Since I don't have enough on my plate -- Make a game with me!

[rpgdemon]

Well, since I've had time to be bored in recent days, and I don't think that's right, I've decided to pile more things onto my plate and then suddenly this thread.

So, right now I'm working on a 360 game ("working", since we're just waiting on some content, then publishing), and working on the next 360 game that's planned (Still drafting and planning it).

So, that leaves me with some time to do other things. I've got a few ideas in mind for what "other things" could be, so this will come down to a voting process, and that's how we'll proceed, building up the game. I'm putting this here and involving other people in it, so that I keep motivation to get this working.

So: Firstly, which game?

1) 3D Platformer, styled to try to get the feel of old 2D Mario Games.
2) 2D Side scroller, expanding upon the sort of gameplay that Zelda II had
3) 3D on-rails space shooter, since there hasn't been a good starfox-type game in awhile.
4) A sort of hybrid turn based strategy/card game. Had the idea for it kicking around for a long time, and have never had a chance to do anything with it.

Edit:
5) Some other crazy awesome idea that you have and relinquish any claim to.

[Aerozord]

4 I think sounds the most interesting.

5, well not ready to relinquish it since I plan on it being my companies next venture, but if you are interested in collaborating let me know

[Krylo]

Card games that are actually video games infuriate me.

Even more so when the card game replaces normal combat in an otherwise normal game.

[rpgdemon]

What I would love to do with the card game is make an actual physical product, but I can't see that happening in the near future, due to cost.

[Aerozord]

as someone that plays card games, err played, they are kind of dying and since its a game where a small number of players discourages people more electronic versions make sense since you dont need to be by the person to play against them.

[Locke cole]

2) sounds like fun...

[Krylo]

Two and three do sound the best.

And two seems the easiest.

Thus, as that I have no faith in you, I'm gonna say do number 2.

[rpgdemon]

Another question worth asking is, what platform do you want this?

I was going to be coding in C++ and compiling for the PC, but I could go with something like Flash if people would rather it be available as a web based thing.

I don't actually have Flash, but I could use this (http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Main_Page) if people want a flash thing over an actual program.

[akaSM]

I would go for whatever I can play in my PC without the need of a internet connection.

Give me that + local co-op and you got a sale ^_^.

Now, for ideas, I haven't seen a good vertical shooter in a while. Tyrian has some great ideas you could use like a regenerating shield+ a regular non regenerating armor and the ability to upgrade and customize your weapons. I love that game.

[Bells]

If you just out to kick something around for fun, you are likely to get a better job with the 3d Platformer, but if you want to do something different, or to claim more attention to your product, revisit the idea of a TBS game.

Those are rare and rarely done well, It's a genre that needs and deserves much love, instead of something that is "Like mario, but..."

[rpgdemon]

So, it seems like it's evenly split between 2 and 4. Since I'm happy with either one, anyone care to break the tie?

[Bells]

When nintendo combined the 2 we got Super Paper Mario... sorta.

Just a crazy idea here, but can't you somehow combine those 2 concepts you have in your head?

[Bard The 5th LW]

I vote two

[Ryong]

2D sidescroller where you lay out cards that form the world and/or grant you powers.

Like exploring a dungeon where you get a deck of cards and each card can be used to determine what the next room will be like and what abilities your character will have in said room.

Or just make a Metroidvania, there's too few good ones.

[EVILNess]

I have extensive notes on a similar game as #4, maybe we should compare notes someday.

[Premmy]

Never played zelda 2 But I like side-scrollers so I'll put in my vote with that
2:
OR!
5: I had an Idea for a side-scrolling beat-em-up Speed-based platformer hybrid type thing if you're interested.

[Bells]

i think you should simply steal the idea from Megaman world, since it was canceled.

Make it a 3d-2d Platformer, where every time you kill an enemy you have a chance of getting one of their parts or skills, which you then c an use to customize your own character combining several skills and attacks from multiple enemies.

So, maybe, i kill a bat and get a sonar attack that bounces off walls. THen i kill a frog and get it's legs, so i can jump really high. Then i kill a young kid and i get a properler hat that leg's me glide for a bit.

Sort like Mario meets Kirby meets megaman

[Aldurin]

Not picky, as long as it's good. And then when you're done you need to get that shit on Steam.

[Yumil]

Another question worth asking is, what platform do you want this?

I was going to be coding in C++ and compiling for the PC, but I could go with something like Flash if people would rather it be available as a web based thing.

I don't actually have Flash, but I could use this (http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Main_Page) if people want a flash thing over an actual program.
There's always Silverlight if you want something web based. I at least prefer it over flash, though apple devices dont like it same as flash.

If you have good/any knowledge of Javascript, there's also HTML5+javascript using the canvas tag, which works on more mobile platforms.

