Not Dead But Not Doing Much

So I got myself a job, one that's been pulling me all over the place in terms of work times, including a bunch of holiday and weekend junk. Still, job is close by and easy enough otherwise. Haven't dedicated much time to the game design at this point. Last I was thinking was how to set up the final boss fight. I had an idea of using the cards being built up in the villain's hand as some sort of counter for attacks, or event the life of the final boss. Then I still want to completely tie together the entire game, from character creation and that starter deck to the final boss, because I'm kinda skeptical on how each part would properly play out. Course, this is best done probably through some playtesting, and to do that I need to make some cards.

Anycase, this is now a back burner project. I would like to start writing and posting ideas, if anything to keep the wheel turning, but as is it's being easily distracted that's an issue. Like always.

Probably see another post in a month, hopefully not.

An Update for the sake of.

Posting an update because I've been making some progress on something this entire time and should mention it. 

Been working on what is a walkthrough of the game at this point. Going through each phase of the game step by step has allowed me to realize I've been missing some important shit. And some other holes as well. 

I've gotten to the end of the game, where the players are now confronted by the final villain herself, in this case (Negaverse analogue). I want to make this fight a bit more complicated than normal fights currently are, with 3 abilities decided on a d6, but will have to keep it from requiring another player to have to figure out her AI constantly in the fight. 

One thought was to use the villain's hand in the combat. Throughout the game these cards are stacking up, while being used for the plots and events on the board. But given the random nature of the cards, I could expect cards to still build up. Incorporating these into the fight in some way would be an easy to read additional mechanic for the players. 

This will have to work out on its own though, being busy and procratinaty isn't helping. Might as well stop the procrastinating. Like 8 months ago. 

Totally Forgot End Game

So I just kinda noticed I really don't have anything concrete about my end game. I had a vague idea of having a villain and hero track, where the villain track would progress based on the energy drained by the plots each turn, with the track giving buffs to the villains over the period of the game. Monsters would have more health and deal more damage and lieutenants would have more abilities to affect the field. When the villains reach the end of the track, the final boss shows up and will fight the players. If the players lose, the game is over. With the hero track this was suppose to be a similar track that goes up for the players over the course of the game. When the hero track is maxed, the players get to invade the villain's headquarters and assault the final boss. Beat the boss, win the game. Lose, come back and try again later.

The problem became how does the hero track grow? Current ideas are: 1. Increase per monster death and 2. Players instead of buying cards push the track. Unlike the villain track, the hero track doesn't grant passive bonuses to the players. Those were suppose to come from the player's own cards. Defeating a monster would've awarded players with an additional action energy as well, but I think there should be more alternatives to monster rewards. Not sure what this could be either.

Last on the list are better card buying mechanics. Something a bit more complex than just an event to a card. I was thinking each event grants a certain number of buy resource which go towards a card's cost, which is dependent on it's rarity and stuff. Harder events grant more points to buy cards with. Maybe allow buys to be saved so cards could be cycled to buy.

All this just needs testing.

Back to work.

(posting 2 days after starting post)

Rethinking Initiative, and gotta work on a summary

So the original idea of initiative was to track both player turn order and position to monster for targeting. This was rolled at the beginning of combat and players had to adjust from there. But if I'm going to have Fitness abilities to be able to adjust, and in such a way require certain levels of initiative, then why roll in the beginning? I could now just decide to incorporate initiative into the combat system, have spells have a penalty, maybe a kind of penalty for certain spells. But initiative was a relative position from the monster, not an absolute one, so an initiative of 1, the furthest from the monster, could still be within arm's reach, just behind the other players.

Course now this brings up the question of battlefield mobility. Since the monster targets enemies with both fixed and relative positions, players can feasibly dodge moves with something that could move them about. But do I make movement core or ability card based. I could tie it to the action energy cards, but these energy cards are an easy catch all for everything that may be too general to throw into randomly collected abilities. This means too many mechanics in one place, and that I think is bad design. Course, I should first figure out what they're currently being used for to see if I declare it overburdened.

So far Action energy is used for

• Shuffling discard pile into the deck while out of combat and at home. 
• Discard and draw hand while out of combat and at home.
• Use in special attacks. 
• Draw a card at any time during your turn, or any time while out of combat. Can be modified by different skill cards to perform this differently. 

With this in mind, I am considering having initiative being set versus randomly rolled at the beginning of combat. D&D rolled for initiative purely for turn order, and was more or less set for an entire encounter. If I have players that are suppose to be mobile, then they need to be able to dictate that movement a bit more. But then if its going to be key, then it needs to interact with the player more than just order and targeting. Namely in their abilities. But THEN that's just more restrictions on card use, and that sounds like it will narrow gameplay. 

Sitting on this more.

