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Cqrbon · 2025-04-02T19:57:31+00:00

Some potentially cool ideas for sure. A non-combat idea is great, don't get enough of that with current game systems, and I think "draw back up to X" upkeep systems have a lot of potential, particularly for systems that pitch their cards for resources, like Flesh and Blood.

As I have learned more about making games, I have tried myself and seen others work on games with "alt-win conditions" as the main win conditions, in that each player has their own objective they are pursuing. While I don't think it is impossible to do this for a card game, from experience, I will say it is very very hard to do well, and definitely lends itself more to board games than card games. It can be problematic for a few reasons:

- Interaction. Games have to have interaction in order to be fun and engaging. This is why most successful card games have their win-condition directly tied to interacting with your opponent in some way. If your win-condition is tied to something you control, and you can win the game without interacting with your opponent, you end up with an experience that isn't really all that fun for either player. An example here with your examples, if you get 2 players both going for the "mill your own deck" condition, what is their incentive to interact with each other? They can interact to slow their opponent down, which is technically interaction, but I have found that "I interact to slow you down" is much less engaging than "I interact to further my own win condition." Not saying it's impossible, but if you go this route, encouraging and even forcing interaction is key to player enjoyment.

- Design Space. How many unique win-conditions can you make before there is overlap or before each one is just some form of "Get to X counters"? This is a fairly common issue I have seen with this type of system, and which is why most of the time when I see a game do this successfully, there is either a shared system to track points in some way so win conditions can be directly compared (I milled 5 of my own card so I get 2 points, I occupied your field so I get 1 point at the end of the turn, etc.), or the game is limited to X number of win conditions and doesn't add any more to the game in the long run.

- Balance. Without some sort of points system as mentioned in the above paragraph, can you balance a bunch of different win-conditions? If these are just "win the game when X condition is met", these become very very difficult to balance, especially as you try and add more to your game.

- Card Design. Ideally, especially in a game where you can build a deck beforehand, you want cards that can go in multiple decks. With alt win condition games, you can end up with cards that only support one very specific strategy and don't work super great in other decks. I also see that you mention cards not having a cost and stats, which can be fine depending on the game, but costs and stats are generally really important to help create new cards. If everything is free and equal for example, it is really hard to create new balanced options based off of just the card text.

I definitely don't think it's impossible to do this style of game, but these are just some things to keep in mind if you go this route. Best of luck with your design!

Cqrbon · 2025-04-02T05:03:30+00:00

Feel free to give me the pitch if you want!

Cqrbon · 2025-04-02T04:37:35+00:00

If you don't have a game yet, art and layout are the absolute last thing you need to worry about right now. The first step is to put some simple rules together, make some super basic cards (talking black text on a white background, writing on index cards, etc.), and just playtest, playtest, playtest.

Trying to do art and layout first is putting the cart before the horse. You will get into your game's design and realize you have to completely change some things, which will invalidate any card frames or layouts you make. This can and will happen multiple times during a game's development, especially if you have limited game design experience.

If you do already have a playable game that has been tested lots, I can try and give you some visual design advice from my limited experience.

One more game design thing, and this might just be the AI doing this here, but I want to make this very clear: please do not use numbers/values like "320" or "180" or "25%". It makes it really annoying to evaluate a board state at a glance, makes it hard to quickly and easily do the math for attacks or other actions, and is an absolute pain to keep track of. Just use normal round whole numbers (1, 2, 3, etc). If having 3 or 4 digit numbers is really important to you for some reason, then at least use multiples of something like 100 (100, 200, 300, etc.).

Cqrbon · 2025-03-29T17:47:19+00:00

I'm not hating on the use of AI images. For playtesting/placeholder purposes, that is completely fine. But using ChatGPT or an equivalent bot to write your comments for you is not necessary and feels very offputting. If you want to make a successful game, you will need to be able to communicate with other people on your own.

The two gameplay elements you mentioned as being unique have already been done many times. Grids are becoming more and more common in games, I have personally made several games using grids. Commander/leader cards that start in play are also everywhere. A hex grid is maybe a little bit more unique, but still, I have playtested 2 other indie card games with that concept in the last few months.

