Chimera (previously known as "Macro")

[3XXXDDD]

In Chimera, players control a total of eight cards divided into 1 Avatar Card and 7 Skill Cards.

CARD TYPES


AVATAR



Name: The name of the card

Race: An avatar may only use ability cards that share their race symbol

Vitality (): When your avatar?s vitality is reduced to 0, you lose

Endurance (): Damage is first subtracted from endurance before being subtracted from vitality

Dexterity (): An avatar ignores endurance if their dexterity is double (or more) than an opponent?s evasion

Evasion ():An avatar ignores damage if their evasion is (double or more) than an opponent?s dexterity


SKILL



Race: An avatar may only use ability cards that share their race symbol

Speed: Speed determines which ability card activates first, it is dictated by a game of Rock Paper Scissors, one of which is listed on the card.

Cooling: Cooling is the number of turns a player has to wait before using the same card again. When the "Cool Down Diamond" is in the top-right corner after a round (except the round it was played in) it is returned to the owner's hand.

Skill: The effect of the card. Skill cards can have up to three separate skills.

GAME PLAY

Each player starts the game with their Avatar face up on the table and their seven ability cards concealed from their opponent in their hand. The game is played in rounds where players perform actions simultaneously. There are three phases in a round.

COMBAT

1. Each Player selects one card from their hand and places it face-down
2. Both cards are flipped face-up
3. Speed is compared, the card who wins RPS activates first. If it is a draw, the abilities activate simultaneously*
4. The first effect of the faster card activates and resolves
5. The first effect of the slower card activates and resolves
6. The second effect (if any) of the faster card activates and resolves
7. The second effect (if any) of the slower card activates and resolves
8. The third effect (if any) of the faster card activates and resolves
9. The third effect (if any) of the slower card activates and resolves
10. Players proceed to the ?Cooling Phase?

*Rock is faster than scissors, scissors is faster than paper and paper is faster than rock.

Combat Phase Sub-Step: Damage Calculation

When an ability deals damage, it is first reduced by the defending avatar?s endurance before the result being subtracted from the defending avatar?s vitality.

If the offending avatar?s dexterity is at least double the defending avatar?s evasion, the defending avatar?s endurance is ignored.

If the defending avatar?s evasion is at least double the offending avatar?s dexterity, it ignores all damage dealt.

Melee (), Ranged () and Magical () are the three different types of damage in Chimera. Some cards may refer to specific types of damage such as ?Cancel all Melee Damage? which stops all damage dealt by Melee effects but does not stop any damage dealt by Ranged or Magical abilities

Cooling Phase

(1)    All cards with a blue star in their top right corner are added back to their respective player?s hand
(2)    Each Player rotates all cards that are still in the Cool Down zone ninety degrees clockwise
(3)    Add the card you just played this round to the Cool Down Zone (positioned upright)
(4)    Players proceed to the ?Regeneration Phase?

Regeneration Phase

(1)    The vitality of each avatar is restored by one
(2)    Players proceed to the combat phase

READING CARD SKILLS

Chimera is created with the intent of having the cards to be language-independent. What this means is that skills are represented by icons rather than text. However people still need to learn what the Icons mean.

Skills are lined up in a column of three on the left-side of a skill card. The top skill is the first skill, the bottom skill is the last. Skills either affect the Player's Avatar () or the Enemy's Avatar (). Skills fall into three seperate categories

Attack - This is represented by one of the 3 Damage Types listed earlier. If you use this skill, you deal the same number of damage to your Opponent of that type equal to the number on top of the Icon. (Example: is the number "4" on top of the "Ranged Damage" Icon which means "Deal 4 Ranged Damage").

(De)Buff - This skill affects one of the four main Avatar attributes (Vitality, Endurance, Dexterity, Evasion). Buffs to any attribute other than Vitality last until the end of the next round. If a skill is buffing (increasing) an attribute,the icon of the attribute it is buffing is colored red., If a skill is debuffing (decreasing) an attribute, the icon of the attribute it is debuffing is colored red.

(Example 1: is the number "1" on top of the "Dexterity" icon which is "Blue" and is on the "Square Back" which means "Increase Your Avatar's Dexterity by 1".)

(Example: 2 is the number "1" on top of the "Endurance" icon which is "Red" and is on the "Circle Back" which means "Decrease Enemy Avatar's Endurance by 1")

Cancel - Cancel Skills have a cancel icon () on top of the attribute it is cancelling.
     

[Dir3kt]

Hey, you have a nice little game here! Especially like the mini aspect and the fact that a deck is made of only 9 cards.

