Yet another SciFi CCG idea

[Cyrus]

I'm actually getting more and more into this game. Hopefully you can work quickly to get a beta ready for playtesting.

I'm not free all the time, do have a real life too lol, but if you need specific help with rules or card ideas I'm down to help out as much as I can.

[Malagar]

@Cyrus Thank you for the positive feedback!

I spent lunchtime working on a few things for this game. First of all Legend_Zero invited me to get my project somewhat "hosted" on their site - thanks for that. But right now the game is in so early stages that I would prefer to wait a bit longer.

Before I post the new things, there are a few tasks I have to give away - if anyone is interested in participating in this project:

1. A lackey plugin has to be created and filled with all the basic information, i need some sort of empty set framework to integrate the cards into. a nice playmat is also necessary.

2. If someone is really good at slicing sprites and pixel artwork and would like to build the images for the first 100 cards of the premier set - i could need help on this subject. I can provide a massive amount of graphics.

3. I would like to setup a account on www.cardgameforge.com to keep all rules, cards, files and discussion stuff of the game in one single place. this is much easier than creating a website for the game. also multiply editors can work on the different rules/card-text/balancing using www.cardgameforge.com - its in my oppinion the best tool out there to manage a large amount of CCG related data online.

4. this pet project still has no name - ideas anyone?

NUMBERS

The alpha premier set will contain only Neutral cards wich are CorpoNation unrelated. This set will be released only to a small group of alpha testers. I want to get everything waterproof and tested until moving to the beta premier set (350+ cards). once the alpha set is ready, i could also need help in designing the CorpoNations and their cards.

Right now the set contains:

25 Neutral Structures
15 Neutral Sectors
30 Neutral Tactics
30 Neutral Units

THE COMBAT SYSTEM

All the units located at one sector form a group called a squad. You can attack once with every one of your squads. Only the ready (untapped) units within your squads can participate in the attack. attacks are processed one after another, sector by sector.

unlike magic the gathering, where creatures only have 2 attributes - this game features 4 attributes: SPEED, POWER, ARMOR and INTEGRITY.

squads can only attack enemies located at the same sector. in order to attack enemies in other sectors, you have to move your squad or single units (more on moving later on). attacking always targets the opponents squad, structures can never be attacked directly.

All cards have a SPEED attribute, both players sum the speed attribute of their units and the player with the higher speed total may assign attackers and blockers. every attacker has to be blocked by one or more defender.

now all attackers and defenders deal their POWER attribute in damage to each other. It is important to know that the unit with higher SPEED strikes first, units with same SPEED attributes strike simultanously.

the damage is first soaked up by the ARMOR attribute of a unit, any excess damage causes INTEGRITY damage on that unit. For every point of INTEGRITY a unit
lost, place one counter on the card.

after combat, the ARMOR attribute of all units returns back to its printed value. But any INTEGRITY damage is permanent and must be marked using counters.

STRUCTURE DAMAGE

If there are more attackers than blockers, the excess attackers may be assigned to attack any structures in the same sector.

CORPO NATION DAMAGE

if there are more attackers than blockers and there are no structures in the sector left, the excess attackers may deal damage directly to the corpo nation.
the attacking player can decide how to distribute the unblocked POWER:

A. each point of unblocked power removes one card from the enemies graveyard from the game.
B. two points of unblocked power put the top card from the enemies deck into his discard pile
C. three points of unblocked power move the top card from the enemies landing-pod into his discard pile
D. four points of unblocked power force the enemy to discard one card from his hand into his discard pile

Badly written I know - but it should be enough for today. This game is going to be brutally complex...

[Tokimo]

Name Suggestion: Colony.

Suggestion: If you overkill units in a sector, it's probably sufficient to have your reward be a tactically weakened opponent.

Offers: I'm interested in alpha testing. I might be able to set up an initial plug in for you, but someone else might be able to get it done faster. (It's actually not very hard to write plugins, read the tutorial on the main site if you're curious).

[xchokeholdx]

Hmmm.. I see a big balance problem here:

Player A plays cards to that it becomes dark and wind level becoms 0.

Player B only has a solar plant and a wind turbine in play.
Player A laughs, because he only has nuclear power plants, who do not need sun nor wind.

Player A not only shuts down player B with no resources, he also is the only player getting resources, thus allowing him to keep it that way (e.g. playing better and powerful cards than player B).

Player B looks at his hand, and cries because his "meldown" card that shuts down nuclear powerplants cost 2MJ, which he will never get...

Resources should not come from a single source that both players can influence, unless both players will get the same (Lord of the rings tcg)

[Malagar]

@xchokeholdx Thanks for pointing this one out. As said before this game is still in the "baby shoes" phase. I am already thinking about switching to a fixed day/night cycle.

