New to CCG creation (and forum) with Shah Mat: The CCG

[SuperTrain]

Hi, I'm a somewhat longtime player of Yu-Gi-Oh and have been trying to get into other CCGs like Magic and the rather short-lived Epic Battles. Obviously I'm here because I wanted to try my hand at making a card game on my own. I'm calling this game Shah Mat, based on the term Anglicized(?) into Checkmate (ze king, he iz ded), due to the ranking system of my character cards (Pawn through King).

I've been having some trouble trying to set up gameplay mainly because I'm trying not to make a YGO/MTG clone. Some of the areas where I'm running into problems are:

- Resources. I'm not sure how to represent resource management. I've been going with the idea of having cash cards, the normal ones of which each represent a single credit toward performing some action (denoted as Action Cards) or summoning a character card (denoted as Mercenary Cards). Given that my system for Mercenary Cards involves 6 territories, I figured I'd have 6 different types of Cash Cards which are used for their respective Action Cards and Mercenaries. However, from what I've read this is very similar to MTG's mana system. I was thinking that perhaps instead I could balance it between payment in the form of Cash Cards and sacrificing Mercenaries, but sacrifice is the general form of payment for Summons in YGO. Speaking of which...

- Summons. I've been finding it difficult to balance this. My game has 2 different types of Summons: Natural and Improper. A Natural Summon is paid for with Cash Cards according to the Summoned Mercenary's rank; this can be done once in a turn. An Improper Summon is done as the resolution of some Action or the ability of a Mercenary, and I haven't quite decided if I want this to be twice per turn or as many times as one can pay for. I have decided, however, that Improper Summons should make the Summoned Mercenary unable to use its ability or attack until the controller's next turn.

- Classes. Thus far, I've got 24 different classes of Mercenary cards: Alien, Beast, Bird, Chimera, Dragon, Elf, Energy, Fish, Flora, Golem, Gremlin, Hero, Invertebrate, Marine, Mineral, Monk, Mutant, Ogre, Ooze, Robot, Saurian, Scientist, Trickster, and Virus. I only wanted 24 classes (it's divisible by 6, which is emosewa) but some of those seem too specific while some seem impossibly broad. Yes, it's funny to be saying this and coming from a game where they have Beast-Warrior as a specific type, but hey, there are only so many Ooze-Class creatures one can make.

- Resolving battles. I've got a system where you have a three-tier lineup: the Attack Line, the Defense Line, and the controller's health. Each Mercenary has 3 stats relating to strength: the Threat Level (how much he can dish out), the Block Level (how much he can take) and the Guard Level (how much he can help a friend in need). These terms, like the name and the ranking system, are taken from chess. So far, I've decided that:

Attack Line A vs. Defense Line B:
-A's Threat Level (AT) compared against B's Block Level (BB)
-If AT>BB, B dies, B's controller loses nothing
-If AT=BB, nothing happens
-If AT<BB, A's controller loses the difference

Attack Line A vs. Attack Line B:
-B's controller can choose a Defense linesman C to aid B
-A's Threat Level (AT) compared against B's Block Level (BB) + C's Guard Level (CG)
-If AT>BB+CG, B and C die, B's controller loses the difference
-If AT=BB+CG, A, B and C all die
-If AT<BB+CG, A dies, A's controller loses the difference

This battle system is kinda similar to YGO though.

- Drawing cards. The basic draw phase happens at the beginning of each turn, and I'd been toying with the idea of having each player draw 2 cards instead of 1, then add 1 to the hand and place the other on the bottom of the deck. Too gimmicky, or fun and interesting?

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd like to get the mechanics down before I start designing cards, even though I have a card back already designed in my mind based on the alignment system I have for the Mercenary cards. Thanks a lot in advance.

[Tokimo]

Random Mumblings:

Resources: There are lots of resource systems. Prominent features include:
-attaching energy cards to characters/zones/items vs playing them to a global area
-having specific kinds of energy vs having generic energy (this might include something like a Starcraft CCG where each player is expected to pay for a unit in terms of minerals and gas and still have enough of population to support the new unit)
-using cards to generate energy vs using game state (turns, victory points, hand size) to generate energy
-reusable energy vs consumable energy

Possible Inspiration: If you want to make a creature battle based CCG you might enjoy something where the energy comes in the form of worker units who are free or low cost to play and then can be used to generate more energy. Summon Lumberjack. Summon Miner. Summon Farmer. Now you can work each of these guys and spend a unit of food, wood, and steel to get a knight into play. Additionally you might even have things like "Summon Lumberjack - Level 1 Worker - Work: Add 1 Lumber to your resources" and "Lumberjack Crew - - 1 Food to Summon - Level 3 Worker - Work: Add 5 Lumber to your resources"

Classes: 24 is a weird number. IMO you should limit it to 8 (maybe 10) or less or you should have as many as you feel like. If you have 24, why not add 3 more later? What if you decide to add Fungus, Dinosaur, and Ninja?

