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Element, heroes, monsters oh my...TCG themed card game idea

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jedite1000
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Me again, i wanted to create a new thread because the topic is different from my last one so here it goes

I'm still doing the 8bit or 16bit card designs but i like to leave that till later, so here is my idea i have so far and need some help with it

All ideas can change down the row so this is not set in stone so here is what i have

It is still a tcg or a collectable card game, haven't decided, anyway...

It is a 1v1 player vs player, as its how i like to play card games

I was thinking of sticking to a theme deck direction so only certain cards will work with some cards, I want both players to have a core card, let's say it an element card so cards like fire, ice, earth etc. I haven't decided what to do with this card if its just a representation of the deck the player is using or i use it in gameplay like the cores have a special ability or even a passive ability that activates each turn or something....again still deciding

My next card type is the hero card. i haven't got all the details on this yet but i was thinking this card is the actual player's life points, in addition, the hero cards do not have an element so they can be used in any deck. I haven't fully thought on how i can use this card in combat, but i was thinking of having an upgrade feature on this card so during the game the hero card somehow gains XP and once it gets a certain amount it changes into a stronger hero with a new card design. I was thinking to do this twice so the hero can upgrade 2 times. But i also ran into a problem, since this is a deck building game, you will need to have the 3 cards in your deck but what happens if you don't have the required cards so your hero will be weaker than the opponent if that player has the 3 hero cards.

Also there is another problem as to why you want to upgrade the heroes, what purpose do they have in gameplay, can they go into play when needed and actually battle or would they remain in the sidelines while your monster cards do all the battling.

Which brings me to the monster cards or minion cards, these cards are the battlers and they are restricted to the theme of your deck so only fire monsters can be used in a fire deck. What do i do with these monsters, do they have special effects or are they just fodder for the grinder, like meat shields to protect your hero. Should the hero have special abilities or should they have no abilities and just have an attack and hp while your monsters are the effects.

And the last type of cards is the spell or equipment cards. Should i have them placed on the field which affects the monsters or should they be quick play types of cards, like counter cards and one use only cards etc.

So that is what i have so far. I think in my opinion having a theme type deck is the way to go, even though the players have less freedom on customizing their own deck, i want the players feel like the deck is a part of themselves like my fire burn deck will destroy your fire explosion deck. See what i did there? even though both players have a fire deck, they have different types of fire cards, one is using only fire monsters that will damage the opponent's monsters over time while the other is straight out aggressive and plan to kill the opponent quickly

jedite1000
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Example of the minion card,

Example of the minion card, this is not the design im going for i just quickly made it as a template to see where everything goes

https://i.imgur.com/3RVwUNt.jpg

let-off studios
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Control Points, etc.

One easy way to pit two forces against one another would be to have one or more Control Points on the field. Teams earn points for occupying these Control Points, and perhaps a team earns an automatic victory for holding all Control Points at the same time, lasting out the round/turn.

Another classic is Capture the Flag. Two or more teams have a protected flag, each in different areas. The objective is to earn points by collecting an opposing team's flag and returning it to your own flag area, while not losing your own team's flag.

There are other ideas, including a face-off 1-v-1 Battle. The advantage of the previous two scenarios is that it's not just about military might and higher numbers required to win. There's a more interesting situation because you're trying to achieve an objective, but fighting isn't the only way to win. Maybe you're sneaky, or you're faster. Maybe you have better equipment, maybe you have a massive unstoppable tank, or maybe you have swarms of smaller, weaker units at your disposal.

Each of these traits could provide a pathway to victory, and it's up to the player to effectively deploy their units and - in your case - maximize the hand they are dealt.

Best of success with your design project. :)

jedite1000
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Don't think there is any

Don't think there is any other way to win in my game other than reducing players life points to 0. But there could be different battle styles to do it such as a swarm of small units or a unstoppable tank like you suggested

I don't really want to over complicate things, I don't like to use complicated mechanics so the game needs to be easy to learn like back in the day yugioh was easy to learn but now with all these synchro, xyz, pendulum and link mechanics I just don't bother with the game anymore

So the capture the flag and control point mechanics, I'll leave it out. My favourite card games has always just been a classic 1v1 monster battles like magic and classic yugioh. However it doesn't stop me from creating cards that can surprise an opponent such as a card that can bypass the monsters and attack directly at the player (hero card)

Speaking of hero cards I might just remove that type and have the element core card the players life points instead

let-off studios
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Very Well

Follow Your Bliss, And Good Luck To You.

questccg
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Not 100% certain...

But is your game idea anything like "Sorcerer"???

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1172937197/sorcerer-1

I think you were thinking only one (1) card to customize. Rob's game has DECKS of cards which you choose to form your character.

Maybe I'm way off too -- I just read "core" and "elements" and it reminded me of "Sorcerer" with the character, lineage and domain decks.

