Creating your own card game

[krooton]

Has anyone on here created their own, or been part of creating a card game?

I have started work on an idea I had about 20 years ago, and have created an initial play-test deck and had a game with a mate.

A lot of learnings and tweaking from just that one session, and a long way to go until even thinking about printing a prototype with proper artwork and whatnot.

It is a dueling game that comes with a fair bit of stat/buff/debuff tracking and a number of dice rolls, which doesn't make for the smoothest gameplay, but the idea would be if I can getting decent working proof of concept, to look at creating an app version where the dice rolls and counter monitoring can all be done instantly and behind the scenes by the game engine.

Any experiences anyone would like to share?

 

[JeditOjanen]

Nope. However, Donald X Vaccarino has written extensively on the development process for Dominion. You can find a three part interview with him at dominionstrategy.com and the Secret History articles covering individual cards on BoardGameGeek.

 

[HippoTank]

Love card games, what sort though? A deckbuilding game? Random draft? How many cards are you looking to have in one set?

 

[Haze]

Look on kickstarter at projects, can be quite good to see how they progressed or failed, and the content in the games ect

 

[krooton]

Love card games, what sort though? A deckbuilding game? Random draft? How many cards are you looking to have in one set?

Deck-building PVP battler.

Current state is 129 cards per player, but that is because you can have different builds for your character.

The basic 'Arena' game type works somewhat similar to an RPG.

You have 4 attributes, and you get a number of points you can put in to upgrading them. Each attribute has a core stat (so upgrading 'Body' increases your max HP) as well as secondary stats if you max (or leave it at min).

Once you have done that, you have a number of upgrade choices for your character, such as Cyberware slots, or learning schools of magic.

Body and Head Cyberware can be upgraded from lvl 1 to 3, and have passive effects.
Arm Cyberware are various weapons, which give you access to specific offensive cards.
Magic schools (also lvl 1 to 3) give you access to cards from the different elements (Offensive/Defensive/Buff/Debuff/Heal/Cleanse), and if you get one of them to lvl 3, you also get access to an elemental ultimate card.

Once you have done that, it determines what cards you have as part of your deck (everyone starts of with basic gear and action cards).

Then you shuffle your deck, draw 8 cards, and the game begins.

Each round has up to 6 stages, which play out in order. Each card costs 1 stage, apart from an elemental ultimate which costs 3. So you can play up to 6 normal cards, or 1 ult and 3 normal cards, or 2 ults, in a single round.

You stage your cards in order, without knowing what the other player has staged, then you go stage by stage, rolling initiative to see whose card plays first for that stage.

This is what adds to the replayability as how your staged cards play out have an element of RNG to them, sometimes if you had played an offensive card a stage earlier, you would have got a hit in before your opponent plays a defensive or buff card.

 

[Droolinggimp]

Wouldnt having a initiative number on the cards be better than rolling each round/turn, so for example, a powerful card which I assume would be a 3 stage card would have a low initiative so goes last..? give the player agency on whether or not to play a powerful card fist or not..

 

[Cooler running]

I personally started coding up a card game once. It's not too difficult if you start with a console like application then slowly add art, sound and graphics.

The main difficulty is coming up with mechanics which age well instead of being a once-and-done kind of ordeal. That and having the motivation to fiddle around for 1000+hours.

 

[krooton]

Wouldnt having a initiative number on the cards be better than rolling each round/turn, so for example, a powerful card which I assume would be a 3 stage card would have a low initiative so goes last..? give the player agency on whether or not to play a powerful card fist or not..

The 'initiative per stage' is what allows for some more of the exciting RNG moments, and you have things that modify it, like having a high Reflexes stat or a Cyberware passive, as well as some debuffs lowering your initiative.

I have set it up in a way that your stat distribution means focusing heavily in one area gimps you in another. So maxing Reflexes might see you winning the majority of initiative rolls, however you are going to have to have very low HP or Essence if that is the case (like how Glass Cannon builds work.)

We have done a few more playthroughs and have tweaked how Accuracy works (missing was hugely annoying and anti-fun), so now every attack always hits (unless specific buffs/debuffs are in play), and Accuracy impacts the effectiveness of your Crit Damage.

 

[Droolinggimp]

Ok Sounds good and well thought through. Have you thought about blind play testing yet? If you want I could test it with my gaming friends. We have a group who plays lots of games and will love to try this out.

 

[krooton]

Ok Sounds good and well thought through. Have you thought about blind play testing yet? If you want I could test it with my gaming friends. We have a group who plays lots of games and will love to try this out.

Cheers, think it'll need a good few playthroughs yet, but once I am happy with it in general, I can send you the Magic Set Editor file

 

[Droolinggimp]

Awesome, look forward to it