[SuperTrain]

First off, thanks a lot, Tokimo. I've been thinking a bit since posting, and here's what I've come up with.

The phases of a turn should include Draw (with the dual-draw and choice system I was talking about), Position, Sortie, Battle, Regroup and End.

The "low-cost units," in my terminology, would be Pawn-Ranked, of whatever Class, and you could summon 2 during a turn as the Natural Summon for that turn (based on the chess idea of a pawn being able to go forward 2 spaces during its first move). They would have incredibly low stats but could gain more Cash Cards to be used later on.

In addition to the Attack Line and the Defense Line, I've decided that the controller's area should include a Strategy section. In this section you could place your Cash Cards and Action Cards face-down during the Position phase. An idea that actually just came to me while writing this is that you could also place Mercenary cards here as a bluff, so your opponent might think you have some awesome Action Card or more Cash Cards and play accordingly. When you want to perform an Action or a Summon, you'd simply flip the Cash Cards face-up and then play the Mercenary Card or flip up an Action card as well.

I do like the idea of more than one type of energy (cash vs. food). If I have generic, consumable energy (Food Cards) I'd like it to be easier to search out than specific but reusable energy (Cash Cards) so maybe I could have some Pawn-Rank effects search out food from a controller's deck. Food would also be played in the Strategy area. Also, during the Position phase, you'd flip the "reusable energy" (Cash Cards) face down again.

In the Sortie Phase one can perform their Natural Summon for the turn as well as any Actions that involve Mercenaries on the field. Mercenaries that had been Naturally summoned this turn could apply their ability, as could any Mercenaries from the previous turns. I've decided that there should be upgrade cards called Relic Cards that you could play in this phase too. They can either be attached to a Mercenary (placed sideways underneath the Mercenary card) or placed as a pseudo-Mercenary in the Attack Line (but in order for them to attack on their own the controller must have at least 1 other attacking Mercenary). They'd need their own Threat/Block/Guard stats when unattached and then TBG increases or decreases that they'd grant a Mercenary when upgrading the targeted Mercenary.

It's occurring to me as I'm writing this that maybe Cash isn't the best way to represent a reusable resource. As I said, I think the generic energy should be one-time, while the reusable energy should be specific. I was thinking that different forms of currency would work (Soil credits vs. Sky credits vs. Sea credits) but that's not really reusable from a real-world standpoint. Maybe something like influence? Like, a card grants you one unit of good will from the Soil population. Unfortunately, that's not very easy to represent, because what would two or three units of influence look like?

I'm okay with the Battle system I was talking about before, and I've decided that a Mercenary should be able to Block multiple times in a battle but only Threaten or Guard once. So, obviously, a Mercenary can be the target of multiple attacks but it can't attack multiple times (unless noted) or guard a bunch of attackers (unless noted).

After the Battle Phase would be the Regroup phase, where Mercenaries that did not Threaten or Guard during the Battle Phase could be moved to the other line and any face-down cards in the Strategy area could be returned to the hand. I'm not sure if I'd have any other actions occur in this phase.

Then comes the End Phase, where control is passed to the next player.

Also, Saurian should cover Dinosaur. However, Fungus and Ninja are now in. I wanted 24 because it's divisible by 6 and a die has 6 sides, and I was thinking of introducing dice into the equation, but it's irrelevant, I guess.

[SuperTrain]

And now, shamelessly replying to my own post:

- The Cash Cards are now Energy Cores, each representing a single unit of reusable energy that takes a turn to recharge, and the Food Cards are now Provision Packs, each representing a meal with which you can bring a Mercenary to the battlefield. I'm thinking that maybe there should also be a non-specific Energy Core, like a Wild Card, which represents 2 units of generic energy but takes 2 turns to recharge, so it remains face-up during 1 Position Phase rather than flipping it face down the turn after using it.

- Summons will be done with 1 Natural Summon per turn and as many Improper Summons as one can pay for during a turn. Improperly Summoned Mercenaries cannot activate their abilities or participate in battle until after the End Phase. Also, Summoning 2 Pawn-ranked Mercenaries according to their costs counts as 1 Natural Summon (again with the chess theme). Since they're the weakest, I wanted to have some way to give them a slight boost with the ability to swarm.

Feedback?

[SuperTrain]

Here's a test version of the card back: