Creativity Sure is Hard.

Pretty much a duh statement. Started back up Skyrim for some New comp means adding every graphic mod possible. Yadda yadda not getting work done.

I do have a list of event resolution types, the stuff players have to check for. I have ideas for simple pay events (tap some number of energy to perform) and draw events (reveal top card of the player's deck and the resolution is based on that.

Other thing to do is add event assistance abilities to at least the common and uncommon cards. There shouldn't have to split a deck between in combat and out of combat abilities. Should also stay consistent so no one card is grabbed for only one ability.

The last bit is energy resolution attempts for events outside of the school. Outside of the school, events will become increasingly more random and will check varying types of energy, and a player may not have all the energy type required to complete it. This shouldn't auto-fail the event, however, since this would mean players can corner themselves with events they have no chance of completing. Rather those unprepared should still have a chance of completing an event, namely in the form of rolling for the energy needed. Another idea is to allow the energy cards be used as wild card energies. Need to decide on the dice to card ratio, and what kind of die is being rolled.

Finally getting something

Started jotting down event ideas for the board.

Thinking that all skill cards should have dual use for combat and non combat purposes. Stronger cards may be single utility.

Starting with school events. These should be simple to complete and are only good for common/uncommon skills.

Other locales will have more variety in energy requirements and resolution choices.

Original idea was that if you needed a different energy type to resolve an event, you could tap one other energy type to roll a d4 for a chance of the energy you wanted, or do a roll for a 5 up on a d6 to convert one energy to another. This is to facilitate single energy decks or other energy shortages. Need to decide if this should be a general rule or regulated to specific events.

Boy am I stuck.

I have absolutely no idea on where to go from here. Not a lot of inspiration to work on right now. I feel like I want to just make some cards and try playing the parts I got already. Might just go with that. See what I'm missing then.

Need to remember: Work first, play later.

So it's now November. 

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 really damn heavily the last month. Coupled with what was a pretty seasonal job, yea being really distracted here.

Course now that job is gone I can go back to procrastinating in other ways!

Anyway, did another rundown of the game and realized this game essentially has two phases, three with this current villain deck design, and that first phase, where the players are suppose to be going around collecting cards is COMPLETELY AIMLESS. As in the moment after you set up and decide who's going first, that player is going to go "where should I go first?" And the answer will be "I dunno," cause how are you suppose to know what you need to prepare for? Monsters don't show up till later (and should not show up until later) so that first turn is essentially aimless wandering. And aimless is a pretty detrimental goal to aim for.

So the solution is Episodes. These are goals or effects that can help the player build their deck. Goals would be like preparing for a sports festival, and to do that means gathering and fielding various fitness abilities. Reward could be an advanced card or the ability to swap the cards they gathered for other cards. Effects would be like "social event interactions cost less to perform" or "gain additional energy every time you obtain a skill card from this place." These can persist for a few turns before a new one is drawn.

The point here is to give that first turn something to aim for if they don't already have a goal in mind (like a particular deck build or theme). Because the villains don't show themselves until later, and given that's how that works in anime, I think this fills that gap between fights for something players to do.

Now that idea is down, need to really review what I already have down before moving on.

And going to try and post....maybe this Saturday.

Damn, it's Thursday already?

Annnnnd it's September

Man I did not keep up any kind of schedule at all. I was suppose to update at the minimum weekly and here we are, 3 weeks without a single update.

In any case, let's see where we are now. Started working again, now on a night shift. Been playing both Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2. Been still working on this villain deck, which is been really stuck in just details. Trying to have a respectable number of enemies. Have 9 major monsters planned, 6 of them created.  Getting sort of tedious at this point. Need to do something to come up with more mechanics.

Now what to do about this. Waiting for inspiration is probably not the best idea out there. So arguably I need to start setting time aside for this stuff. Which means working against distractions. Which is pretty hard considering I'm playing GW2 right now writing this post.

Well not worth rushing, so just gonna work on this as it comes up.

I should be doing something, but there's GW2.

Still working on Villains right now. Need to get out all the monsters with their abilities, then Lieutenants and then the ancillary spell cards. Course all work has been stupidly slow. If I'm not doing something I'm procrastinating. This all comes on the heels of GW2 launch in 2 days. Where I'm hoping its 1 for me for pre-ordering.

Coming up with interesting enemy abilities gets much harder once you have them down on paper and realize the amount of redundancy that can happen.

Well now I need to set and stick to a goal if I want to make any kind of serious progress. Which becomes kinda hard if I'm not staying vigilant. Or motivated.

Well try again this Friday, see if something sticks. Only one monster of 7 done. Need to do some research.

Posting later.

Oh hey, it's been a week.

Well it looks like its exactly 7 days since my last post. Been way too freaking busy doing stuff not related to this, and then too stupidly distracted playing games.

But I have a Villain deck more or less listed. 16 event cards, probably should be bumped to 20 or 30, 3 Lieutenants, which will be repeated, and 6 monsters, which should be like 8-10 maybe.

So right now posting for some sort of consistency. Going to see if I can get something concrete by Friday.

Another thing I got was watching the Extra Credits I took from it a message "What kind of message is your game telling." That is starting a game just from mechanics, or hook, or some other plain starting point the game will lose its direction without a consecutive message through the game. So I got thinking about what I wanted players to be thinking or noticing while they were playing, and I came up with "the evolution of the character." This I kinda had in mind, in the sense I wanted each archetype to be viable with any type of deck build, regardless of how their special works. The reasoning behind that would be a kind of life experience thing. Like a Yankee going Int would be the guy was always smart, but only now been able to properly express himself. Or the Princess going Fitness being able to act out more once she's with friends. So I want to say that the player should have a sense of the record of their character through their gameplay and how their final deck comes out to be.

So to that extent I want to remember to formulate gameplay around this idea. Which will need me to go back to my earlier ideas and do some scrutinizing. I think it'll all work, but eventually I'll have to go back so my ideas stay consistent.

Well back to thinking how my monsters will smash. And then see how well random numbers work.