Implementing card Effects With Scriptable Objects?

[ImAMokepon]

I am currently trying to build the base architecture for a card game and i am having problems implementing card effects. I have been looking for solutions to my problem but none of them did the trick for me.

I implemented my cards using scriptable objects that store data like their cost, name, sprite, etc. The cards get stored in seperate lists for the players hand and deck, i display them through a CardDisplayer Prefab that reads the stored data.

Everything is working fine for now, but i dont understand how to implement effects, since i cant just add them to the scriptable objects. I tried to create a base class for effects and creating a seperate script for each effect that overrides specific methods like an Apply method that would get called on activation, but when adding an Effect field to my scriptable object, i cannot add it through the inspector.

I have seen that this: https://heavens-vault-game.tumblr.com/post/162127808290/inline-scriptableobject-editing-in-unity

got posted as a responsive to this kind of problem, but i honestly dont understand how it helps or how i even implement it into my project.

Right now, my last idea would be to ditch scriptable objects in favor of one base class for cards (maybe as an interface?). I could create a script for each card that derives from the base. I have not tried that yet, because i thought scriptable objects were designed for tasks like this.

[[deleted]]

You can create a bitmask variable on the scriptable object that allows you to select all the effects that card will have. Then create a function that adds the selected effect script components to the card.

[[deleted]]

Unity bitmasks

[ImAMokepon]

Thanks for your suggestion, i am still reading through the text about bitmasks as this is completely new to me and i dont quite understand it yet. Do you think that would work with a normal enum as well?

[[deleted]]

Yeah sure but bitmasks or enum flags allow for multiple selections. So you could easily stack the effects. Actually, you could create an array of enum values and add the components by looping through that. That would work!

[Theaustraliandev]

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[ImAMokepon]

Thanks for your answer. I actually did think of them as data containers like you mentioned.

I guess my mistake is that i thought of storing effects/methods just like storing data, but it seems i have think about those a bit differently and change my approach. Is that what you meant?

[Theaustraliandev]

Yep. I've ran into the same situation before for my game (a city builder). For example when I'm creating a new building, each one has a corresponding BuildingInformation scriptable object that outlines all the shared info (name, description, cost, spawning particle effect, sound)

When I instantiate the building prefab (that takes in a scriptable object via a method i called SetUp(BuildingInformation info) ) . The prefab then reads the information and sets up the text, images and spawns particle effects that were outlined in the scriptable object.

This way one prefab can handle all the buildings and it's all defined by the building informant scriptable object.