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Evolving monsters Card game

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jedite1000
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I have no name for this game yet so ill call it evolving monsters for now

After playing a Digimon game on PS4 i came up with another card game, i thought, maybe i can come up with a card game that you can evolve monster. I also checked out the old Digimon TCG to get some inspiration, and i have come up with a basic format.

The card game is a mix of Digimon but also i added some dragon ball super TCG elements to it too and this is what i have come up with

There are 4 monster evolution types, Novice, Heroic, Epic, and Legendary (names are pending so i might change the evolution types down the road)

Your main monster card is a Novice type, this is your starting card, it stays on the field for the whole game and it is placed on the field before the game starts

There is a difference between this card and the evolution cards which ill explain later.

Just like Digimon, the monster's evolution is branched, meaning you can evolve a monster to different cards and you can keep evolving your card to its max level

Each monster has an atk and def score, i decided to go with the 4 digit score instead of a 2 or 3 digit score.

The Novice monster comes with an hp bar and all novice monsters have the same hp bar, once the monster's bar reaches 0 the game is over

Here is an example of a Novice monster card. My monster is named blue balls he has 10 hp and his attack is 1000 and his defense is 2000, how is it possible that a monster with 10 hp has 2000 defense points? well when you attack, you do 1000 to your opponent they lose 1000 points and they now have 1000 points left on their defense, that defense remains at the score unless that monster evolves or you use an item to heal the defense. Now, opponent has ended their turn without doing anything and their monsters defence is still at 1000, so i attack on my turn and that monster becomes defence become 0 and with that, their monster now receives 1 point of damage from their hp, now it is the opponents turn again and their defence is recharged back to 2000.

So as you see, you need to decrease your opponent's defense to be able to do actual damage to their monster. You might be wondering, how would i see the hp if i evolve my novice monster since the evolved cards do not have an hp bar, well the solution is, when you evolve to a new monster you place the new monster a little bit forward just enough to see the hp bar at the bottom of the novice card.

So how does dragon ball super mechanic fit into this game? well so you don't waste any cards in your hand since you can only have 1 monster on the field, on your turn, you can place any card in your hand into your energy field upside down, you can use this to attack, evolve monsters, and use items, the cards won't require too much energy to use so you won't need to worry about not able to do anything on your turn due to no energy.

Another element i might use from DBS game is the effect names, such as auto, critical, double strike etc etc, but ill name it differently.

So the evolved monsters will have an effect but because of the effect names, i can save some text space and not overcrowd it with a bunch of text effects. So that is all i have so far. What do you think?

I've posted my thought process so you can see how i come up with things, you probably won't understand what is going on but ill just post it anyway

I dont know what art syple my characters should be as i only have 1 type of style when i draw, so i may or may not get a professional artist to draw my creatures

jedite1000
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Any tips?

Any tips?

Also, it is a little early to think about it but i want to actually come up with the names of my creatures first, just so i can move ahead and i can start creating the monster evolution branches

I kind of want it to be similar to Digimon where each Digimon name ends with mon, but i cant have that in my game so i need something similar.

So something maybe to do with the word evolution or something..

jedite1000
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What about tron? does

What about tron? does evolutron mean anything? is it really a thing?

all my monster names can end in tron, like dinotron, mastertron, blueballtron etc etc

Evolutrons kind of sound like a neat title, unless something like that already exists

let-off studios
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Cart Before Horse

You ought to com up with a functional game prior to worrying about art style and names, flavor text, and so on.

If you're happy with conducting thought experiments and concocting "what if?" scenarios, then sure you can prioritize art and creature names. That's the fun part for a lot of people when it comes to creative projects. You won't need a game at all in that case, so it can stay a low priority.

But although it sounds interesting, it's not a game yet. If you really want to develop a game from this idea of yours, I suggest you focus on the evolution and competition mechanics you discuss in previous posts. Create a prototype (either physical or TTS), with placeholder artwork and names, and test it over and over. Art and creature names - which really have no bearing on how the game you describe plays out - can be finalized and decided on once you have a kickass, functional dueling game to which you can apply them.

jedite1000
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Yeah guess I can test it on

Yeah, guess I can test it on ttsits first even though the character names and evolution forms won't make sense since they will have random names. Would you be interested in testing on tts when I have it up?


For testing purpose getting ready to add cards to TTS, I created a quick mock up, the image is from the internet and will be used for testing purposes and not on the final product


I ran into a little problem, for testing purposes i have to come up with the characters such as the gatortron card i posted, however these are not the real names when i do eventually produce the cards, the names are just for the testing, however, branching the evolutions are harder than i thought since i am doing it a certain way. Here are 2 ways i can go about it, which do you think is preferred?