Make it a 3d-2d Platformer, where every time you kill an enemy you have a chance of getting one of their parts or skills, which you then c an use to customize your own character combining several skills and attacks from multiple enemies.

So, maybe, i kill a bat and get a sonar attack that bounces off walls. THen i kill a frog and get it's legs, so i can jump really high. Then i kill a young kid and i get a properler hat that leg's me glide for a bit.

Sort like Mario meets Kirby meets megaman

I've actually had a similar idea before, but it was more a Megaman style game where the main character didn't have a weapon of it's own. The player would scan enemies taking their power temporarily, only being able to store 1-2 save for the big boss powers. Bosses would show up in levels so you could get limited use of their powers before you beat them, but get permanent use after beating them.

[rpgdemon]

So, I have come to a decision. I think that I'm going to go with the TBS/Card Game.

SO. For setting, I was thinking Steam Punk, though I'm willing to go wherever with it. Consider that open for discussion.

[Aldurin]

Steampunk card games sound cool.

E: Wait, when I said get it on Steam I didn't mean Steampunk style.

[PyrosNine]

I had an idea for a card game that went like this: the idea of your deck as a "party", or group.

You have two types of player character cards: Deck Masters and Minions/Mooks. Deck Masters are the players actual avatars: They have unique abilities and stronger than average stats.

Minions are weaker, but replaceable monsters/henchmen that have special traits but no special attacks in of themselves.

Your deck master's attributes determine what cards you can use, in that a Deck master of say, the "water" element or of a particular faction can only have minions of that particular element or faction. Furthermore, you can only use cards such as equipment or spell/effect cards if they also match your deck master.

Players are capable of having up to 5 different deck masters on the field, and only 1 of each deck master in their deck. Having deck masters of varying types allows you to use more varied kinds of minions and spell/effect cards. You can have as many minions out as you can place them, with duplicates.

Deck Masters themselves are capable of leveling up, starting each battle at level 1 and gaining experience whenever they defeat a minion or a deck master. Each card will list how much EXP it will drop when it dies, and all deck masters will have printed details on how much exp it will need in total for every level up to a maximum of level ten.

Minions on the other hand, do not gain exp for killing opponents.

Leveling up will give Deck Masters new abilities, and also allow them to fulfill requirements for certain cards, like a spell card that can only be used by a level 5 Poseidon or a line of Minions who will only obey a Deck Master of a higher level. It also increases attack, health, etc.

Deck masters are kept in a separate deck from the playing deck, however minions remain in the playing deck.

At the beginning of play, a player will select 1-5 Deck Masters from the DM deck and summon them on the playing field, and draw a hand of cards. Subsequently, on following turns players can summon minions or use effect/spell cards, depending on how many deck masters out in play and what kinds. 1 card per Deck Master per turn.

So with 5 deck masters out, 5 minions can be summoned, 5 spells can be cast separately, and a mix thereof. However, to Zerg rush can be a bad idea, for starters you're using up 5 cards each turn which can eat up your 60 card deck (running out of the playing deck is a loss) and the more minions you send out the more you risk feeding your opponent a lot of XP.

The idea is that depending on your collection of cards and your preferred playing style, a player's deck can mean any kind of story archetype: if you're the head of an organization or army you have a lot of subordinates and minions to fight for you, but each individual member has less chance to grow stronger, and a prevailing lone opponent has a good chance of getting all the way to level ten and mopping the floor with you.

A player can also do just that, and have just one strong deck master with a remaining deck just having spell/effect cards that complement the deck master's strength.

Compare The evil organization of Corporate Vampire Wizards in Giant Robots, who undoubtedly have many skilled leaders and a sizable army, vs Sephiroth Goku the Stampede, who has multiple attributes from being an Vampire Wizard Angel Demon and can level up quickly with a succession of battles.

Obviously balancing would be an issue, as you wouldn't want a team of nothing but Sephiroth Goku the Stampedes, so maybe have DMS who can't summon minions, or DM's who can only summon Minions, and some clear limits on summoning DM's, like after the initial turn you need to use a spell/effect card to obtain any more DM's or something.

I'm writing this at like, 4 in the morning, so if this doesn't make any sense at all I'll clean it up later, but I think it would really work for a turn based battle system.

[Yumil]

Pretty much the major things that need to be decided to really start work on a card game are:
1. Win Conditions <- Most important, this will dictate a lot of the rules
2. General Turn System (Don't have to go in depth with phases, just are you going to have each player take turns, or perhaps have each player interact in the same turn. VS system would be an example of the latter)
3. Resources (AKA how to hold back the power curve. Are you going to have a mana system, a manaless resource system, or perhaps something alternative like Yugioh?)

Once that's settled, you can start working on more in depth turn structure, like what phases do what and how events interact with each other. You can even start designing the basic cards needed to play in pure function.

