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Calgary25993 Posts
On February 11 2013 07:31 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
hey Chill, as someone who does a bit of cardgame and boardgame design myself I'll just say that the kinaesthetics of analogue games are perhaps the most important and most overlooked feature of their design. The term refers to the physical aesthetics of play, the materials and weight of play pieces, the way pieces interact with each other and so forth. Mousetrap is an example of a very interesting game, kinaesthetically.
For card games kinaesthetics are admittedly more limited than most analogue games, but nevertheless appreciating what sort of things you can do with a small rectangle of cardboard- flip, spin, invert, stack, make a house of cards, balance on nose and on and on into absurdity- might help you solve some of these issues and make your game more fun too. Many of the best game systems physically represent their play rather than only relying on abstracted rulesets, and for a game I presume to be designed to be a good drinking game, this would go double.
Kinaesthetics also involves the visual design of your cards, and how that design allows them to interact. I see you're going for a magic parody, but don't restrict yourself too heavily to the magic style of card design. If cards are going to interact with each other (eg. creatures give experience when killed) hard code that into the card design and use the cards for multiple purposes. This requires a little more cunning on the design front, but isn't overly difficult.
In that sense for me 1) seems the most attractive option, as creature cards can double as experience tokens when defeated, attached to the hero that defeated them. When you consider this mechanic, you can also perhaps have spell cards that act like a creature card for the purpose of being an experience token and so forth by having them mimic the 'experience counter' area on the card.
As an example of this process/design logic, I'm currently enjoying the task of cardgamifying league of legends. Stat tracking in any kind of reasonable moba analogy is naturally going to be a nightmare, one I attempted to simplify through this sort of thinking. My hero cards are double size cards (like magic promo cards) and they have their stats listed along the bottom of the card, which is the same width as the height of a normal poker or collectible card. Item cards which modify stats have a similar stat profile along what would normally be the side of the card, but is actually their bottom since they are printed longside up. The item cards are simply slotted under the hero card's bottom edge and act as an extension to that section, increasing the listed statistics. No tokens, no dice, no markers, no bookkeeping, visually simple for both player and opponent to keep track of.
Definitely a lot to think about - really appreciate it.
So is there a specific process you use to evaluate different design options? I have about 4 different options I'm trying weigh right now. I can subjectively rank them by simplicity just by imagining them. But without play testing, how do you work out which option will play the best, be the most balanced, be the most fun, give the most dynamic play, etc.? It would require me to make 4 different versions of the cards and play test each version about 5 times... Halp? :D
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I think the main issue here is that a core concept of the game isn't inherently fun when drinking (tracking experience, math).
I thought about it for a few and ideas started rolling. Maybe some of this concept will sound like a good fit for your game, or maybe not, but it was a fun exercise anyway :D
Spell tokens represent a player's power:
- X spell types - creature, damage, control, whatever else you want (color code the types - red = damage, blue = control, etc, OR color code them like magic would where red has a specific theme but not just damage spells)
- Each person starts with 3 spell tokens - take turns picking 1 at a time, you can pick any color you want, maybe limit the amount per color in the initial pool being drawn from
- At the beginning of each turn, the player draws X cards for X number of spell tokens they have - so if you had 2 creature tokens and 1 damage token, you'd draw 2 creature cards and 1 damage card (so they're separated by type in X piles)
- Some cards help you gain spell tokens in various ways (steal from opponent, or pull from spell token pool) or force opponents to lose tokens in various ways (lose token - it goes to spell token pool)
- e.g. "inferno titan" (it sits in front of you as a creature until it's killed/exiled/etc), it can do 6 damage to 1 creature once a turn. If a creature dies from this attack, take a spell token of your choice from its owner.
- e.g. "mana leak" - target player loses 2 spell tokens of their choosing
- e.g. "Switcheroo" - trade your creature with an opponent's creature, or a spell token of your own with an opponent's spell token
- If it's your turn to pick and you have no tokens, pick one first from the pool, then draw your card as you would normally
- The game ends when a player casts his hero's ultimate spell (which will require a specific amount and types of spell tokens, can only be cast at the beginning of a player's turn) (note: a player's hero card should be kept hidden from opponents)
Some cool things that would come from this system:
- Keeps the "magic-like" system
- Does away with any sort of addition/subtraction/thinking dealing with the gain or loss of power (which is all experience is)
- Allows for power shifts and strategic play
- Strategic choices have a major impact on alliances/rivalries (especially drunk)
- Win condition allows for players to recognize what spell tokens are of value to other players, and it also will allow players to "trick" their opponents by seeming to go for tokens they don't actually need for their ultimate spell
Some drinking game additions:
- Target player drinks when you steal a spell token
- You and 1 other player drinks when you pull a spell token from the pool (not including the opening where everyone is pulling)
- You drink when you lose a spell token.
