Zombie Survival CCG idea

[Trevor]

Fleeing mechanic...

I want the zombies to be able to build up faster than the survivors in power. But I want to give the survivors a mechanic to deal with that. At the end of the survivor's turn, they can choose to stay or flee.
If they flee they do 3 things:
1. They need to discard all cards with the stationary passive keyword (such as fortifications).
2. Flip a coin, and if the zombie player wins the flip, the Zombie player chooses one of his zombies and one of the survivors and there is an additional combat phase.
3. All zombies are turned facedown and turned back into resources. They will need to be paid for again to be used.

There will be other cards that affect this fleeing mechanic, like a card named "Hobbled" might give a survivor the stationary keyword. Or some zombies might have an ability to make them avoid being fled from, ie, they wouldn't get turned face down.

So the core gameplay mechanic is that the survivor player needs to choose when to flee, but it should only pay off to do this every 4 turns or so, depending on the zombie and survivor player's deck strategy.

[Trevor]

Zombie faction descriptions:

Rage:
These zombies are filled with rage and ferocious energy. As soon as they see survivors, they will run towards them with horrifying speed, and they will pursue them with recklessness and savage intensity.
Gameplay mechanics include being able to attack immediately, surprise attacks, self destruction for temporary or instant effects.

Horde:
The true power of these zombies comes in their numbers. Horde zombies swarm and overwhelm survivors. They may not be the fastest zombies, but what's the point of running away from them, only to find out you are running toward more of them and you've been surrounded?
Gameplay mechanics include abilities to play a lot of zombies, zombies are more powerful when you have a lot of them, ways to draw lots of cards, and return discarded zombies back into play.

Contagion:
All zombies are able to infect a survivor and thus turn them into a zombie, but Contagion zombies are blood-spitting, ichor-spewing, infection machines. Instead of killing survivors, why not just "recruit" them to fight for your side? There is no greater horror than to have a survivor have to face what used to be a family member or friend.
Gameplay mechanics include turning survivors into zombies, special abilities to use on ex-survivors who are now zombies, and damage over time effects.

Sentient:
Not all zombies are completely unthinking forces of nature. Some posses a minimal level of sentience. Instead of trying to bash through a door with bare fists, these zombies might try turning the doorknob. This group includes zombies that have been altered by science, and non-human zombie creations (such as zombie dogs).
Gameplay mechanics include being able to use some (crude) items, being able to able to counter survivor strategies, and a lot of other weird science related effects.


There are 4 basic classes of zombies. A deck will usually use 1 or 2 kinds of zombies.

[topdeck]

Just a few questions/comments:

1. I would assume it's a 1 resource per turn mechanic, at first I thought that you could destroy your opponent's resources by killing the zombies, but apparently that just spends them.  Since a defeated zombie is just spent, it's a renewable threat/source of damage.  Can I assume that a resource that is spent to purchase something is unable to attack that turn?

2. Make sure that your design works, and that you want it to work, when over-spewing a single concept like:

-What happens if someone ignores actions/equipment/barricades and just has a deck full of zombies?

-What about a deck full of actions (which are all free) and just plays a face-down zombie each turn, attacking with all of them and using actions to support? (this seems the most effective that I can see so far, constant, immediate pressure and ignoring the fleeing mechanic that I can tell.)

3. The flee mechanic seems either terrible or too good, leaning towards too good.  I imagine a player spending their resources for a turn to bring out a very powerful zombie, the opponent then flees and suffers a 50/50 chance of getting impacted by that card, but otherwise time-walking their opponent.

4. Can I assume you're thinking of a "summoning sickness" on zombies?

5. What happens to face-up zombies that are destroyed?

[Trevor]

topdeck, all your concerns are valid. I haven't finalized how things will work. I know what kind of gameplay I want to exist, and the trick now is to implement a simple and elegant set of rules to obtain that gameplay.

There are intrinsic problems in making a deck is essentially 2 decks in one, ie, a survivor deck and a zombie deck. One such problem is the risk of not being able to draw the kinds of cards you need to have a cohesive deck theme. I need to think of a good way of doing that.

One example would be action cards that act like split cards in magic, where one half helped your zombies and another half helped your survivors.
Another mechanic that I think that is needed is some kind of accelerated card drawing. For example, I might have it so you draw 2 or 3 cards each turn and then you discard some of them. That will help you draw the kind of cards you'd prefer to play at that time, but still have things interconnected in the same deck.

I intended for Action cards to be paid for like other cards. The difference between an action and another kind of card is actions are one-shot effects.

I think there will be a summoning sickness like effect. It can be a little imbalanced and swingy if people don't have a little time to plan for a battle.

I don't know how to balance the flee mechanic yet, but I want it to be costly, but eventually worth it.

[lalbadeimorti]

http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/Zomb.html

These are rules to a card game I found on the internet (unfortunantly, you have to make the cards yourselves). This game (Zombified) sounds very similar to your CCG idea, in the sense that one plays as both the Survivors and Zombies.