Check it out... It can maybe give you more ideas!

questccg
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Not 100% certain... again

Another game that might be "closer" (and probably serves as the inspiration for White Wizard Games "Sorcerer") is "Epic Spell Wars Battle Wizards: Duel Mt. Skullzfyre". Here is the website link:

https://www.cryptozoic.com/games/epic-spell-wars-battle-wizards-duel-mt-...

In this game you are trying to assemble three (3) card melds to produce interesting and various types of attacks against your opposing Wizards.

It's probably more "accurate" than "Sorcerer" since White Wizard Game's version is Decks, whereas "Epic Spell Wars..." is a card by card basis.

Again just thinking about the "Hero" + "Element" + "something..." types of attacks and battling.

Check it out. Cheers!

let-off studios
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Seconded

I agree that Epic Spell Wars would be a good game to check out. It's quick and messy and flashy and has back and forth battling with lots of goofyness and drama.

jedite1000
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Element and core is just a

Element and core is just a coincidence, I never heard of any games you have mentioned. The word core will most likely change once that card type has a proper purpose

questccg
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Then you should check them out!

jedite1000 wrote:
...I never heard of any games you have mentioned...

I'm just suggesting you take a look into those games - because they seem to have the type of gameplay you "might" be looking for.

BTW whatever happened to the Super Heroes Game?!

Have you created a prototype for that game? Done any playtests outside your friends & family?? Sure looked like something you seemed "passionate" to be working on... Be curious to know your progress and how that design has been treating you!

Cheers.

jedite1000
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Yeah the super hero I was

Yeah the super hero I was passionate about it at first but had to stop as the Direction it was going I didn't like. I guess I let everyone have too much power in suggesting what I should and shouldn't have which led to a lot of changes and I didn't end up liking it in the end

I guess that was my fault as I wanted everyone's approval and wanted everyone to be happy with it

I'll check out the other games you mentioned though

jedite1000
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Just thought of a good idea,

Just thought of a good idea, well, the good idea for me which hopefully makes my game more unique.

OK as i said before you construct a deck around a theme, whether its fire monsters or ice monsters whatever. And here is where i came up with how i can use the element core cards. (Well there is probably a mechanic like this already out there but if so i didn't get it from that game, it is pure coincidence. Here it goes

the cores are renamed to gems (might think of something better later but gems for now)

There is a fire, water, earth, air gems, whatever elements are out there, they will become a gem. So you have 5 gem cards on the field and you can have whatever element you want in your deck, so you can have a fire gem and a water gem card have monsters of that type in your deck (I might reduce the number of gems if i need to, though having only 2 element gems would be too much like magic since a lot of people like to play with a dual type deck)

Well here is how they work, each gem card has an effect, so let's say a fire gem has the ability burn, when your fire monsters attack, the enemy takes extra damage or something like that). And this is how you win the game. if a monster dies on your field that is the same element as the gem, then the gem will lose a life. so let's say for an example the gem cards have 5 lives, if 5 of your monsters that belong to that gem dies, then that gem card is destroyed and you won't be able to play any monsters of that element type.

It's a working progress still, there could be cards that can bring the gems back to life or something, but once all of your gems have been destroyed you lose the game

Fri
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Some things to consider

If I was to play the game what would prevent me from only deploying the number of monsters cards that is one less than the number of lives for that gem? For example if I have a blue gem with 5 lives I only ever deploy 4 blue creatures my opponent will never be able to destroy that gem and thusly I could make every game into a long drawn out tie. (I guess the obvious answer is no one would ever want to play the game with me)

Also can you have gems that are the same color but different abilities with possibly a different number of lives? Like blue draw an extra card 3 lives and blue do something less useful 5 lives.

jedite1000
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Yeah I ran into that problem

Yeah I ran into that problem too, if no monsters are on your field, the opponent is free to attack the gems once per turn until you play more monsters.

I also thought about different abilities of the same coloured gems, but haven't decided what to do with that yet, if people only like fire type monsters then there should be like 5 different red gems, the gems need to be element related such as fire has burn effect or ice has freeze effect ect

Fri
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Generlized catagories

Good solution

You could generalize categories make red warmth and blue coldness. So it would be easier to come up with sub categories that would be related. MTG did this with their mana colors.

http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Color

jedite1000
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Oh that's cool, I don't think

Oh that's cool, I don't think the monsters would have any special effects, I'll leave that for the gems, though haven't decided. Though don't want the game to be to static and plain if there are no effects to turn the game around. Then again I don't want players to take too long reading monster effects.

FrankM
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Limited differentiation of monsters

You could give the monsters some simple traits and various gems could interact with those traits.