So, all in all I got the combat rules fleshed out and working. thats pretty easy and i could leave the game how it its. but the real spice comes from the powerplant structures, the structures in general and the sector cards.

exactly those cards make up the economical system of the game - and it completely freaks me out. I just want this "outpost building" aspect in the game or it would be just another wargame. the metajoule generation and unit production buildings give it some aspects you find in realtime strategy games like command and conquer or warcraft. but translating this into CCG rules creates so many loopholes and balancing issues, that it makes balancing really hard.

so - I'll stop whining and say: Back to the drawing board! *sigh*

[Tokimo]

I also support a fixed day night cycle. Day, Day, Night, Night, Day, Day, etc is my preference. Giving one player graveyard shift when you've got two solar decks would be harsh.

If you're trying to get an RTS feel you might try population caps that can only be raised by supply depots as well. On the other hand, then you'll have energy, population, and good cards to all worry about drawing.

[Malagar]

@Tokimo (and the others)

Well the base thought was this: In magic the gathering you have 5 different kinds of mana - but you dont need cards to bring other cards in play.

I wanted to turn it around: there is only 1 type of mana (metajoules) - but you need cards to bring other cards in play.

Those card requirements could be: You need BARRACKS to play any kind of INFANTRY cards. instead of islands or forests there would be BARRACKS, VEHICLE FACTORIES and AIRPORTS for example.

[Cyrus]

I dunno about that last idea unless you want to make deck searching a huuuuge part of the game. I tried to design out an RTS feeling CCG and it came down to basically having to have every different card type have its own mini-deck along with your Main deck that would mostly be events, otherwise it seems like the right card combos would never come together.

Trying to add complexity (while shunned as being the evil to end all evils by a few members of this forum) is not always a bad thing though, you just have to make sure it isn't complexity for complexity's sake, you know? Especially since, like me, you are pretty much only making this game for online play over Lackey, or maybe its own program sometime down the road (for me at least I've always thought that would be cool). Targeting more specialized audiences is something you can most definitely afford when making online-only games because, well, you don't really need to spend any money to make it (just time, which yes does sort of equal money, but we won't go into that ), and you can assume anyone that finds your game will probably already be a ccg player, or at very least you'll probably have a forum set up with some dudes willing to teach the game to new players.

Me and Wisp (another member of this forum and super cool dude) are always bouncing ideas off of each other for making war-games, maybe we should all meet up in a chat sometime and have a brainstorming session with the possibility to work together to make the greatest war-game of all time? Sounds like fun to me, lol. I'm pretty sure http://thinkature.com/ has private rooms and its like a visual brainstorming thing, might be fun to try out regardless.

Anyways keep up the good work, you've inspired me to get off of my ass and finish my war based ccg also, lol

[Malagar]

Hey,
Its taking shape! A friend of mine suggested to release the core rules of the game under a different name. i think that idea is good, as it would be possible to create games with different background worlds based on the same rules (but, this is just a thought).

all in all its like i am releasing the "generic rulebook" first, before the actual game will be released. this should give interested players already some insights in how the game is supposed to work.

read more about it here:

http://www.cardgameforge.com/games/siegeengine

stay tuned, more to come

* General Information is online: http://www.cardgameforge.com/game.php?id=153&mode=rules&rid=323
* Card Anatomy: http://www.cardgameforge.com/game.php?id=153&mode=rules&rid=324
* Final Playmat Layout: http://www.cardgameforge.com/game.php?id=153&mode=rules&rid=325

[Tokimo]

Name spam: Raising the flag, Flag, Flagpost, Outpost, Greed, Drop pod, Landing Zone, Beacon, Gold Rush, Planet Rush, Star Rush, Expansion, Corporate Acquisition, Conquest.

[Malagar]

Hey guys, I am still alive - and there are quite a few updates, most of them are secret - but I have some news to share:



* First of all, our baby has a name, simple: STARSIEGE
* Second, the template changed quite a bit, just see for yourselves and checkout my art thread. Im moving away from the pixelated artwork, just when its about the artwork of a card. I got my hands on a source of high-quality pictures and maybe I will be able to maintain a mix of both pixelated and artistic artwork. time will tell (as i wrote in my other thread its really difficult for a single hobby developer to get nice pictures)

There are many changes under the hood and on the rules system too: friends over here talked into me for hours, being not too excited about the pixel art and the planet conquest gameplay style. in addition to that it has turned out that developing a background world for this game is just too much of work for a single person.

but, things are progessing - except more news over the next few weeks. we found a solution, a nice set of graphics and a very exciting background world to base the game on. building upon already excisting background makes it much easier for me to concentrate on the cards and rules.

looks like i am changing my mind all the time: but every game developer knows how difficult it is to "walk the line" once you start transferring your "in-brain" ideas into something realistic.

it might change its face a bit - but its there, and its working

...and epic...

[Tokimo]

I like the name.

I liked the planet acquisition story line, not sure what I'll think about the new one.

Not sure what I'll think about basing it off of whichever universe you've chosen. Can you tell us which universe you've picked?

[xchokeholdx]

I like the card layout and the template so far. Can't wait to see more and some rules too!

remember, KISS rules!

[Malagar]

Soon my friends, soon! Give an old man a bit more time :-)

I realize the card release frenzy of hawkeye and xchokeholdx on cardgameforge.com - sooner or later, i join the party - promised!

[Tokimo]

I'm going to be spamming some artless cards soon too (probably use free clipart to start x_x). Yay! Card party!