Good luck with your game :D
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Maybe it could be as simple as using small numbers for XP. It would be way easier to add and subract a lot of small numbers than triple digit numbers.
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So is there a specific process you use to evaluate different design options? I have about 4 different options I'm trying weigh right now. I can subjectively rank them by simplicity just by imagining them. But without play testing, how do you work out which option will play the best, be the most balanced, be the most fun, give the most dynamic play, etc.? It would require me to make 4 different versions of the cards and play test each version about 5 times... Halp? :D
True game design is an incredibly complex... and like, this isn't some hurr durr my job is harder than your job thing... INCREDIBLY complex operation. Which is why not many people do it (and I mean like maybe twenty professionals on the face of the planet, I'm not one of them). I can't really give you a simple process to go through, but I can give you some basic ideas which may help.
2) all game design is the design (theoretical implementation of a desired outcome) of games (arbitrarily limited structures based on cons... oh who am I kidding, nobody knows.). This may sound tautological, but people fail to realise that *design* is not the same as *development*.
Playtesting is a development tool, as is iteration (the comments on iteration I made here might be interesting). before you can use these you must have a very clear idea of what you intend, the outcome you desire. To do that you need to know a few things.
1) Not all games are alike. People play games for vastly different reasons, from determining social status to (according to some twisted theorists) the desire to take control of the fact they have no control over their life (see games like russian roulette and variants). First you need to figure out what your game is at heart looking to encompass- resistance, subversion, learning, vertigo, risk management etc. If you say fun I will shoot you through the heart.
2) from there you can look for games with similar goals- I'm happy to help here, a lot of the difficulty is in having a mental reference library to go on with- and see how they achieve their intended outcomes (or why they have unintended outcomes, as so many do)
3) from these two you can start to pick apart your options. Mechanically some things will be more reliable, but less involving, or very fast but also lacking in potential depth and so on. If you understand what your game is about at a deeper level you can make informed choices here. For example, many games that are 'unbalanced' are still perfectly fine, because their objective is not to provide a formal structure for ritual social contest (see progaming), but to provide an inhibition cruncher and get people talking (see twister). The object of the game is not the game itself, but what it allows. Sometimes you want to deliberately design a poorly balanced game BECAUSE the whole point is to subvert the idea of games as something you have to win to... well, win.
In terms of being a drinking game, these are an interesting phenomenon. In a sense the object of the game is to lose, because it's just there to give a context to your drinking, and nobody wants to win too much because that's kind of not the point. You also have a situation in which your players are going to rapidly lose the capability or interest in detailed thought, so everything needs to be super simple and intuitive, UNO style. I don't mean you need to abstract this to the point of ridiculousness, but convey mechanics through visual instructions rather than symbolic ones that require a rulebook to understand.
Therefore you want simple mechanics that making losing amusing, while winning is still worth trying to do. A typical method for this is to give the current 'winner' a little power over the losers while not actually cutting them in on the action. Adult party games do this a lot, the 'winner' gets to pick some kind of questionable activity for the 'losers' to engage in... which the losers are absolutely happy to oblige, while making all sorts of professions of embarrassment and distaste and so on. Thus you want to win sometimes, but you also want to lose a whole lot too...
From your stated intent, I think those are your really core design concerns. Make a game that is ultra simple as far as information is concerned. No mental mathematics or complex formal rulesets, as much as possible should be written on the cards (Fluxx is a beautiful example of this) and actions should use the cards to keep track of any information that needs to be kept track of (via tapping or resource cards etc). ALso, make a game where the stated victory condition is not really that important- you can do this through randomizers that make luck play a big part, making games short so multiple iterations can be played and so on- but that your real victory condition (having fun while getting smashed) is thoroughly achieved.
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I think the experience points are a nice thing, don't remove them.
Are you using tokens to represent experience points? If you don't maybe you should try think of an experience system where you can use single tokens to represent experience, that will make everything much more easier.
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my first thought was number 2. Some of the best casual games are simple and when you involve drink it's best to keep it that way...
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
Firstly, I would not use big numbers like 150 and 100. While using these numbers does instantly make it clear which of the x/y values is experience and which one is strenght/defense, it does make counting more difficult. If you have no multiples of 25s in experience, just divide all experience points by 50 and it will make counting a lot easier.
You can simplify the counting experience process by tracking experience with a piece on a board with numbers. way easier to just move your piece 2 spaces, then 3 spaces, then 1 space and then back 7 spaces than do these calculations in your head.
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Use #2, but base it on action points. Whenever your graveyard has the appropriate number of action points you can cash in those cards to level up; then remove those cards from the game. The action points are small enough where the math should be fairly easy.
Restrict leveling up to the beginning of a player's turn so you aren't constantly doing math.