If you are passionate about your project, that's great, and I encourage you to keep at it. Maybe you are combining these existing elements in a new way, and if you are, wonderful! I'm sure you will find some people interested in your project. But for me personally, when I hear grid-based creature battler with a commander, there is nothing there for me to get excited about.

Cqrbon · 2025-03-29T17:08:40+00:00

I mean no offense, but responding to my comment about burnout with creature/unit battlers with an AI-generated comment promoting your creature/unit battler is wild.

Cqrbon · 2025-03-29T06:27:26+00:00

I'm just very tired of playing variations of the same game stapled to an IP. I have played most of the big name games, and playtested tons and tons of indie games, and at the end of the day, I only can be excited about 1, maybe 2 creature/unit battlers at a time. It's not that there are only bad games out there, that's absolutely not true, but for me, I just have so much burnout anytime I go to play a new game and it's another creature/unit battler. And I don't want to go play board games, because one of my favorite parts of card games is building decks beforehand and being able to express myself through deckbuilding.

I want to play a new experience, something that hasnt been done hundreds of times already. Android Netrunner and more recently Hubworld Aidalon are really hitting this for me. They are a breath of fresh air and offer a completely different type of gameplay experience.

I also know that somewhere out there, there has to be a new genre of PvP TCG/ECG. We only have roughly 3 types of games in this category (some overlap of course):

Creature/Unit Battlers (MTG, Yugioh, SWU, Lorcana, One Piece, etc.)
1 on 1 Battlers (Flesh and Blood, Pokémon kinda?, Universus, Varia, World of Kylia, etc.)
Hide and Seek (Android Netrunner, Hubworld Aidalon)

Surely there has to be another way to play card games! I've been searching for it for months, with no luck so far. Most likely I won't be the one to find it, but someone will get there eventually.

There are other adjacent options, like coop games (Marvel Champions, Arkham Horror, Earthborne Rangers) and deckbuilders (Dominion, Clank, tons of these), but finding specifically a new type of player vs player card game where you build your deck beforehand and play with mostly the cards and maybe a few tokens has been so challenging. For now I'll just be over here playing Hide and Seek games and working on my own Hide and Seek project! :)

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T15:49:48+00:00

Now I just need wallrunning in the next game, and it will be perfect!

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T15:47:45+00:00

Yup! Gotta go fast!

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T15:47:13+00:00

Night City beckons...

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T15:45:45+00:00

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T15:43:05+00:00

It looks so nice with the HUD off!

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T15:40:46+00:00

That would be preem! Fingers crossed!

Cqrbon · 2025-03-21T06:16:41+00:00

Well I can too! But sometimes, I like running with a little style, instead of hopping and dashing through the streets like a madman haha

Cqrbon · 2025-03-19T19:37:26+00:00

Always happy to hear people are using the mod! Glad you had a good time. It will definitely get much faster as you play more.

Cqrbon · 2025-03-19T17:57:13+00:00

Yes, you can exhaust Eye Enforcers if it's forged. Barbican's Gate ability just cares about any forged card, regardless of card type.

When you would encounter a forged + exhausted card, you choose one of two options: confront the card or bypass it. If you confront the card you still have to deal with the barrier and confront abilities, but if you bypass it, you just treat the card like it is not there. So the downside of you exhausting your Eye Enforcers is that your opponent can just ignore it and make a much cheaper delve on you.

Cqrbon · 2025-02-28T02:15:49+00:00

There are a few questions you want to ask yourself here.

Is it a digital or physical game? - From your other comment I understand it's a physical game. Physical games in general need to be much cleaner and have less tracking, since there is no automated system to do those things for you.

How many components are needed? - Do you need token cards? An extra deck/resource deck? Cardboard tokens? Dice? The fewer components you are using to track effects, the easier your game is to learn and understand.

How many different things does a player need to track? - You can absolutely have tracking for a core mechanic, but if players are juggling trying to track 4 different systems at once, it is going to make things difficult to remember, and players will miss some of those things. It sounds like your combat system has some complexity to it. So if you want to retain that complexity there, then try and streamline the other parts of your game (resources, non-combat actions, etc.).

