I wonder if it would be worth it to try adapting old fashioned card solitaire found on everyone's computer into a solo adventure game (dungeon, space, zombie, whatever)? I'm a little intrigued by the overall mechanics of it and feel like more could be done with it. Or has this been already?
Would it be worth it?
Sun, 06/16/2013 - 10:12
Sun, 06/16/2013 - 13:05
#1
How?
How?
Mon, 06/17/2013 - 15:23
#3
Definitely possible
And I've thought of the same thing a while back. Because I don't have any real designer (game) friends and my brother and sister were younger than me, I created a lot of solitaire games.
I've contemplated a solo adventure RPGish game with cards, something like solitaire, for a single player. Every card in the deck had variations and with a 54 card deck, there were enough cards for a 5-10 minute game after going through the whole deck. Different classes of cards like traps, monsters/foes, locations, weapons and treasures can all be had within 54 cards. Every game would have it's own variation of an adventure.
The issues I came across were;
- When is the adventure really over? Answer: Never. When you've finished the 54 cards, that journey ended but the saga always continued. You would need to track your exploits via standard RPG sheets. So that when you picked up again after a day or two, you just continued from where you left off.
- Do you set a true goal, or is it more survival? And if so, how to implement into the card game
- balance ...as it was pointed out
Developing a game like this would mean literally playing while creating it. Choose your own adventure, if you will, while live editing along the way. Sooooooo cool, but a pain to even go about sorting paths, balance of categories and the most important part... the fun factor. Theme is theme, it can always skin the mechanics.
Also, can you double up a deck and play 2 or more adventurers? These are the things that are hindering my dive into this interesting topic. I'd be more than happy to hear what you've got so far and where you're taking this idea. We may be able to help each other overcome obstacles in the quest for the ultimate solitaire adventure card game.
Tue, 06/18/2013 - 17:10
#4
It's cool to see that someone
It's cool to see that someone else has had similar notions about using the card solitaire game mechanic. I wasn't thinking of a campaign style game but since it was brought up there could possibly be multiple decks that lead down different paths (forest, wastelands, oceans, etc). The end result after completing one deck could determine which deck is picked up next. This process could circle around decks until a specific deck with a higher difficulty level is beaten which allows the player to move to the final deck and defeat the boss or what have you.
My own vision didn't necesarily have to be combative in nature. I'm more partial to a design that involves collecting objects in order to thwart an obstacle or accomplish an objective. Something like putting ingredients over a recipe to complete it could be an objective. Take it one step further by using that recipe to satisfy a customer. There are lots of possiblities.
Adding a second deck for a second player could certainly add some dimension. It could potentially work as both a cooperative or competitive game with two people working on the same card layout with two different decks.
Wed, 06/19/2013 - 00:54
#5
Great minds think alike
I wasn't thinking of a campaign style game but since it was brought up there could possibly be multiple decks that lead down different paths (forest, wastelands, oceans, etc). The end result after completing one deck could determine which deck is picked up next.
A deck per quest, or path. I like that idea. The cherry on top would be that decks can be skipped to based on triggers in other decks. That way each deck(location) or half deck(task/adventure) can lead you to may other challenges. Every game played has a different flow of events, giving the player a sense of randomness. That's how I initially see it any way.
My own vision didn't necesarily have to be combative in nature. I'm more partial to a design that involves collecting objects in order to thwart an obstacle or accomplish an objective.
Like a Tomb Raider or Raider's of the lost concept. Or more like Mist; problem solving to further the adventure. I think I see where you're going with this. It's the Journey Man's game, not necessarily the Rogue Warrior Quest. I like where that is going. Challenges are more obstacle based. Limits to items carried, combining items to free space and save time. Exchanging items for other items in case shit... we know how it is.
Definitely my type of solitaire adventure card game. Could be a whole new sub-sub genre of ACG. Solo (solitair) Card Games. Make it happen man.
Wed, 06/19/2013 - 16:41
#6
Spider Solitaire
Perhaps you should consider the Spider Solitaire variety, if 'hold' cards are something you want to incorporate. This way you can see the whole card layout, and know which path you wish to go down, but getting there is still a challenge. This would be an interesting idea, and I'd love to see your progress on it. I enjoy most variety of solitaire, and having a dungeon crawl/Myst adventure in this vein would be novel.
When I wrote the above post I didn't have any real specifics worked out yet-just a rough idea on how the mechanic could possibly be used. Now that I've put a little more thought into it I think I have a decent example of how it could work.
For this example the player is a wizard and there are various creatures to vanquish. The deck is composed of creatures and ingredients to make spells that defeat those creatures. The layout is the same as traditional solitaire and the deck is cycled through three cards at a time. When ever a creature card is turned up it must be placed in front of one of the stacks and stays there until that creature is defeated. To defeat a creature ingredient cards needed to complete the spell are placed on the creature card and once the all the ingredients are assembled over that creature it has been vanquished and can be taken off along with the ingredient cards and put onto a stack of that army. Naturally play continues until all creatures are gone or until no ingredient cards can be played.
This is a pretty simple example and pretty much doesn't use the suites used in normal solitaire. It would be easy to add things like assembling ingrediants to make a spell that allows you to move a creature which would give you access to ingredients that is was blocking.
Balancing thin one could be a pain.