-+@ Inspired @+-

A new month, a new CCG. OK, so I'm less than the title obviously to have to copy the card title from a CCG. And last month's CCG will be discussed below.



Art Credits:
Royal Aritex by Zyglowicz
Quagmire Hyren by Reed
Lava Lasp by Ransom with backgrounds by Nov.

Three potential cards for the Exodus Flight - the first two done over the past week or so. These are part of the Dreamstorm cards I've been templating for RP - I haven't even begun to report them anywhere except on Insiider though. I guess I should start another "bragging" thread on the custom card forums and to publicize it on the blog... or not. I'm actually enjoying templating Dreamstorm - which is a big change from templating eXodus. I think my comments on eXodus have made certain people a bit more aware of their shortcomings and downfalls (artwise), and some of them are really trying their best to up a few notches their artwork, which makes my work of templating easier, of course. I also "donated" a few TG images to Dreamstorm, particularly those that shares an eeriely similar name. People are going to start getting confused very soon I'm sure.

I haven't been working Twilight War in the meantime while templating Dreamstorm (and stealing some of those cards - name and art for Exodus Flight), but I did get some time in between to start the second Double Jeopardy contest. It's day 2 and there are 2 entries, so I guess that's off to a good start. The bad news is those two will probably be half the total entries I'll receive for this contest. I hope there'll be more though, but it's not easy designing a card.

Meanwhile, of the sets in testing, I'm a bit disappointed that nobody is testing out Keeper's Quest yet, but I guess it's still early days. The Nar cards of Tainted Glimpses, however, got a quick run thanks to Bobbydoc and freigabe and their end of the month tokens. I sent Mitch on to have a look at his comments... it's interesting how I'm delegating that part of the work, but since Mitch is a self-declared neo-Nar narcissist (hah!), I think he's the best person for the job.

It was nice though seeing people play with Elder's Legacy and Shadowsfall Promo cards for a change. I guess the engine's populace has long since accepted them as being the norm. Also had a conversation with Justin Zastrow today about his artwork and the game and stuff. He seems happy that more of his artwork are being featured on the custom cards. That's a plus for me I guess. We also talked about him attending the next MND worlds at GenCon Indy later this year... the first one not organised by 2i. I wish them all the best, although I wish I could be there.

And non-MND news... I actually had a playtest of YNDT last month which produced some rather good suggestions. I really think that a good playtest team would be a good asset for developers. Tomi has his team of one... maybe I should start developing my own team as well, one that would get together regularly, maybe once a month, and go test my games one by one. That's something to think about. Anyways, lots more to do on YNDT now.

Talking about doing stuff, I haven't updated my report for a while now... I'm sure that's due somewhere. Simply saying "Forward everything by another month" would be fine for most people I guess, but I should really get it up to scratch so that I know where I am... perhaps I should factor in a few other things as well and update it as per the new "realistic" schedule? Something to think about there too.

Engine-wise, not a lot has been happening. Martin did a DoomTown update and Tomi had a few updates for some of his games, and an update for Buffy. Otherwise it's slow for the month of July with no new games, but that doesn't mean it's a bad month. Summer is always sluggish... I did my usual other "end of the month" chores as well, and there are a few surprises, but those can be found elsewhere. I've also started a CCG related project of sorts... more here when I have more to show and tell.

I have been thinking about porting the computer game "Betrayal at Krondor" to a CCG. Obviously I won't be able to host that on gEngine because I neither have the permission from Midkemia Press or Raymond E. Fiest to use those names, or from Dynamix Studios or Sierra to use the images. Still it sounds like a cool CCG idea. It'll also try to emulate the game as much as possible, or at least I'll try to make it so...

What I have so far:

Win conditions:
1. Eliminate all your opponents
2. Be the first to reach Sethanon and obtain the lifestone (e.g. LotR's mechanic)
3. Fulfil certain conditions printed on the race specific "Objective" cards (e.g. mythos' adventures, B5 agendas, etc.)
4. Obtain a total score of 25 (from B5, WS, etc.).

Factions:
Kingdom
Pathatian
Moredhel
Elendel
Guild of Thieves
Magic-Users
Clerics
None (Quegians, Free Cities, Glamhedrel, Dwarves, Tsurani)

Card Types:
Character
Equipment - Quest, Jewel, Armor, Hand Weapon, Ranged Weapon, Magical Item, "no tag"
Events
Location
NPC - Non-Playing Character
Objective - faction specific
Quest
Spells
Traps and Merceneries

Stats:
Melee
Ranged/Magic
Agility

There will be no "active player" during a turn... everything will run like Babylon 5 or Mythos where initiative order is determined (or most probably predetermined in this case... I have no idea yet) and the players play cards one at a time going in rounds. The cost of the card will be paid from the "circular pool". Say in a 3 player game, it's player A then B then C. Each has 5 crowns in the pool to play cards with. Player A "wins" initiative and gets to goes first. Player A plays a card that costs 2 crowns. 2 Crowns get deducted from Player A, while 2 Crowns get added to Player B. So now Player A has 3 Crowns, Player B has 7 Crowns and Player C has 5 Crowns. If Player B decides to pass, he deducts 1 Crown from his own pool and passes it on to Player C to make it 3 - 6 - 6. This is to preventand unfair choke of sorts with tactical passing. When C plays a card (or passes), the costs get added to Player A's available pool, thus completing the circle. It's a bit complicated to explain, but hopefully gameplay would be more intuitive. Obviously, balancing issues would need to be worked out... not every faction will start with the same amount of Crowns a turn - pretty much like the Home card from Doomtown.

Also like Doomtown and Babylon 5 is that each player gets to start with one card, this one being the "Party Leader" which will determine the faction. I think I'll probably allow a free 3 points worth of characters to be played in addition to the leader during setup (similar to LotR and MECCG before that) so that ther's a ready "party" available to play with. I'm toying with the B5 rule that out of faction characters cost a bit more to play, say a penalty, as in MND. That's something to think about.

At the moment it's still rather close to being a LotR clone, with some of my favourite elements from other card games thrown in - the alternate victory conditions from Middle Earth and Wildstorms, the objective card to victory stolen from Babylon 5 and Mythos. The huge drawback in the design is that the parties have very little chance to interact with each other. Events will help some there - mind attacks by the moredhel spell casters, Navon's nighthawk attacks, etc. The only way around that I can see would be some Mythos style creature attack... with a twist. There'll be traps as well as enemies (both humanoid and creature and spiritual) that players can throw at other players.

Attack would be determined by agility - the fastest player/enemy gets to go first. Ranged attacks (including magic) will only be possible if the character is not assigned to an opponent to combat. Combat is a simple WS sort of thing - compare the numbers, although combat events and on card text should make things more interesting. Of course, location text and equipment, etc. may also help or hinder the combat. Unlike LotR, however, it's fight to the death ... or flee, which would probably turn it into something more akin to MECCG than LotR.

Points are obtained from Quests, which are cards you play when you meet certain conditions. I guess this makes them more like Mythos' Adventure cards instead.

Turn order would probably be similar to the LotR/B5 setup:
1. Beginning of Round and determine order (if required)
2. Play cards
3. Play next location card and move party
4. Play enemies
5. Combat - assign, play cards, determine results (recycle as needed or flee)
6. Draw
7. End of Round and victory checking.
Some of these phases will need better names.

Decks will probably follow LotR, with at least 30 either side and an equal amount or something like that. Well, I have no idea yet, it'll depend very much on how the game design moves on and what gets changed. I'm a bit excited about this though...