Another thing is I probably should get to writing a one page summary for the "about" page, cause no one is going to bother reading my mind nor my posts just to get an idea of what my game is. I think I can go with "Deck building Themed card combat board game."

Fitness Card Idea and then other junk

Finally decided fitness attacks are going to be fighting game style chain attacks. Each fitness attack ability would have a classification: light medium, heavy, jump, and knock-up. Each attack can be used on its own, or can be stacked in a certain order for bonus effects. Each attack will also have an initiative requirement to perform, and some attacks will change your current initiative.

The core of this idea is the light > medium > heavy combo concept. On their own, each attack has a base damage. When chained with the proper attack by being used in a sequence, a secondary effect takes place. For 1 star attack, its a bit of extra damage. For more advanced moves, like a leg sweep, it can disable the enemy for one move. In this case it just removes one die from the enemy's attack.

Tier 3 abilities would be like supers with a failure rate that can be mitigated with the right chain attack.

Social I think I'll create these catagories:

Enhancements: cards that buff individual abilities.

Trainers: You take time out of combat to gain ranks with a trainer. Each rank grants a new ability to use with this card.

Companions: These act like a normal ability that are played and tapped.

Instants: Played from hand spells that can happen at any time.

Items: I guess I'll need this slot if Bento heal kits are going to stay social cards.

So far I got sorcery spells for int. Played from hand. Have other cards play up that style.

Gonna go from here.

Social is just going to be Green

Easy design decision: Make social decks act like Green decks, or at least the green starter deck I got, which was a mix of powerful creatures and buff enchants. So running with that.

What to do about Social

So I had good ideas of what Fitness and Int abilities should be like. (Fitness are creatures and Int are spells). Social originally was buffs and companions, but that feels like its viability as a single color deck was shot.

Another bit was some companions were also tied to specific events, but when if a player gets the card not as a social energy build, then that card is worthless.

How about have these events grant either the companion or an equilvalent tier item. So like my military companion social card was someone that could call in a mortar strike. Others could get a weapon or attack for fitness or Int based equipment.

I need to write more down.

Card Draw Solution

Just came up with an interesting way to add more card draws: make the card draw a core ability with action energy, base 1 card per draw, and have each other type of draw be an enhancement to that draw ability. This would add a more reliable way to have card drawing in combat other than having to stack card draw abilities. Other abilities will still maintain a tap or discard strength use. Also when in town every time as player draws an event with an action energy the player can also draw a card. Maybe give a bonus if they don't.

Also had more thoughts on the villain deck. Might change the draw from 3 to 2. With a 60 card deck that's a difference of 10 turns. Buy that will have to come down to play testing.

And that requires something to test.

More Card Thoughts

Post for the sake of post. Cause if I don't I don't post anyway.

Got the villain deck card numbers hashed out. One thing I think would be an issue is as more plots are performed, the fewer plots are there to draw from. I also have nothing planned for when a villain deck runs out, nor how fast it would possibly occur. Considering one rule is that the villain's hand is never really discarded, only spent cards would enter some sort of graveyard, and unused cards will show up in the hand eventually, though like solitaire, there can be a sequence of a stack that cannot move given how the type of combinations, which leads to a standstill. Don't want that happening.

Another thought is how do I want social to play out? There were buffs, but buffs don't win fights. I had the idea of "mentor" companions, that during the board phase you build them up by spending actions on them, and you then unlock abilities based on how often you visited them. This gives Social cards a type of attack that's companion based rather than ability based. Of course what kind of disparity should this ability be with others?

Another thought are marking attacks. Basically subsequent attacks on the same target gain some kind of benefit. But that is just a fancy attack. Sync was the other idea. Attach to another ability being played, perform that ability alongside. This all really plays into how do I want decks to be built? If I think in terms of MtG decks, those are usually single color, because you don't want to run into the issue of drawing the energy you don't need at any given time, and homogeneity makes sure that doesn't happen. But if I'm thinking of Fit/Int/Social energy as stats rather than energy, that means a character is rather a mix of these three energies, which for one makes the starting deck awkward. If energy is being cycled into the deck, then that adds the risk of getting cards you don't need. But do I want players to always build a mix of cards from all three types, or allow single color decks to survive? Or do something where all cards have a colorless use and a bonus if the right energy is used.

Anyway more posting to come later so more thoughts can get down.

Just spent the whole day randomly writing this thing. Huh.

Doing Some Combat Revisions.

I just realized I had an idea of combat but no concrete rules. Course this all has to then tie to how cards are designed and played.

This includes what can I do to make the game more deck-buildy and have the player cycle more cards, having some use for Action Energy early game, cause they were originally regulated to special attacks, which were end game cards, and now I want to rethink what does initiative really mean? Originally this was position from monsters, with 6 being the closest, and 1 being the furthest. But then do I really want to separate melee from ranged? I think not, because this is also a randomly generated position, so sucks to find yourself in a place where your abilities don't work.