About the theme I think high fantasy/MMORPG parody with cute arts would fit very well

Here is how I would go with the refresh rate:
-No HP refresh rate
-Gain 1 AP per turn, but start with zero AP. This can makes interesting decision at the level of deckbuilding and play.

[the Voluminous Poo]

Wow this sounds really interesting. I'd probably pick up a game like that. ^_^

[3XXXDDD]

Thanks.

I was thinking about adding in a front and backrow position. In the back row position, any melee attacks done by or to the character is reduced by 1.

I should note I also started creating this game with other attributes the character has with Race (Human & Spirit) and Type, which was defined by Race & Attack Type, examples below:

Warrior - Human/Melee
Archer - Human/Ranged
Shapeshifter - Spirit/Melee
Mage - Spirit/Ranged

Due to the nature of this game, restriction is fairly necessary. Otherwise nothing much to stop players from using nothing but the best cards.

I'm thinking Ability Cards should be fixed to work like this

They have the same three attributes Race - Attack Type - Class and if the three of them match your Character's three attributes then they can be used HOWEVER not all abilities have all three types defined, say Race/Class might be just blank circles and anyone with a ranged attack type may use a "Throw Pebble" ability.

Though that might just be over-complicating it.

[Dir3kt]

Another advantage of the proposed AP system is that it prevents from playing certain cards too early. This is a nice way to balance the game.

About deck-building restriction I think the way you want to do it is correct. However I would have gone with Race and Class because for me it makes more sense, but that's just flavor The important thing is to have two traits that restricts which cards can be played.

I'm not that much for the front/back position, I would prefer to use cards like 'Magical Shield', 'Leather Jacket', 'Improved Ranged Attack' and so on to modify the attack values.

By the way, what about permanents? will they exists and how will they work? I think there should be two public zones: The Cooldown zone and the Play zone. Permanents go in the Play zone so they are kept separated from cards in cooldown. There can even be permanents with limited duration (so you just rotate them like cards on cooldown).

[3XXXDDD]

Thing with front/back row, is without it, Ranged Attacks have no real benefit.

This game does indeed require restriction, otherwise people will just use the best cards and stick with them over anything else.

Permanent could exist, for example if I created say an Elf or Gnome Race that focus on gathering plants to create bigger items via Cauldron (a Full or Semi-permanent) or  a Magic based raced that can cast Enchantments or Charms. However, as said, they'd only be for certain races.

Some Templates, Tell me what you think!

[Dir3kt]

Thing with front/back row, is without it, Ranged Attacks have no real benefit.

Make sense. But here is how I would go about implementing the whole thing. There are 3 attack types: Melee, Ranged and Magical. And there are cards like:

Step Back
Ability - no restriction, CD 2
If your character would be dealt Melee damage prevent them.

Mana Shield
Ability - Mage, CD 3, AP 2
Duration 3 (this card stays 3 turns in play and has no effect this turn)
If your Character would be dealt Magical damage prevent them and put Mana Shield in cooldown.

Enrage
Ability - Warrior, CD 3, AP 2
Duration 2
If your Character would deal Melee damage, it deals that much +1 instead.

Focus
Ability - Hunter, CD 2, AP 2
Duration  2
If your Character would deal Ranged damage it deals that much +2 instead then put Focus in cooldown.

Some Templates, Tell me what you think!

Item
They do not have trait restriction?
Idea: Why not remove Item's cooldown and say that once used they are destroyed? That would make sense. Abilities can be played many times but Items can be played only once. If you have an Healing Potion and you drink it, you cannot drink it again later. If you have a Mighty Sword and your opponent destroys it you cannot use again. Unless you find a way to repair it using another card of course

Ability
I'm worried about the 3 values in the right corner. Having 3 numbers at the same place can be very confusing no?

Avatar
Like the health/ability bar Really nice design idea.
Avatars don't have special powers? That would make deckbuilding even more interesting!

One last thing about Charge. I think it complicates a bit the gameplay but doesn't give much. It removes all bluff/reading (which is the most important aspect of the game imho) and makes planning headaches.

[3XXXDDD]

Step Back
Mana Shield
Enrage

To be fair, these cards are much too specific to actually be any way playable. Deck a Mana Shield and you could face a warrior making the card useless, if anything there would be a defensive card that blocks any one of these three for certain Races/Class.

Items

They don't and they shouldn't have a trait restriction. Items will be sparse anyway outside of Potion/Ability Potion/Status Healers. As for a one-time use, it would be interesting and give a risk to such a loose and easy resource.

Ability

This was rushed and still fairly undecided, I could put Charge into the left corner instead and the AP cost closer down to the effect text. Maybe have another Hexagon beside the Race/Attack Type.