"Cuniculus"
EARTH GEM
Allows any Earth monster with [claw icon] to burrow.
When a monster is declared as burrowing it goes underground and cannot attack this turn. It can only defend this turn if the attacking opponent monster is also burrowing.
NEXT TURN the burrowing monster can attack a chosen opponent gem or monster directly bypassing all non-burrowing defenders. The Earth monster then returns to the surface and acts normally.

"Virtus Urinor"
AIR GEM
Allows any Air monster with [wing icon] to attack dive.
When a monster attack dives at an opponent monster, all damage is realized before the opponent has a chance to counterattack. If the target is killed, the attack diving monster takes no damage.

Just a thought. It might make more sense to keep the monsters completely undifferentiated.

jedite1000
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Good idea, however I'm

Good idea, however I'm curious how many monsters of that element type will have that effect though. Since the gems would most likely come with one ability only, and I dont really want to have effect texts on the monsters. But as suggested before I could have multiple gems of the same type but different effects and I guess only some monsters have that burrow trait as I don't want all earth monsters to have that trait

But also leaves me with a problem that I can't mix and match monsters, it is a deck building game, like why would I need any other earth monsters that doesn't have the burrow trait in my deck. I like the monster trait but I want to have a mix of different earth monsters with different traits, I could have 5 earth gems with different traits on them then I can match the traits with the monsters, but then it limits the customization of creating a deck

jedite1000
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With an update on my progress

With an update on my progress so far

So the cards types will most likely include in the game (still can change)

So far gems i have come up with (I will give the gems a proper name when they are completed so right now its just gem 1,2,3 ect)

Card Name / Health / Trait / Effect

Eart Gem 1 / 10 / Shield / dunno yet
Earth Gem 2 /5 / Borrow / I like the effect you came up with
Fire Gem 1 / 3 / Burn / Allows any Fire monster with [fire ball] to have burned. When a monster attacks a target enemy monster, that monster loses ½ a heart
Fire Gem 2 / ? / ? / dunno yet
Ice Gem 1 / 4 / Freeze / dunno yet
Ice Gem 2 / 5 / Razor ice / dunno yet
Toxic Gem 1/ 5 / Poison / dunno yet

I have come up with another card, these are high-level monster cards but are a different type and ill call them hero cards

Basically, these hero cards have no affiliation with the elements so you can use them in any theme deck. The cards will have an effect on their own and a trait or class. the classes could be a warrior, assassin, thief, mage etc and the only way to play these cards is with XP, XP is a new resource system i added, the way to acquire XP is if you kill a monster on the field. so let's say a hero cost 1000 XP, you will need to kill 2 element monsters on the field each grant 500 XP when slain.

Next card is the element monster cards which i explained before, they require the correct element gem to play. however just so these monsters are not too restricted, you can use the monsters even if you don't have the same gem trait as the monster. So let's say you have an earth gem with a shield trait, you then play a earth monster with the burrow trait. You wont be able to use the shield or even the burrow trait effects with the monster but since its still the same element type as the gem, it can still be played

Next card types are the activation cards

these are just your common typical cards like heath potion, spell books ect. just to help you in your game, once these cards are played they are discarded

Uncomfirmed card type.
I came up with another card type while i came up with the hero cards, since i discarded the hero cards i got rid of the idea but since i brought the hero cards back after coming up with a better way to use them, i was thinking of having an upgrade system for the hero cards

So with enough xp you can upgrade your hero card to a more powerful version of it, which you will still need to have the required cards so you will need the upgraded hero cards in your deck also so when you have enough you can spend your xp to upgrade your hero already on the field and you dont have to have the upgraded card in your hand, you can just search your deck for the right card, or i can have a side deck instead where all the upgraded heroes are there instead

That is what ive came up with so far, what do you think?

jedite1000
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Rough template of the monster

Rough template of the monster type cards, its not finished but this is what i have so far

https://i.imgur.com/ukak6xD.jpg

Its just the template and the attack/ heart icons, the creature and creature background is just filler

jedite1000
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What do you guys think,

What do you guys think, should I have more combat stats on creatures or is that too complicated. I had an idea and it's something like this.

Right now the combat is hearts and attack. So let's say my monster has 2 hearts and your monster has 2 swords. You will win the combat, but let's say what if monsters have different types of attacks.

So here is an example of the different combat stats

Sword icon is melee physical combat
Bow icon is a range physical combat
Energy ball icon is a magic combat attack

And here you can defend from it

Heart icons is monster life, has not change once it has no more hearts its dead
Shield icon is to defend against physical attacks and must deplete the shields before you can attack the hearts
Energy barrier icon is the same as shield but for magic attacks

So what if you have 2 hearts and 2 shields and I attack with a magic attack, well I can attack your hearts since shield doesn't block magic attacks

You think that makes the combat more diverse, or just stick with basic attack and hearts icon

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