Hello.
Today i am thinking about what if we have a resourceless card game.
A game that instead of using mana to pay the cards ,you just ... play the cards.
I think in a way to control a little the game to avoid luck in the game: divide the game in Rounds (or hands). And 8 turns per hand
Each hand each player draw 8 cards, and the Round/hand will be played just with those 8 cards per players.
Each turn the player can do one action (or 3, or 4 i have decide it yet), and after doing his actions he passes the turn to his oponent.
Example: Player 1 in his turn, can put in play 1 creature, equip his creature, play an effect card, and pass his trun. Player 2 can put in play another creature, attack with it, after player 1 declaring blockers player 2 can play an instant effect card ... and so on
Depending in how much actions you can do in a turn, the hand will finish in more or less turns ...
What you think :) ... good idea, huh? :D
The turn/play mechanics is what i want to improve in this game, it can be simultaneous turns or can be like "normal" card games like Magic The Gathering.
But this game is not collectible, is just a set of fixed cards and the player has to the best he can do with his cards.
The idea i have in mind but i am trying to improve is:
I want to include something like "energy" in to all creatures but i don't know how do implement the energy + permanent damage, a creature loose Health Points every time it is attacked, equal to the attack power of the enemy creature. What i don't know how to keep track without putting millions of counters in the creature is how to implement the energy with counters + HP's with counters too ...
The idea is that each creature enter the game with X counter of Energy, where X will depend on the "level" of the creature. That level is more or less the same as your intelligence attribute.
There are 4 colours of energy and removing one energy and combining the colours of the energy, it will generate different effects.
To execute an ability from any creature, you must remove X energy counters from it. The counters can be placed again in the creature after resolving the ability, or the counters can moved out from the game and not being reusable for that creature.
I want to limit the number of powerful creatures, something like this: 8 of the most commons, 6 less commons + 4 + 2 +1. The deck will have just ONE BIG creature and the probability of getting that card is 1 / 64 (64 is the number of cards i want in the deck), so it is very hard to get the big creatures.
Instead of having card producing the energy, i think is better, to simplify the resource management that, each turn (and this time i am talking about a normal play/turn like M:TG), the player gets one energy that he chooses and he can accumulate until he can put it in a creature and play it.
A creature cannot enter the battlefield if there is not enough energy to place in it, so the player needs to accumulate it before he can play the creature.
Another think i want is to implement 3 zones where te creatures are placed:
Attack Zone - The Creatures are moved here when they attack
Battlefield - The Creatures are here when they enter the game and are waiting to attack or using an ability
Out of Combat - after using an ability, the creature must move to this are and cannot, defend, attack, or play another ability
Using the tree zones will help to avoid rotating the creatures (remember that they have the counters on it) because rotating with the counters on it well do a mess with the counters ... but moving a card from zone to zone with the counters ... is not easy with loosing all the counters... so dont know how to do it. Where do i place the energy counters to avoid counter jumping from place to place? do i remove the energy system? (but energy is the heart of the game). Do i use Dice instead of counters (but how can i implement the 4 colours of energy with the dice?).
I have almost all the rules to make a prototype but i still have ideas that i have study because i want a game easy to play but with great strategy.
Thanks for your help.