This would be doubly cool if you have cards that interact with the graveyard.
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The game you are trying to create seems a lot like the minigame the introduction of the planeswalkers into MtG created. I think it is a cool idea, but for simplification I would go for option 1. Somehow I just feel like this is too simple. So I would suggest adding part of option 3. The action point cost for levelling your hero.
This way you create a simplified experience accumulation, where the benefits and timings of levelling depend upon the Hero type and the moves your opponent makes. This leaves the game rules simple, but allows for a strategic blend as well.
Also you might want to differentiate in the cost of levelling up, so that for example levels 1-2 costs 1 Action point, levels 2-4 cost 2, 5-8 3 etcera. The numbers would definately take some testing but I'd say that is the way to go.
EDIT: And even better if you included a staggered gain of Action points so that you gain less actionts than you spend on levelling. Just slightly less action points, so there is still a benefit from levelling without it becoming ridiculously overpowered.
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I'm not sure how your system of subtracting experience when you level up will fit into this, but you could use a system similar to that of the board game Talisman:
Basically as each player kills creatures, they keep the creature cards off to the side as "trophies". Each creature has their strength printed on the card, and once you have enough trophies that their strength points add up to 7 or more, you discard those trophies and "level up". You can gain several levels from trophies at once (trade 21 strength in creature trophies for 3 levels) and you must always round DOWN to the nearest multiple of 7 (so if you have 10 strength in creature trophies, you gain only one level and the other 3 strength are wasted).
It seems like a pretty simple system that adds an element of strategy when deciding to level up.
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I like 2, but with each card being worth a certain amount of experience points. This would let you do cool game design by balancing around that. This could even extend to spells -"destroy target creature, you opponent gains 5 experience."
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Calgary25993 Posts
On February 12 2013 03:42 Tal wrote:
I like 2, but with each card being worth a certain amount of experience points. This would let you do cool game design by balancing around that. This could even extend to spells -"destroy target creature, you opponent gains 5 experience."
Yep, after reading this thread and thinking it through this is what I decided to go with. Now I just have to edit 300 cards to test it haha 
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On February 11 2013 06:15 Chill wrote:
The problem with #2 is that a 0/1 Peon then is worth the same Experience as a 10/6 Gold Dragon. I'm not sure if that's a problem or not yet.
How important is keeping cards in your library? Maybe something like "when this creature dies, you may put up to X cards from the top of your library into your graveyard" would fix that issue.
2 also opens up some interesting design space where removing some or all cards in your graveyard from the game could be a cost you pay to do something, or shuffling them back into your library. Do I want to save up cards and level, or do X now?
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On February 11 2013 06:51 Aerisky wrote:
Another vote for system 2. Maybe you could label cards with amount of experience, since yeah then one might be motivated to kill many weak creatures. You could also add special rewards for killing better creatures.
I hope to play your game one day :D
This. Give each used card a (small, integer) number of Level-Up XP and make each level cost 10 XP. Either one fat dragon or five wimpy peons plus five "undo enemy shoelace" spells.
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The problem with 2 is winning snowballs in an unfun way. Having more creatures -> higher level -> more power.
It's not even subtle or skillful.
IMO make leveling up an investment of action points that pays off massively. Something that players must learn to time well.
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Calgary25993 Posts
On February 12 2013 13:36 LeperKahn wrote:
The problem with 2 is winning snowballs in an unfun way. Having more creatures -> higher level -> more power.
It's not even subtle or skillful.
IMO make leveling up an investment of action points that pays off massively. Something that players must learn to time well.
It's not that big of an advantage. For example, level 1 gives you 5 action points and level 2 will give you 6. This isn't typically played 1v1, unlike Magic, so if people get ahead then players will gang up and bully them.
I've finally got the rules all converted over to the new system more or less. I'll look to put a document that can be printed with all the cards and a short Youtube video so people don't have to read all 19 pages of rules lol
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so people don't have to read all 19 pages of rules lol
This makes me a little worried about a drinking game XD
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Calgary25993 Posts
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Is it bad that I immediately knew what card you took the ogre art from?
I have always liked using defeated monsters/whatnot as trophies than can be used to buy/upgrade, each worth a different amount. Just try not to put to many numbers on the cards like arkham horror does, it took way too long to learn and remember what each number on the card meant.
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I would propose instead of numbers for experience, use a simplified symbol... like stars or something.
Going with the number 2 option, each card would have their stars on the back of the card (like 1-5 stars per card.)
That way, you can quickly skim over the graveyard until your hero has 20 stars. You then spend those cards in the graveyard, and set them face up so that they can no longer be used for leveling. I think the less big numbers the better, especially if this is supposed to be as casual as I think it is :D
(stars is just a placeholder. It could be beers to level up for all I know...)
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EPT