The Digimon way, just like Digimon, each evolution branch can have the same evolution line. For example, Agumon is a rookie Digimon, it can digivolve to greymon and meramon and another rookie such as candlemon can digivolve to meramon too. Doing it like this is a little harder and requires more work since i have to remember which rookie Digimon (the novice in my game) can digivolve into which monster

The other way is much easier and only requires my imagination, each rookie (novice) Digimon each have their own branched evolution line, so my novice monster cant evolves into a monster than another novice monster can evolve into. Hope that makes sense

The Digimon way requires more thinking while the other way requires more imagination such as more character designs.

I know i shouldnt be thinking of design aspects yet but i must have an evolution branch system now instead of later just to make testing go more smoother, even if the character names are just fodder at this point, the games core mechanic must be tested first

questccg
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My design-Style

Personally I prefer examining ALL "facets" of a game – before committing hours to a design for a prototype.

So I'd probably have a general idea of what it is I want to design, I'll go play in Excel and do a Spreadsheet with Crowdfunding forecasts. I'll also want to design some preliminary cards too... Like maybe 4 to 6 cards which give me a better idea about functional aspects of the game.

Like you I like to "explore" my idea. And if your "exploration" consists of figuring out the "names" of your units... That sounds fine and logical to me. Or if you feel you need to "lockdown" your morphing from one unit to another... that to me sounds valid too.

There are all kinds of "aspects" to design and I would explore each of them too... Same with art: I may not order a bunch of art but perhaps one logo or maybe one unit, etc. Just to give me inspiration about what it is that I am trying to achieve...

So I don't think there are any "WRONG" ways of designing. You have your own style and that is okay too... As long as you are "fleshing" out more aspects of your idea and making it with rules and sets about what it is your idea is all about – go right ahead an "explore"!

Cheers...

jedite1000
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Yeah true, people design

Yeah true, people design differently and they do it in different phases

im gonna be typing the draft rules today and post it here, i already created some draft cards for testing on tts

jedite1000
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Here is a rough draft of the

Here is a rough draft of the rules

EVOLUTRONS CARD GAME (NAME PENDING) Draft rules
Evolutrons is a 2 player card game about evolving your main creature card to become the strongest creature in the game

Each creature card has a level tier that increases its stats everytime you evolve it.
The tiers are (the names are a place holder and might change)
Novice
Heroic
Epic
Legend

Novice card is the first card you start with and it is placed on the field at the start of the game, the novice cards come with an extra thing called HP, this is your creatures life points, once it reaches 0 the game is over. To have a chance at winning you must place the evolved creature onto of the novice card to upgrade its stats. When placing a creature on top of the novice card, you must place it so the novice card's HP is still shown.

Each creature card has a ATK (Attack) and DEF (Defence stat, when you attack the opponent's creature, the opponent's creature loses DEF = to the power of your ATK so if the opponent has 2000 DEF and you have 1000 ATK then the opponent's creature receives 1000 damage and it will be left with 1000 DEF, If your attack is 2000 or more then the opponent's creature Def will become 0 and with that, it will receive 1 damage from their HP. once the def reaches 0 then on the next turn, the creatures def will return to normal and the game continues as normal. The DEF will not go back to normal until it has reached 0.

Energy is another feature in this game, once per turn on your main phase, after you have drawn, you can choose to discard any card in your hand and place it in the energy zone on the field, the energy cards are used for evolving certain creature and using item cards, when you use an energy you must turn in sideways, it then becomes tapped, at the start of your next turn all your energy becomes untapped and can be used again. Cards used for energy cannot use any of it's effects and is just a simple energy resource
Item cards can be used depending on the situation, some item cards can be played on your turn or your opponent's turn, depending on the situation, some item cards have counter on the card, this is used on your opponent's turn and resolves first before anything your opponent does. Item cards require energy to use, so if all of your energy are tapped then you cannot use the item cards.

Evolution is the main feature in this game, If the creature card has the name of the evolved creature on it and you have that creature in your hand, then during your turn you can play the evolved card onto your creature card that is on the field. If a evolved card is already on the creature card then place the new card on top of the already evolved card, it will become the new card you have just placed down. (some evolution requires certain requirements before evolving such as some creatures require energy to evolve) However not all creatures require any other requirements other than the named creature. A feature that is not in the game yet is creature abilities, some creatures have abilities such as the word critical (name pending) which when attacking, the opponent taps 1 energy card) There are other ability words that will be implemented in the future but for now the creatures have no abilities

jedite1000
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So yeah, that is all i have

So yeah, that is all i have so far. anyone able to understand at least the mechanics of the game?