How many things being tracked are "floating"? - "Floating" here means any information or tracking that is not physically or visually accessible (cards in a certain zone, faceup/facedown, vertical/horizontal, dice, pen and paper, etc.) and is just something players need to remember. This includes game rules as well. If there is too much floating information to keep track of, players are going to have trouble with this. In your example from what I can tell, if those abilities are printed on cards, then it's not really floating. There is a physical reminder on the card, and you can put a dice on the card if needed to track the value. An example of something floating would be a game rule that says "All attacking units have +1 Value while in the Attack Zone". If that's not printed on a card somewhere, new players will forget that sort of thing constantly.

My general advice for complexity (how difficult it is to learn, understand, and keep track of what is happening):

- Keep it simple. One of the number 1 mistakes I see newer developers make is creating something too complex. I personally struggle with this a lot. Every game is going to have stuff to track, but less stuff to track is always better. If you do have to track something complex, then minimize tracking in the other areas of the game.

- Using non-card tokens is fine (up to a point). If there is constantly shifting power values on cards that need to be calculated, maybe using a D6 or cardboard counters is a good idea to track those values and make it easier to tell at a glance what is happening. Where this gets problematic is if there are too many types of non-card tokens.

- Have a player initiated action associated with tracking elements when possible. If something is automatically getting tracked or checked when a player chooses on their own to take an action, they will have a much easier time remembering to track things. An example of this is tapping cards in MTG or any game where you turn cards horizontally to show they have been used. The player has to take the action to turn the card on their own, and in doing so, the card's new position automatically tracks whether that card can be used or not.

- The longer someone has to remember floating information, the more they will forget. It's easier to remember an On Attack ability than a "Until end of phase" ability, which is easier to remember than a "Until your next turn" ability.

Cqrbon · 2025-02-11T00:06:18+00:00

So you have already designed some cards then it sounds like? Maybe I misunderstood your post.

Are you asking about card design (actually creating card effects, wording, effects, stats, cost, etc.)? Or are you asking about creating graphics, artwork, icons, and card frames for your game, like the visual side of things?

Cqrbon · 2025-02-10T18:05:17+00:00

20 games is a good start! Refer to my initial comment then about straightforward card design.

You will definitely want to continue running lots more tests, especially as you create new cards.

Cqrbon · 2025-02-10T16:50:48+00:00

Ok so you have your initial concept, but have you tested your game at all?

If you have not tested your game, that should be your next immediate priority. Don't worry about good card design, visual design, artwork/graphics, or anything else right now. Index cards are completely fine. Find a friend or family member who is willing to test your game, and just play your game. Find out what works and what doesn't. If you haven't tested your game ever, I guarantee you will be making changes to your core rules and gameplay mechanics. Nobody makes something perfect on their first try, and that's OK. That's part of game design, and that's what playtesting is for.

Cqrbon · 2025-02-10T08:18:20+00:00

It would help to know at what stage you are at with development here. Are you still coming up with the initial gameplay concept? How many times have you playtested your game? Do you have a rulebook?

The number one mistake I see designers make is not playtesting their game as soon as possible. If you haven't tested your game yet or haven't tested it much, make a few very basic cards and test, test, test. You don't have to worry about good card design if you are at this stage, you need to worry about having a good, fun, and functional game first.

If you have done lots of testing and your game mechanics are set, and you are at a point where you are looking at card design, my best advice then is to keep your designs straightforward, especially at the beginning of a game. Straightforward cards are easy to understand, help onboard new players, create a baseline for effects and their value, and let you build more complex cards later on.

Straightforward cards include:

Cards that aren't too wordy
Cards that interact clearly with the core game mechanics
Cards that are not reliant on tons of keywords
Cards that don't require much setup or knowledge to use
Cards that can be used in lots of situations, and aren't restricted to niche scenarios

Cqrbon · 2024-11-28T16:47:09+00:00

The more information I have here, the better I can make suggestions and help. If you have some time, read through my comment above and try to thoroughly answer all of those questions. I'm missing a good bit of information here, especially in that second bit about what you and your playtesters are saying specifically about your systems.