Avatars don't have any special powers, it's hard to incorporate it with the Battle Mechanic.

Charge is basically an earlier version of your beginning with no AP suggestion, They essentially do the same thing but Charge passes a few turns in order for a big effect.

I could likely take out the Charge Idea and work with your basic AP Recovery/No Starting AP with slightly weaker effects. It would make the Ability Card design much easier to handle at least.

[Dir3kt]

Step Back
Mana Shield
Enrage

To be fair, these cards are much too specific to actually be any way playable. Deck a Mana Shield and you could face a warrior making the card useless, if anything there would be a defensive card that blocks any one of these three for certain Races/Class.

I disagree, most likely because my vision of the game is slightly different than yours  Here is my point of view: The fact that, for example, Mana Shield is useless against warrior makes the game more interesting. At least from the metagame point of view because it pushes players to make decision while building their decks. Do I pack Mana Shield to have better matchup against magical dealing decks? Will there be so many Warrior that I should not pack it? It also favor having decks with more than one attack type which is good for diversity. On a last note if you have useless cards in a matchup, you can still use them to bluff

Have you read about the concept of Yomi? If not you should really check Sirlin.net because your game seems to revolve a lot around it. My point in the previous paragraph is a bit about that, having different answers to different threats open the door for mind games between players. A catch-all defense cards simplify this to 'will he attack or not?'. Not saying this is good or bad, far from that. I'm pretty sure you already have plenty of other ideas about how to diversify the threats and answers in your game. It is just not visible yet because you didn't posted them. Or maybe you are simply not looking for such feature.

[3XXXDDD]

This forum is terrible, never shows me new replies.

Anyway, I understand that the Catch-All defence would be a bit too much but the point I'm making is I rather the cards be effective in a generic way but certain types have better strengths in some areas (Warriors are heavy on physical combat, say expending HP to power up whereas Archers are much more strategical using Poison or Flame-tip arrows to slowly seep away at your opponent.) Essentially due to that, Archers have an edge over Warriors but lack their brute strength.

If I were to include this game to have a match as the best of 3 and add in something like a sideboard, then the cards you suggested would be great additions. However as is now, due to the games expansion-able quality, those sort of very specific cards will get left behind in the dust. Although only a few cards have been created so time will tell.

Damn, now that I've typed all that, I think I see what you mean, a Player could play all three of those cards making it a heavily-defence focus deck by ultimately negating two (or more) of it's options every match add that in with two item cards and now you only have 4 spaces left for item/ability. I think I've seen what you mean.

Also I am familler with Sirlin's Yomi (Rock-Paper-Scissors) styled card game, While I can see the similarity between the games, I'm not aiming to make this just a simple game of Rock-Paper-Scissors represented by cards with some extra effects, I want it to be a bit more than that, Attack Types/Races and Classes will evolve as this game grows like a Psychic or maybe more Elemental based attack types. The Melee/Ranged/Magical is all just for the beginning of this game.

You've also made me really unsure about the Item Cards now too, being discarded does tend to balance them considering their resourceless cards unlike Abilities which require AP and therefore are allowed to cool down.

Also here is a Character Template done by Professional (I still need to get the unmarked version from him)

[Dir3kt]

a Player could play all three of those cards making it a heavily-defence focus deck by ultimately negating two (or more) of it's options every match add that in with two item cards and now you only have 4 spaces left for item/ability.

Yes! I think this is what I meant too Sometime it is hard to communicate idea about a game that doesn't exists yet. But at the end this all boil down to the fact that cards must have an advantage/disadvantage (a bit similar to the concept of risk/reward). Now thinking back about this proper balancing makes any kind of defense interesting.

1) cheap efficient magic protection
(+) best way to prevent magical damage (gain tempo)
(-) dead card in some matchup (loose a slot)

2) expensive catch-all protection
(+) ineffective way to prevent damage (loose tempo)
(-) useful in all matchup (gain a slot)

About the Yomi stuff I was not speaking about the game but about the theory (I think he explains it in his 'Playing to Win' book). It is much deeper that RPS even if this game is used to demonstrate the theory.

Nice to see a card template! But what about having a visual design that mimic an MMORPG user interface? This would be visually appealing and emphasize the theme so much.

[3XXXDDD]

Beginning to think 9 cards might be a bit too much. 5/6 might give it a bit more restriction while not creating a completely liner game.

[3XXXDDD]

a Player could play all three of those cards making it a heavily-defence focus deck by ultimately negating two (or more) of it's options every match add that in with two item cards and now you only have 4 spaces left for item/ability.

