Clone Army CCG discussion

[Galenmereth]

I gather this project died? Regardless, do anyone have the rules saved somewhere? I have half a mind to tinker with the game system again, specifically code the digital version. If I decide to go with it, I would want to revive the project, of course making sure it gets somewhere this time.

[Sar]

I gather this project died? Regardless, do anyone have the rules saved somewhere?

I certainly have the last rules sketch I did somewhere, but I don't think anyone ever agreed on any that were definitely 'the rules'.

[Galenmereth]

I certainly have the last rules sketch I did somewhere, but I don't think anyone ever agreed on any that were definitely 'the rules'.

Nope, we never did agree. But I remember the concept was pretty much nailed in certain aspects. Hmm, need to set up a project site for it though.

[Sar]

Came across this on an old HDD I was going through to see what I wanted to keep, remembered this thread.

[Galenmereth]

Ah, good stuff Sar. There's at least a bit of concrete information there, and the core idea is present. I'll tinker a bit with ideas and such in the meantime, and use this thread for updates and sharing thoughts until I get to set up a project page system, which will happen once I've moved into the new apartment and I get things in better order.

[Sar]

Looking over them again quickly, I seem to recall that the biggest problem during my limited playtesting was that it was relatively trivial to maintain a karmically-balanced deck all the time that it was possible to bring good things into play with both positive and negative karma.

Obviously the solution for this lies in the cards themselves - I'd expect something along the lines of each class having a strong karmic direction and a weak one, so you can only reverse your karma either by taking hits (Red +3 card brings a 3/2 entity into play; Red -1 card stuns that entity for a turn so it can't do anything) or by mixing classes (Red +3 card brings a 3/2 entity into play, Black +3 card brings a 2/3 entity into play, but this works against your win condition since you need four scenes and entities of the same class to win, and works against your effectiveness 'cause mixed groups have to attack the front line).

The next biggest problem was establishing three distinct 'types' for the three classes; again, I think my test cards went for Red being strong on attack, weak on defence, Black being the reverse, White being mediocre all-rounders with no 'good' karmic direction. May have been worth having white slightly weak against black and red to compensate for their more-or-less-automatic karma balancing.

Still, that was all stuff I figured would need to get sorted out during playtesting. As it was, everyone seemed far more interested in coming up with MtG cards for Nana than actually discussing rules...

[Galenmereth]

I think it's a good idea that each class has a certain strength and weakness, but I think it would be interesting to also have variations as well. Let's say that Red have strong attack and weak defence, we could generate further variations (and thus make room for deeper strategies) by letting the combination of, say, Red and Black entity cards on the front line generate a sort of combo effect which will strongly affect your karma by being combined. I'm not entirely certain how this would shuffle the core concept, and we shouldn't fill the cards with excess amount of "if / then / else" information, but say you have a karma card effect which you want to rid yourself of before you attack; by combining two entity cards (which cannot be undone) you shuffle your karmic balance, thus it could be a pre-attack move. Combining two entities will make them act as one, and they only get one attack. This also creates a more strategic game play, as certain entities can be targeted over other, not only due to their stats but also the possible combinational effects. And since you need a certain karmic balance for certain scenes, you have a factor that also dictates what combinations you can make to not ruin your layout.

And yeah, the previous planning phase was bogged down by graphical ideas and design over concept, and I think we should have the game mechanics at least 90% done before we even think of the graphical aspects; the ideas for the latter will surely come easier than the rules

[Sar]

but say you have a karma card effect which you want to rid yourself of before you attack; by combining two entity cards (which cannot be undone) you shuffle your karmic balance, thus it could be a pre-attack move. Combining two entities will make them act as one, and they only get one attack. This also creates a more strategic game play, as certain entities can be targeted over other, not only due to their stats but also the possible combinational effects.

It sounds like an interesting idea - the one wariness I have is that it makes game-balancing another order harder, 'cause there's another layer of combinatorics to take into account. But hey, it's just work, right? ;-)

Seriously, though, this is the kind of area that tends to allow horrible imbalances to creep in unless you're careful.

And yeah, the previous planning phase was bogged down by graphical ideas and design over concept, and I think we should have the game mechanics at least 90% done before we even think of the graphical aspects; the ideas for the latter will surely come easier than the rules

I think that's just indicative of what most people think is important about CCGs. Not the rules, or the mechanics, or even the stats - just the pretty pictures and amusing special rules. ;-)

[Galenmereth]

We'll see if there's actually a point. Combining cards could also be card-specific functions, which would hinder that the game becomes too complex while maintaining the element of additional strategy. Further on, it might not even be necessary depending on how the action cards are to be played. I'll create a demo play through soon to just simulate this.

I think that's just indicative of what most people think is important about CCGs. Not the rules, or the mechanics, or even the stats - just the pretty pictures and amusing special rules. ;-)

Since almost every member of the clone-army community is also a gamer in some way or another, the possibility of deep and strategic play might be that extra touch that will make the perfect companion to the (hopefully) deliciously illustrated cards

[Galenmereth]

Bumping this thread after over a year of inactivity!

As I mentioned in another thread, I am going to have more time for non-profit projects from now on, and I really want to experiment with creating a multiplayer game engine. The Clone Army CCG (or TCG? We'll have to sort that out as well) seems to be the perfect choice for this; the rules that we have are interesting and certainly worth working more with, and the Clone Army universe is one of the coolest (and craziest) ones around.

I am in the process of re-reading the rules and doing some graphical (read: square paper with numbers and titles) to see how the game flow works, and will come back to this thread when I've experienced with the changes mentioned above in this thread.

In the meantime, I have also done some planning and sketching on the part of the multiplayer card game engine, and here are some of the features I've been thinking about:

Persistent accounts
The idea is that each user has a persistent account on a server, where users will have their cards, deck configurations and battle records stored. Here you can create as many deck combinations as you want before actually challenging other users, and you can review past battles to fine tune your strategies.

Experience Points
Experience Points are acquired when you challenge other users; you receive EP whether you win or not, but the better you do (less cards lost etc) the more EP you receive after the battle. You can trade EP for booster packs that contain a random assortment of cards. EP can also be deducted if you leave a card battle in process without the consent of the other player.

Lobby
The Lobby is where you can chat with other users that are online and challenge them to battles. You can also spectate on battles in-progress here, and discuss these live.
My thought is to base this on IRC, so that you don't have to use the game client to access the Lobby. In the IRC channel there will be a bot that takes care of challenge commands and the likes, so that you can be in the Lobby in your Favourite IRC Client (caps intended) and challenge others from there.

Public profile
The public profile is where you can showcase deck combinations, and you can share battle records.

Client
Regarding the client, I am pretty set on using Flash Player. Not because there aren't alternatives, but because it has a huge market penetration, it is the plugin that has been around longest and I have tons of experience programming for it. Using it, I can create VPN-like tunnels (no, you don't have to touch your firewall settings, so relax) to create persistent, two-way secure connections that make cheating very very hard, and it enables the client and server to share a subscriber / notifier relationship, which is beneficial in reducing lag, bandwidth and an improved user experience.


Please do comment on anything you either have questions about or feel uncomfortable with for a Clone Army MMOCG; this will be a community effort if we can get it off the ground.