Pros and Cons

As I flesh out the meat and bones of this card game, I want to make sure it's a blast to play. What are the pros and cons from a 'fun' gameplay standpoint of a card game and a fighting game relevant to my idea, and what can be taken from them? Long post incoming.

Magic: The Gathering Pros and Cons;

+ Collecting. The cards all have value, different rarities / availability, and some slick artwork. 

+ Deck Variety. Tons of cards, tons of options. There are competitive decks, casual decks, crappy decks and janky decks. The amount of cards also means there's generally some card(s) that counter the "best" deck in the format. 

+ Wide gameplay options. There are generally lots of decisions to be made in the game, especially in draft and Type 2, and it's a far cry from the rudimentary rock-paper-scissors base. There are also many ways to trick your opponent or earn victory, some of which being hilarious and/or embarassing, which make for great storytelling even after the game has ended.

- "Mana Screwed". To play cards, you need to use mana, the resource of the game. You will inevitably play some games against people who could have little idea of the deeper gameplay going on, but if your hand is devoid of mana, you either risk playing that hand or you go one card down. The VS and WoW card systems have anti-mana screwed mechanics; you can play any card as a resource, though "plot twists" / "locations" (VS) and "quests" (WoW) were much preferred to be played in your resource row.

- Too much variety? The wide variety of cards leads to a select few cards being top dollar, and 80% of the cards players own stuffed in closets wasting space. Some cards have similar effects, but one is just "better" than the other for obvious reasons. 

Capcom vs. SNK 2 Pros and Cons

+ Options! An extremely wide cast of characters to select from for a fighter; many familiar faces across the board. You get to pick up to three of them for your team. You also select one of six different "grooves", which applies basic rules from six past fighters (3 Capcom, 3 SNK) that your team plays under. For example, some let you roll, air block, and so on. Finally, you have four points of 'ratio' to spend on your team of 1-3 characters, with ratio 1 characters being weakest and ratio 4 being a fucking house. (One ratio 4, however, means you only get one character.)

+ 1v1 "Teamwork". My A-Groove Iori might have a tough time against your C-Groove Blanka, but I have Cammy coming up next if Iori goes down, and she does fine against him. (That might be complete bullshit but you get the idea.)

+- - Tiers. The higher tiers in this game, while certainly nothing as excusive and godlike as in Marvel, are still very dominant. You'll never see a Kyosuke in an American tournament past round 1, and you'll see plenty of Sagats and Blankas. That being said, the mid tiers can still be relatively competitive, and it's always refreshing and exciting to watch skilled mid tier players like Combofiend (Rock/Rolento/Eagle) and Buktooth (Iori/Morrigan/Hibiki) run their game.

- No real team synergy. There's no tagging, no combined attacks, nothing outside of some special win quotes. From a gameplay standpoint this is more of a preference thing, but it's worth noting for the purposes of my game.

- Custom combos. The dreaded A-Groove. Its main draw is getting a full super bar, and then activating your Custom combo mode, where upon first activating you get some invincibility, and any hit landed while in the mode is turned into a fucking painful (and ridiculous looking) combo that ends in a super. It can be a very all or nothing mode (sometimes the worst thing that'll happen is you'll break their guard gauge and take off 15% anyway), and while it does get the crowd talking, I find it stretches the risk / reward balance too wide. To see some examples with Bison, check out the link below. The action begins at 1:03.

M. Bison makes babies cry

What have we learned? Card collecting and dispariging card rarities piques interest, finding the right variety amount is crucial, developing multiple decision options past rock paper scissors makes for more fun and interesting gameplay, keep the power of your cards and mechanics in check, and whatever do you, don't get mana screwed.

Weekend Musings

Spent Sunday at Lake Artemesia by College Park building up texture and forest pictures for my storybook animation. Spring needs to really kickstart its colors; the lake area was pretty drained of color for the most part. 

My card game's rough draft is complete, and I should be playtesting it hopefully over the next few days. It combines that traditional single-player-RPG combat foundation of four party members, and in addition gives the players a deck of cards as well to work with. I went back and played a few minutes of some older RPGs to really get the feel for how combat flows, notably Final Fantasy 3 and 7, Pokemon, and Super Mario RPG. (Side note, Mario RPG's music is fucking boss.) I'll have to play rounds of Magic, VS, and UFS, and see what mechanics are / aren't fun. (Off the top of my head, I will not be adding a mana-screwed feature.)

I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I want this legitimately playable in paper or not. By that I mean, do players make decisions at the same time, or do players take turns with priority which gives one player a potential advantage over the other. This is certainly the case in Magic, where going first can be all the difference between a win and a loss. A lot of RPG combat systems give characters or attacks a designated speed which determines what character attacks first. In paper card game form, it doesn't work so elegantly. ("I'll do attack A on your character." "Then I'll do attack B on your character because it hits him first." "You're a giant asshole." etc) It would, at least, limit options and give faster attacks higher value. Worth doing? We'll see.

Designing a Card Game

Throughout the past several years of playing competitive games and taking classes on game theory and design,  (one of which having me build games from scratch,) it occurred to me that making a ruleset for an enjoyable competitive card game was a challenge I wanted to conquer. Maybe the following notes will help you get your gears turning too. With that, what are key elements of a competitive card game? 

-Deck, obviously; A high deck minimum (Say 80 cards vs 40) likely mean less abilities for each individual card.

-Characters; which do the combat for you. 

-Abilities; which exist on characters as well as on their own individual cards.

-Resources; which are consumed to use abilities.

-Fair, intriguing, and fun combat; where you can blow your opponent out of the water or conversely get your face smashed in.

-Balanced turn and drawing systems; self explanitory.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that a card game is that at its core, it's all about card knowledge and decision making. I know what cards I have, I might know some cards he has; but what's in his hand? What's left in his deck? What decision do I make based on what I know? 

More to come.