So far it's this

1. I can have the energy cards play as a "tap again" general purpose for any ability, namely the basic abilities. This is suppose to work in conjunction with another idea to move cards which was "discard an ability after it has been tapped to play that ability again." Problem is this is a multiplier effect, and multiplier effects do that high curve growth so once stronger cards are out will be a problem to balance for. 
2. So one of my tier 1 cards is an "attack" fitness card. But one of my tier 1 int card is a "blast" card. As is they're both a basic attack, so I need a way to separate the two. One thing could be "Attack" is a permanent ability while "Blast" is more like a one off spell. Of that then that would put "Attack" at base damage 1 and "Blast" at base damage 2 to compensate. The other idea was they were bother permanent abilities, but Attack required you to adjust your initiative up 2 after you used it, like running up to attack a target and then backing off. 
3. Still need to expand on the role of Social cards. As is they're support cards, buffs and healing. One thing social energy was suppose to handle were companions. But companions are, or should be, minimum tier 2 (of 3) cards. This turns to the question "How mixed should players make their decks." If a pure social deck can't handle tier 1 combat its not good. 

More stuff to come, we'll see if I remember to post it. 

An Unending Recursion

So I've had half the mind to post something a few times since the last post with some of the ideas I had at the time. But then the ideas were still half baked, so I'd put off writing till I had something more concrete. At which time I'd get distracted and another few days would go without coming up with a post.

So now I'm just going to throw some stuff out.

1. Reconsidering card rules and functions, to change combat up a bit. Currently the design has the concept around permanents and energy cards to summon them, but that got me thinking that all that promotes is winning a card through an event, then cycling the deck till you could play that card. Cause vanilla magic rules revolved around a static deck and a discard pile. If I wanted to make this more deck buildy, that means more card cycling. Mage Knight does this by playing with the hand, as do other deck building games. However, I would like to keep some sort of field so there's still a degree of preparation and not relying on the draw. So to do this I'm considering the following
1. All abilities can be tapped twice by default. First tap is normal and keeps the card on the board. Second tap discards the card into the discard pile. 
2. Probably a better idea is to have each ability have separate tap and discard actions, and you can only perform one or the other. Problem here is what kind of space do I have left for an out of combat ability (and should that also get two activation's as well) along with flavor art and all the other card information. 
3. Think I'm going to take out the counterattack part of combat. This was also a thing from Magic with attacking and defending monsters. Rather than a normal occurrence, its will only happen due to special counterattack abilities, like damage shields or on hit triggers. This would cut down on the number of special attributes I can put to an ability, and keep the number of necessary resolutions low. 
4. Energy cards can now be played to the field tapped (wait a turn to use) or active (use now and discard afterwards) instead of having to pay one energy to place one. I don't think that latter plan let players get into the game fast enough. 

This does mean I need to go back through my ability card list, which I had to do anyway to implement out of combat abilities. Those are still good given my resolution types. After I get some better free time I'm going to dedicate myself to writing this out. Have something by Sat. 

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.

Villain Deck Update, Other stuff.

Well it's been some 2 weeks since my last post, apparently. Temps got way up recently, so that kills motivation. Also staring at the release of Guild Wars 2 as well. Sooooo, yea.

Anyway, still getting some stuff down. Have some writing down. And getting some thoughts about the events as well.

Well gonna keep punching everything back on the notepad before pasting stuff here. Someone remind me to post again on Friday.

Out.

Villain Work Time

Alright so I feel like I pretty much hashed out what to do for player cards, so now I'm going to start working on the villain deck. Which means finalizing villain mechanics. So time for a ton of contemplating.

Current idea: Villains have a deck of their own cards. Each card is some sort of spell, monster, minion, or other effect that can be played on the board. Each card will have its own trigger conditions of when it will be played. These essentially occur on the villain turn, but some may trigger on other in town events.

For the most part villains progress their own villain track, done when their card events resolve. The initial idea is to have villains place down in town events that continually progress the track until it is disrupted and the monster within defeated. Defeated monsters add some way for the players to perform more actions. The villain track itself strengthens enemy monsters and improves the defenses on the in town villain events. After a certain trigger is hit, such as the villain track reaching a certain value, the final boss of the villains will show up and a final battle ensues. When this enemy is beaten the game is over.

So things I need to watch out for.
1. Trigger rate on villain spawns to progress the game.
2. Properly designing the villain AI. This is done between dice and the card trigger events. The idea is to not have to require a player play the villain. Other decks might change these mechanics, but right now I'm building for a PvE model.
3. Figure out scaling. As long as players can improve over the time of the game, so to should the enemy. This may mean having the villain track continually progress, or have a secondary track to follow how many events are played. There needs to be a risk of the enemy growing too strong, and for a way for the players to lose.

Alright, time to see if I keep these things in mind while I work this out.