In fact, at least at the start, all cards should be designed for function first. You want a functional balanced game first and foremost. Flavor can be added in easily after the game is functional.

Basically: Design game, playtest it(a lot), then add flavor to fit whatever theme you want.

EDIT: These rules are mainly for pure card based games, but will work very well for a turn based strategy game.

In fact, Im in favor of both players take a simultaneous turn with priority swapping as players do events. For example, I'm playing say...Krylo...yeah Krylo, and I get priority on the first turn. I summon Cheap monkey spirit. Krylo now gets priority after the thing get's summoned and summons a giant rust bucket. I then get priority and can do whatever. Turns over once both players pass priority(with some sort of timer keeping them from taking infinite time) and priority is given to the player that started second the turn before. So turn 2, Krylo moves his rust bucket. I summon another monkey. Krylo summons a rusty nail. I move my first monkey and attack his bucket. Etc etc...

Don't know what the win condition could be in the game. Guess each side would have a VIP that needs to be killed. Possibly make the VIP able to turn squares into resources for use to summon/use cards. VIPs have each unique stats and possibly something that limits deck building choices so each VIP could be balanced.

[rpgdemon]

I actually have a set of rules and a win condition and everything all set up and written down, for when it would have been an actual physical card game, which I'm looking at changing to work better as a computer game. But the nice thing is, the card game was my most fleshed out idea, with almost a full design doc written up, which means there will be the least boring down time while I do such a thing, and work out the gritty details.

Making it into a video game opens up the opportunity for rules and such that would be really hard to implement in real life, which is now what I'm thinking about.

In the physical version of the game, there were three real options you could have to win. Decking the opponent, so that they have no cards left to draw; Getting rid of all of an opponent's steam power, which is used to power "drone" pieces; Gain a certain number of resources, by sending a drone to stand on the square with the resources.

With those three as ways that someone can win though, there's a definite imbalance where if an opponent never plays any drones, and simply tries to kill all of yours, they won't be wasting steam power, and the game will end up being a bunch of turtling. To counteract that, when a drone is collecting resources, you will be given more mana (Or steam power), which will ideally be enough of a benefit so that controlling a resource node is a boon, instead of a liability.

The other way that it could be handled is that rather than spending steam power to summon drones, the drones are summoned automatically if you have fewer than four, and every time a drone dies, you lose steam power. Or some variant on this.

[rpgdemon]

Alright, so, here's the thing.

I'm a bit conflicted right now. If it were a true TBS, there would be very little exploration and such, since exploration is really annoying on a turn by turn basis. However, I can do a pseudo-turn based game that has a turn pass each time you step onto a new tile, attack, use a card, et cetera, but that would really only work with one character, I'd think. Maybe not though.

The other thing is, to do it this way would be essentially tossing out the TBS/Card Game genre type thing, and doing something entirely different. If I kept with the TBS/Card Game, I have no idea how I'd have a world there for exploring.

The third thing that I could theoretically do that would be a lot less interesting is make what would amount to MTG Online, but with the card game that I have the idea for. This would be the simplest/give the most instantaneous results, but I think would function best as the multiplayer component to the singleplayer game.

[EVILNess]

In Civ 3 there was a multiplayer mode called "Turnless." Of course, there were still turns, but they were very fast paced, timed turns.

There was an ATB gauge in the corner of the map, and when it filled a new turn started, with all the benefits that brings (Can move units again, closer to finishing a wonder, etc)

Maybe you could use something like that.

[rpgdemon]

Started just drawing -something- for the game with no idea what the end goal would be, ended up with a faceless mook that might be used in the game. It's a pretty simplistic thing and was done with no sketch or planning, so it'll likely be refined, but here it is, for any interested.

image

Edit: Swapping it out with the newer/better one.

[rpgdemon]

Okay, so, I've been still thinking about this, and how to best implement it. I'm debating just pretending that it's an established card game that everyone's heard of, and just going from there: IE: An established look for the card borders, an established card back, and other such things.

My next thing is, I'm not sure if I want to make a full out RPG with a storyline and such out of this, or just put the infrastructure there to play games with other people.

I'll be completely honest in saying that what I'd really want for this card game idea is making it into an actual card game that people like to play, regardless of how I do so. I'd even be willing to make the resources freely available to download/print out or whatever, for people to play with, and release pseudo-expansions, where a flood of new things become legal. The only reason I don't want to do that is that who'd play a card game that they have to print out/do all the work in getting to be nice? Also, if I wanted to make it into an actual product in the future, I dunno if I'd have the rights to it, or if it'd be public domain or something.

[rpgdemon]

After some thought and work: This is where the card game is going:

http://clockworkcardgame.com/

I have plans to make a game in the manner I specified in this thread, but this is where this game has gone. It'll be one of the other three options, and once I have the time to devote to it properly. As I want Clockwork to come out well, I'm going to be putting as much towards it as I can.