Yes! I think this is what I meant too Sometime it is hard to communicate idea about a game that doesn't exists yet. But at the end this all boil down to the fact that cards must have an advantage/disadvantage (a bit similar to the concept of risk/reward). Now thinking back about this proper balancing makes any kind of defense interesting.

1) cheap efficient magic protection
(+) best way to prevent magical damage (gain tempo)
(-) dead card in some matchup (loose a slot)

2) expensive catch-all protection
(+) ineffective way to prevent damage (loose tempo)
(-) useful in all matchup (gain a slot)

About the Yomi stuff I was not speaking about the game but about the theory (I think he explains it in his 'Playing to Win' book). It is much deeper that RPS even if this game is used to demonstrate the theory.

Nice to see a card template! But what about having a visual design that mimic an MMORPG user interface? This would be visually appealing and emphasize the theme so much.

I think a better example (than my earlier one) to go in align with the above theory would be

Glass Shield/Item
No Damage is dealt.

(+) Deals with all damage.
(-) Discarded after use.

Pressured Arrow/Ability
No Melee damage is dealt

(+) Stops Melee Damage/Re-usable
(-) Costs AP. Dead in some match ups.

[Typherion]

Hello, just wanted to offer my thoughts on this game you're making.

Thinking the RPS style should go as

Ranged defeats Melee (Ranged can hit before Melee gets close enough to strike)
Melee defeats Magic (Magic requires charge, Melee can strike fast and disrupt it)
Magic defeats Ranged (Magic can charge enough during the time Range is shot, is inherently more powerful and has a much longer range)

I'm not sure about the whole rock/scissors/paper relationship you are trying to construct between melee/ranged/magic. It seems to me like you are trying to force it just because. How can magic be faster than ranged, ranged be faster than melee, and yet melee be faster than magic? This doesn't make logical sense to me.

Because a R/P/S system makes some move types better or weaker than others, you force each character to have a mix of attack types or else suffer a potentially huge disadvantage. This seems to go against the flavour of MMO characters, who are usually highly specialised at either melee, ranged, or magical damage.

Maybe you would be better off discarding the R/P/S system and just give each move its own speed rating?

Then you could make moves balanced around damage, cooldown and speed. So you might have a strong fast attack with a long cooldown, or maybe a medium slow attack on a short cooldown.

COOLING

Every Ability has a minium Cooling of 2 and a max of 4. When a Card is cooling, it is turned 90 degrees to the right. After a Card has turned 90 degrees right a number of times equal to the number denoted on the Ability card it is returned to the owner's hand.

This next feedback might be pretty late and I might be misunderstanding your system but I'll give it a try.

The cooldown mechanic seems cool. However, because turning the card limits you to cooldowns between 2 and 4 turns I guess you could just use dice as counters if you wanted a greater range.

Or you could have all cooldowns tick at the end of the turn and only refresh and become usable if they don't need to tick anymore.

Edit: I think this might work best if you shift the Cooling Phase to the end of the turn. So you play an ability, then you turn it at the end of the turn. Next turn it stays on cooldown until you get to the Cooling Phase, when it refreshes at the end of the turn, so you can use it the following turn.

So for an ability with a cooldown of 1

Turn 1: you use that ability this turn in the Combat Phase, then in the Cooling Phase you first
(a) refresh all cards that have already been turned enough times and add them to your hand, then
(b) turn all cards that are still in the cooldown zone 90 degrees to the right.

Turn 2: in the Combat Phase you still can't use the ability because its on cooldown so you have to use a different move, then in the Cooling Phase you check step (a) and see the ability has been turned equal to its cooldown, so it is refreshed and you add it to your hand. Then in step (b) you turn all remaining cards in your cooldown zone.

Turn 3: you are once again able to use the ability you used in Turn 1.

This means an ability with a cooldown of X can't be used for X turns, which seems easier to understand and I think it stretches the card turning mechanic to include cooldowns of 0-4 instead of just 2-4. Sorry if this is already how the mechanic works and I just misunderstood.

[3XXXDDD]

Because a R/P/S system makes some move types better or weaker than others, you force each character to have a mix of attack types or else suffer a potentially huge disadvantage. This seems to go against the flavour of MMO characters, who are usually highly specialised at either melee, ranged, or magical damage.

This is most likely true and I'd probably be better off with discarding the entire RPS idea. At least, in such a direct manner. It also gives a bigger meaning to the tie-breaker and Anti-Enemy cards above.

As for the Cool-Down, Although I'm not exactly sure what I read, I can understand the point about forming it in such a way so cool-down can work from 0-4 meaning what they mean (whereas 1 in my current system would actually be 0 in your system).