I would love to help with this game, as I am a huge fan of Zombie films (My username is Italian for "Dawn of the Dead). I tried to make a Zombie CCG once, but it came out too complicated. Your ideas are really great; I hope I get to see the final project!

[Trevor]

I'll check that out. I kind of figured that there were several zombie themed CCGs already. I'll take a look and see what other ideas are out there, and I will take what works and leave what doesn't.

I haven't studied any zombie ccgs yet, so I wonder how much my game has in common with them.

After looking at Zombified, I don't think I like any of their ideas, where they differed from mine. Having a communal deck, randomly being assigned a survivor, allowing only a single item equipped, and having tons of dice rolling all seems like really bad ideas to me.

[lalbadeimorti]

I tried to play "Zombified", but it was very random (especially because of the dice). I was thinking that you could use some form of the Fleeing mechanic that they had, since it was about the only thing that played well in the game. (However, there still is the problem with the overuse of dice).

Chaos Isle was another zombie Card Game, but I don't think I've ever seen an official zombie CCG.

[Trevor]

Here is an idea of the zombie layout.

This is just a mockup and all the textures, symbols, and aesthetics are not done, but you can see the general layout.
The symbol on the very top left is the card type, zombie in this case. Then there is the card name. Below that on the left is the cost of the card.
Below the cost is the attack power and stamina stats. I'm actually gonna add a small icon for each.

The line where it says zombie is the card type line. Above the card type line is the card text. Below the card type line is the symbols for core abilities. A core ability would be something like Flying or First Strike in magic. One cool thing about my design is that if there is no special text, the card text field can be omitted. If a card has core abilities, you can still see it has them by the symbol. In this example, I put reminder text for those symbols, but that reminder text could be omitted. Most cards will not need card text fields, so the art will look cooler. In my game, these core abilities will be things like "Infectious", "Fast", "Stationary" and things like that. All of them will have rules associated with them, but there will be very few different kinds of core abilities so players are not overwhelmed. Any item with the stationary symbol is discarded when the survivors flee.

Here is what a card might look like with no special game text.

In magic, the designers refer to cards with no game text as "vanilla" cards. Cards with only a basic ability, like flying, and no other game text are referred to as "french vanilla". With my design, all vanilla and french vanilla cards can be done with their text boxes omitted.

[Trevor]

I like the font size. Even scaled down to 200 pixels wide, everthing is still readable.

[Picks-at-Flies]

Can I make a suggestion about generic zombies?  Why not let the zombie player have the option of paying [1] to put the top card of the deck as a zombie (or maybe not even pay - say a fixed 4 per turn)?  That way you are not limited to your resources.  Zombies (generic or otherwise) should also return to the bottom of the deck when they are 'killed'.

Equipment:  if equipment has a cost, you can always give special zombies the ability to use weapons with cost X or less, typically 1.  This, after all, reflects of the difficulty of picking up such an item.

Resources:  There should be a cap.  But I also think the most powerful cards should require you to burn or bounce a resource (to keep you in check).  Alternatively, which might be an answer to the all-zombie deck, the powerful zombies have to be played from the Resource pile, thus depleting the pile.

Finally states:  I think the idea of a state deck would be fun, maybe 15 each.  So players can chose to run to the sports shop, without waiting for it to be in their hand.  But the main reason is that it gives your opponent the opportunity to scare you into a state of their choosing.  That could also be achieved by zombie-faction state cards, but I do like the idea of flicking through your state deck and saying, "You should go THERE".


The only thing I dislike so far is the idea that the two games are completely separate.  I would like there to be effects that affect all zombies or all survivors, and indeed you need ways for the decks to interact.  Another reason for a state pile is that you can have survivor faction cards that can hurt the opponents team if they are in the same Location state.  Kneecap your friends so you can survive!

[Apathetic]

I think that changing the idea of the fleeing mechanic from costly to ideal could work out with stationary items.  There can be lots of items besides barricades that can be stationary.  Weapons like "tank with no gas", "chain gun" anything you can't carry.  Healing items like "running water: restore x health at end of turn." The survivor area could have 3 sections, 2 active locations would be allowed and splitting up the survivors would be allowed.  Some survivors are meant to die, and allowing them to die at a weak location to gain some kind of benefit could be a theme.  Survivors could flee to the other active location or a new one, losing the stationary items that have been built up.  When you flee to a totally new location as opposed to the other active location, the location gets put into a the 3rd area of the survivors (really a holding pile) along with any stationary items built on it.  Survivors from either active area can then next time flee to that held location and the location they just left would enter the 3rd area.  If next time survivors flee to another completely new location, the one in holding is discarded and replaced with the location that was just left.  This keeps the focus on bunkering down and running for survivors.  Zombie abilities could set conditions on where survivors could flee to.  "If X horde zombies are in play survivors cannot flee to last location."  "Fast zombies are considered in play in both active locations but can only attack in one."  Lots of strategies could revolve around the locations and running back and forth between them.  Zombies strategies would be more than attack, they would be to control movement between locations.  Survivor abilities could affect stationary items like "mechanic: can move one stationary item from one active location to the other." "strongman: can bring 1 stationary item from his location to the location he flees to." An all zombie deck would really have a hard time defending survivors.