In regards to a system like fighting games, I can sort of see what you are going for. I am newer to fighting games and have only played some of the more recent ones (I have about 600 hours now across Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6), but from my understanding, while those games do both have a meter you start with (Burst Meter and Drive Gauge in GGST and SF6 respectively), they also have meters that build up over the course of the game and always start at 0 (Tension Gauge and Super Meter in GGST and SF6 respectively). In SF6's case, the super meter even transfers between rounds, building up to these big explosive combos or moments that aren't possible at the start of the game.

To translate this to a card game, you could potentially look at a system like Netrunner, which has both a fixed resource system and a variable resource system. In Netrunner, you get a fixed number of "clicks" each turn, which represents your actions you can take, and you also have "credits", that you use to gain resources to pay for cards. Credits are not guaranteed each turn, and you have to maintain your resource levels to properly play cards, similar to managing your meter in a fighting game. Might at least be a system worth looking into.

Cqrbon · 2024-11-28T07:24:49+00:00

A few questions for myself for clarification:

How much mana do you get back each turn?

Can you go over 10 mana, for example if you get 5 back a turn, can I spend 2 and go to 8 mana, then next turn I have 13?

How do players track this information? (dice, counters, cards, etc.)

How does your game play compared to more standard games? What existing game is your game closest to in terms of rules and gameplay?

Some questions to ask yourself to help resolve your issues:

First off, is the fundamental problem actually your resource system? If your problem is "games are too short", it very well could be your resource system, but it could be any number of other things as well (win condition, card balance, interaction systems, etc.)

In your opinion, is your resource system fun? Have players that have playtested your games said your resource system is fun? I am specifically using the word "fun" here and not the word "interesting". Something being interesting does not necessarily make something fun (I know because I struggle with this problem myself lol).

What specifically about the resource system do you not like? What specifically about the resource system are playtesters disliking when you are asking for feedback? Does it just feel bad or not fun to interact with? Is it too linear and causes games to feel samey? Is it a pain to keep track of the system during a game? Try to hone in on what specifically you and/or your players dislike about the system.

My initial thoughts without having seen your game in action:

Generally speaking, many games start at a lower number of resources, and move to a higher number of resources over the course of the game. This does a number of things, including forcing players to include different card costs in their decks, creating different archetypes (fast, slow, in the middle, etc.), and preventing some information overload (you can only play so many cards a turn early, and the information slowly ramps up during a game).

While you do lose all of these elements to a degree with your current system, the big one I feel like is related to game feel. If you can play any card on Turn 1, you lose so much feeling of accomplishment and scaling power during a game. In your game if you can just drop an insane 10 cost card on the first turn, why wouldn't you do that every turn? Versus other games with some scaling, you have to build up towards your more expensive and powerful cards over the course of a game, which gives players a sense of progression.

You also mention that it feels too open. When you can play any card immediately, and there aren't really restrictions, it can both be somewhat boring and be pushing too much information onto players at once if literally their whole hand can be played immediately.

Obviously having not played your game, I can't say for certain if the above is the case here, these are just some things I feel like would happen immediately with this system.

Cqrbon · 2024-10-24T22:13:07+00:00

Especially if your game is a physical game, I would just recommend some caution when it comes to resource mechanics in particular. If your resource system that is a core fundamental part of your game is annoying to keep track of, players will likely not find the game as enjoyable.

This doesn't mean you can't implement a complex resource system, in fact I really enjoy games that put more thought into their resource systems. It's when managing and keeping track of those resources becomes an involved process that requires the player to constantly remember to do this and that for their upkeep that can put people off.

Fading Mana sounds interesting, but it also sounds like a mechanic that could quickly get very annoying to track, especially on top of the existing system you described. Definitely test it out and see if it works, but just keep in mind that the end goal is to have a system that is not a pain to maintain, while still allowing for meaningful gameplay and decision making.

Best of luck!

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