critical towards gamecrafters and didn't insinuate anything. On the contrary:  "That concept is a very good one. I have no experience with ordering from them and can't utter much about quality, but I guess as with all other things, you get what you pay for. " It sure sounds like a good idea to try them out if you can afford it and need your game to be in a physical shape. Especially given there are not too many other alternatives around

[Cyrus]

I wasn't battling for them one way or the other, it might be crappy haha. Just sayin' for the sake of sayin'.
Anyway, I have an idea that would be really cool with the other rules you guys have, but it changes the game quite a bit, so I don't want to try and snag it up. So maybe I should Mr. Solo it for a minute and if you like what I come up with, cool! If not, still, pretty cool.

So how do I get in on all this action!? I should only need 25-ish pieces of art to make two demo decks of the idea I've got going on, as a deck is limited to 25 cards, and you can have 2 copies of a card. I'd love to jump in to playtesting this idea out.