Too simple, too complicated, not enough strategy behind it? anything i could add to make it more strategic without over complicating things?

let-off studios
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Questions

Some things I'm not clear about:

- What's the limit to the number of actions a player can do in a single turn? Can they select only one card to play from hand, one creature to evolve, one item to activate, one energy to invest, etc.? Will they instead have a few, or will you allow them as many as possible?
- Does the defender have any chance to respond to Items being activated? Does the defender respond to anything when it's not their turn?
- Can multiple creatures be summoned, or does each player control a single creature they must evolve?
- Are there abilities or items that affect only Defense, or only Hit Points? If there's no difference between the two, then they shouldn't have separate names.
- If everything goes perfectly smoothly for a player, how long will it take (that is, how many turns are required) for them to win the game?

Fri
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Evolve creatures like card creation in Mystic Vale

Have you played Mystic Vale? In this game you purchase card sections and you can insert up to three sections into the same card sleeve to craft a card. You could implement your creature evolution in a similar vein.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194607/mystic-vale

jedite1000
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let-off studios wrote:Some

let-off studios wrote:
Some things I'm not clear about:

- What's the limit to the number of actions a player can do in a single turn? Can they select only one card to play from hand, one creature to evolve, one item to activate, one energy to invest, etc.? Will they instead have a few, or will you allow them as many as possible?
- Does the defender have any chance to respond to Items being activated? Does the defender respond to anything when it's not their turn?
- Can multiple creatures be summoned, or does each player control a single creature they must evolve?
- Are there abilities or items that affect only Defense, or only Hit Points? If there's no difference between the two, then they shouldn't have separate names.
- If everything goes perfectly smoothly for a player, how long will it take (that is, how many turns are required) for them to win the game?

Still working on it but yeah, there are item cards you can use at any turn depending on what the card is, such as when opponent declares an attack you can use an item such as (shield) if you have the energy for it and if it has the name counter: attack on the card then you can play it, the shield will increase your DEF by a certain amount until the end of turn.

The phases havnt been thought out yet but so far it's only

energy untap phase (if you have energy on the field)
draw phase
main phase (a player can use item card and or evolve their monsters)
opponents can use their counter item cards such as counter: play type cards
battle phase, you attack with your monster (opponent can play counter cards such as counter: attack.
Main phase 2, you can play item cards again in this phase such as an item that lets you de-evolve your cards etc

Haven't decided if i want to have another monster on the field so you can evolve 2 mosnters instead of one, i havnt done any play testing yet so not sure how my game plays right now. I might add that feature in the future as it will make the game more interesting but for now its only 1 monster

jedite1000
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Fri wrote:Have you played

Fri wrote:
Have you played Mystic Vale? In this game you purchase card sections and you can insert up to three sections into the same card sleeve to craft a card. You could implement your creature evolution in a similar vein.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194607/mystic-vale

I heard of a game like that before, using card sleeves to upgrade existing cards, neat idea, however, the game crafter is very limited and i cannot have something like that in the game


Edit:

I have been testing out my game on TTS (by myself playing bothe players) Even though the game play is flowing decently, i believe when the monster evolves it usually attacks straight away which will instantly destroy the DEF on the other players monster if it is a lower level monster due to the attack and defense differences. So i think adding another monster card to your field will make it move a little slower but will be more strategic, and your partner monster is able to block an attack taking the damage instead. I did run into a problem at first but i then decided on something to fix the problem. The problem was having another novice monster with the HP, so i made it instead of needing to wipe out both monsters HP you still only need to wipe out 1 monster's hp, so now you need to think, if this monster only have 1000 DEF left and my opponent is attacking my other monster, should this monster take the damage and risk losing 1 HP or let the opponent attack the other monster.

I could also make it some certain monsters work well with each other so giving them a bonus if they are the same type or something like that

jedite1000
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I've been thinking,

I've been thinking, currently, my novice monsters are currently on the field for the whole game, at the start of the game they are already there and you can then use cards to evolve that monster, they also act as the players life points, there are 2 novice monsters on the field each with 10 hp, if one loses all their hp the game is over. So basically you build a deck around using these 2 novice creatures. What if i remove that part and just have the novice monsters in the deck itself.

So instead of evolving the monster that is already on the field, we have to have that monster in our hand and we can then play that monster and THEN place evolved monsters onto the novice cards. If i do that, however, some mechanic needs to change such as the novice monster's HP needs to be removed and will need to come up with another way to win the game.

the ATK and DEF need to be tweaked a little since once you defeat the monster's DEF to 0, that monster and its previous evolved forms go into the discard pile and the player needs to start again to summon new monsters.