Resourcing would work along with you building up zombies quickly.  All cards on the back would be a 1/1 zombie.  Each turn after drawing a card you would put cards face down into play as a zombie until your hand is again 5 cards.  If you have any cards in your hand that you meet the requirements to play you can do that now.  Then if there is a face down zombie card that you meet requirements to play you can turn over one per turn.  Any killed Zombies just return to your hand.  Any zombies "left behind" by fleeing are returned to your hand.  The zombie horde constantly builds increasing pressure, there is strategy in which cards you will keep in your hand, and there is never really a shortage in resources as the number of zombies in play and face up "played" zombies can be your zombie resource and actual cards played on your survivors and locations are your survivor resource.  You should be able to execute the ideas of your deck because your cards are continuously returning to hand to be chosen.   At this point maybe letting a survivor die to prevent your opponent from getting cards back into his hand also becomes a strategic choice.  Playing a card or leaving it as a zombie would really affect your play style and could be very fluid depending on what your opponent's strategy seems to be.  Do you go for powered zombies, heavy defense, allow your swarm to build, try and set up a combo?  I would guess powered zombies could require some kind of actual discard of cards, or could impose resource use limits so there would be an actual reason not to leave it as a regular zombie.  Or maybe the only way to play a powered zombie is to turn it face up, allowing for only 1 powered zombie per turn and making the decision to fight it or flee and important one.

There could be 2 combat phases with the zombie attack and then the survivors must attack or flee.  If all zombies are eliminated then the survivors may still flee, split up into any combination that results in only 2 active locations. Special abilities, items, or actions may alter when a survivor or his group at a location can flee. Ranged combat phase would be eliminated in favor of range being a combat ability, maybe like 1st strike or double damage in the right location.

I think with all this, the game definitely would seem to focus on survival because it is inevitable that the number of zombies will just keep growing and eventually spitting out more powerful zombies.  The choices are about how much and when to invest in protecting your survivors.  Can you afford to flee or do you have to try and fight?  I don't think a set-up like this would need a "survivor win condition."

[teapower]

The CCG sounds pretty awesome, but could you explain how zombies/resources work again?

[Trevor]

The CCG sounds pretty awesome, but could you explain how zombies/resources work again?

I haven't decided that. I will need to think about that and the other things mentioned.

[xchokeholdx]

The problem with this idea is that if the Zombie side is an ever increasing difficulty, and there is really no way to win with the Survivor side, why bother with it?

Players would play the minimum amount of protection for their survivors, since after all, those wont win you the game, only make you lose it.

So players will focus only on the part with which you can actually win with, the zombie side. The game will be a race who can kill their opponent?s survivors first. Even though that is a good plan, it makes for an imbalance in the game and that will not be much fun.

compare it with a soccer match, if the rules are: first team to score wins, there is very little incentive to play with 8 or more defenders, as they won?t win you the game. They might stall, but the rules don?t allow a stall tactics to be the winning one.

I would favor a more balanced split of power, but I can?t wait to try out what this game has is mind though!

good luck. I am working on my own "zombie" game right now, with different rules. All based on the Walking Dead miniserie which is so awesome by the way!

[Trevor]

xchokeholdx, there are many ways to build a deck. One style may favor the zombies, one style may favor the survivors, but the task of the CCG designer is to make it always in the player's best interest to use both offensive and defensive cards. Zombie survival movies are not about winning, but more about not losing. This makes the flavor unique as far as CCG design goes. One aspect of the design so far is the ability to play any card face-down as a generic zombie. So the opponents will always have to contend with an increasingly difficult horde of zombies to deal with. On the other hand, if you neglect to put any zombie specific cards in your deck, you can't expect to do a lot of damage to your opponent's survivors, thus buying him time until he can play his zombies to kill yours. So you need both offense and defense, and many cards in the deck will be usable for both sides.

Here's an idea for a rule. When you are playing as the zombie player, if you draw survivor cards (which you otherwise couldn't use) you can play those as an extra face-down generic zombie (perhaps for an extra low price).

One thing I like about my design is the foregone conclusion that the zombie player will always win, and as time goes by the zombie player gets stronger and stronger and the survivor player will eventually get overrun. The fairness comes into it where each player has to take turns as the zombie player.

To start the game, players will secretly bid something (like the number of initial damage counters on their survivors), and the winner of the bid chooses if he wants to play as zombies or survivors first.