Just trying something out, this new way will make it more like Yugioh though in a way. Or i could just stick with the 2 novice monsters already on the field and remain for the duration of tha game


I guess a way around it would be, at the start of the game draw 10 cards from your deck and place them facedown on the other side of your field, this acts as your life, so whenever your monster's defence reaches 0, you take a card from your life stack and add it to your hand. And instead of 2 novice monsters at the start, as i said before the novice monsters will be in the deck with your other cards and you can have to play them on the field, but you have to play novice creatures first when playing a monster, and the monster zone limit lets say is 5. Do you think that is too much? you think to have 5 monsters on the field at once and they each can evolve into different creatures depending on how you evolve them? would it be too hard to keep track of? since when the monsters are defeated they are not killed they just become rested until your turn and they become active again

jedite1000
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Added some rules to the game,

Added some rules to the game, its just an outline more than a full fledge rulebook

https://imgur.com/a/8zDYw

jedite1000
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Just a quick video of me

Just a quick video of me trying out my game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mID5mJKv0j8&t=16s

I was at a brick wall but have now went over it, still not perfect but a few more testing and tweaks it should be just about ready for the next phase

questccg
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Hand sizes BIG?

Just was wondering if you could "reduce" the hand size to maybe 5 cards. Like on your turn, you may have more than 5 cards... But at the end of your turn you MUST discard until you reach 5 cards...

I'm not sure if this makes sense for your game. It looks cool, you playing it. But I didn't get everything that was happening because I watched it on my phone.

I will take a closer look with my Laptop and Giant Screen... The writing was a bit small and I will need to pause the video in order to read what you write (at some points in the video)... The color and font were very hard to read on my phone...

But whatever you were doing "looked cool". It reminded me of a TCG that @Mosker showed me in another thread: https://www.exodus-cards.com

They use "Energy cards" to power up their "Creatures". I figured I'd share since you too are in the TCG/CCG genre of games. It's different... too! But have a look... Maybe it might give you some ideas.

I'll watch it again... (Your video).

Update: I think the 10 card lifepoint idea is "cool"! Not sure what all the "play card on the table and then discard it..." was all about. I understood if you attack, you draw one (1) card from your lifepoint pile (not sure about the conditions or rules about how this is done).

INSTEAD of "random" 10 cards maybe it's a specific combat-helper deck?!

I would need some more explaining to be done to understand it in better detail.

Again definitely worthwhile pursuing ... I'd work on the hand size.

Some ideas (not sure if this is how it works):

Combat: Play onto the table "Up to 3 cards" from your hand. Use this as "Charging for X points" and then inflict "X points" to reduce defenses to 0 and then deal 1 lifepoint per 1000 points of extra damage.

Is it something like this???

Update #2: If the Lifepoints area was used for "Counter-Strikes" (or Cards with a Grey Border) – And you need 10 of them. They help you and/or hinder your opponent. ONLY "Grey Border" cards can go into your "Lifepoints" pile... We've established ANOTHER type of card used by your game.

Adds to EXPANDABILITY too!

jedite1000
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Thanx, ill keep that in

Thanx, ill keep that in mind.

I plan on reducing the card limit to 6 or something, but as this was a test video on the combat and evolving aspect of things I just ignored the hand limit

play cards I do intend to change, these were just been thought up on the spot, I will have proper activation cards down the road, right now it was the only cards i could think of.

Not sure if I want to change the life point aspect of things before I changed it to that system I hit a huge wall and was trying to figure out how to defeat the opponent and win the game, and with that i was able to move along to other aspects of the game, so i don't want the players to spend too much time searching through their deck to find 10 appropriate cards to be used as life points.

Sorry if the video was too fast and you had to pause the video to read the text, it was kind of intentional because i didn't want the video to go for too long. It was not really a tutorial video it was basically explaining to the viewers what my process is like and what I am thinking of when working out these mechanics.

If you watched carefully when I was playing the game I came up with a new mechanic which wasn't there at the start of the video. It was the whole defence thing because I want players to keep using basic monsters to evolve in to different creatures and it won't be fair when they play a basic creature mid to late game when the opponent already has max level creatures, the basic creature wont stand a chance, so i made it you can defend the little guy until it is strong enough to attack.

questccg
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No need to search...

jedite1000 wrote:
...so i don't want the players to spend too much time searching through their deck to find 10 appropriate cards to be used as life points.

Of course not, it would be a separate 10 card deck. You could store those 10 cards on the TOP of the remaining cards in your deck. Then you just use the top 10 cards and place them into your "Lifepoints" area.

Or maybe those types of cards have a DIFFERENT "Card Back" (another example).

Update: I was just trying to give your game a bit of a "Take-That" mechanic where the "Lifepoint" cards allow you to just "mess with your opponent's plans"... Hehehe. Kind of "disruptive" cards that allow you to give back your opponent a well deserve "response to his latest attack"...

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