Unleashment! #2 ~ Game Designer notes

WARNING: This is a very, very long entry. /warning.

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time! Well, part of that is because I really want the contest to be featured, and maybe another is I'm spending too much time posting over at [vssystem].ORG about the janktastic Time Platform deck.

But no longer! In fact, just yesterday while I was in Astronomy Lecture I decided to take some notes:(can't read this? Might want to print it out and use a mirror, I used photobooth to capture it, lazy me)

So, I've been thinking about making a Heroes Card Game. For awhile, actually. I post over at 9thwonders.com, and I PM'd the mighty truk [a mod there who plays VS System] on his thoughts about a Heroes card game and he suggests that a fanset be made first. Understandable.
So, this past summer, that's what I did.


That is one of four-ish cards that made it to the template stage. The other 170 cards are here in text form. It still needs plenty of work, and is far from done before it becomes, what I feel to be, a finished and polished VS set. And yet I wander over to a new project! Wow, maybe I'd fit in over at UDE, huh?

Anyways, onto the Heroes game itself. The TL;DR of the game is it is a mix of DBZ 2000, VS, Chess and the Settlers of Catan.

The first thing I wanted when I started brainstorming was that I wanted there to be a main character per deck, otherwise everyone would play Sylar [everyone still might play Sylar] and if characters die, then the group of fans of the show who love watching their favorite character and following that character might feel left out. I didn't want that. So, here's a page from the DBZ book; they have what are called main personalities. When you play a game of DBZ, you have a character who represents your deck. Think W0W. Except the character can't die. But that goes into how damage is calculated, your deck is your life ... that's a whole 'nother ball game. What you should get out of this is whoever you choose to represent your deck, they're gonna be important.

The next thing was how to address the issue of 'weak, yet important' characters like Izaac Mendez and Angela Petrelli. Well, if you're going to have a main character, maybe it would be cool for that character to 'protect' your other characters. In DBZ, you can have allies. You'd play them in a similar fashon to how you'd play other cards in your deck, but the big difference is that allies can be sent to the discard pile while your main character can't. Short of Claire Bennet being able to spontaneously regenerate herself, I'd think it'd be fitting for the characters you bring into play other than your main character [like your Izaacs and your Angelas] can be sent to the discard pile. It's also worth noting, that if you were to crack open a pack of cards, that there's no difference between main character cards and character cards; it'd just depend on how you build your deck.

Now, how is your main character going to protect your other characters? Well, I guess that would bring us to the chess reference:


I'm thinking the blue square is where your main character will start, and the red is where your opponent's main character will start. The bottom row will be your Prep Row, and the top will be your opponents'. It's entirely possible to design maps for multiplayer; but I don't want to cross that road quite yet. I'm thinking characters that you play from your hand will enter via the Prep Row. Maybe any of the 5 squares. Between moving characters, attacking, and playing effects, this style I'm hoping will be highly enjoyable.

Now, a 5 by 5 playing field? really? Sounds grand, I know. But, look at how many rows are in VS: 6! You have your Resource Row, Support and Front Row and then those of your opponent. In Yugioh, there are 4 Rows: Spell/Trap card Zone, Monster Zone, and those of the opponents [minus the Fusion/Synchro, the Field Magic Spell, Deck and Graveyard zones] so really, a 5 by 5 isn't too much of a stretch by any means. I'm thinking about buying custom playmats to make this even easier.

This 5 by 5 doesn't cover everything though; There's still the matter of the Deck/Discard/RFG piles. I guess they'll be on the outside of the grid. I was thinking about a spot for locations and continuous modifiers, but then I came up with a great idea:

Modifiers will take up spots on the grid. Even further, bonuses might happen for characters on those modifier spots. I'm thinking locations could be put on the map, maybe effects that hurt your opponent too. Let's say I have a card called flame wall with a picture of the train from the season 1 opener and it has an effect of the sort like characters cannot enter this square unless they have Flight or Spontaneous Regeneration. That'd be neat, huh? Of course, these could be very powerful since having control over the board [literally] would put your opponent in a tough spot. Let's call these cards Event-Map cards, similar to Ongoing Plot twists are a subtype of Plot Twists, things that effect the map will be subtype of Events.

Which leads us to the Character Card [well, kinda, what with talking about character abilities]. I'm thinking the layout of the card would be similar to VS/Magic/WoW; Name at top with version [Except I like how they do it in DBZ with the name, (description of character) rather than having a separate line]. Attack/Def will be on the bottom. In the middle, there'll be a Movement number. Pretty much, unless you have Super Speed, that number is going to be 1. That is how many squares you can move per turn.

Will characters have a cost? Yesh. It depends on your main character though. Both Players' main characters will start as level 1 characters. Other characters you play can be of cost 1. You can't play a stronger character ... until your main character levels up. That's right, leveling up characters! I'm thinking the only fair way to balance this is to say you can only play 1 character per turn. That also means cards that destroy characters will have to be played scarcely; either by limiting the number per deck, making the cost really high, or making the scope of the effect very limited [can only kill Arthur Petrelli, for example].

But, I've gotten off track. So, we know the character card will have a name, description, cost, attack, defense, movement value, and game text. What else? Well, because of the different factions in the show, and how they're constantly changing, using a 'color-based' system just doesn't make sense. However, can one make an argument that, while they are constantly acting in their best interests, that their goal is of something heroic or villainous? I'd say so. Thus, Characters will be stamped with a 'Hero' or a 'Villain' label. I'm thinking the label will appear where the pre-type of creature appears on magic cards [like Legendary or Artifact], or where the first affiliation appears in VS under the more recent printing. Then, in where the creature subtype or the secondary affiliation would be, for Heroes, it would be their ability. For Claire, it would be Spontaneous Regeneration, Nathan would be Flight, Hiro would be Time/Space Manipulation. I'm thinking there can be multiple abilities listed; for example, Hiro's mastery over Time is a completely different power from his mastery over Space [as we've seen so clearly two weeks ago on E4.20, Cold Snap]. The Hero cards will have a natural eclipse watermark behind the gametext and will feel blue-ish in coloration, while the villain cards will feature the Season 3 Villains eclipse as their watermark and will generally be more red-ish in color.

Next, Rarity. I feel that putting the rarity where it is in Magic doesn't make sense, and it can't be put where it is in VS because of the movement number. So, where on the card does that leave? The Upper-Right corner; I'm thinking as a coloration of [this card's number/total cards in set]. Example, if it were a rare and it was number 14 in a set of 95, it would read 14/95. Maybe inside a set symbol. Like the first set could be named Activating Evolution, and the symbol would be a book.

I haven't quite figured out how combat is going to be resolved, but I really like the ready/exhausted/stunned system that VS has. Here's what I have sofar:

Ready ~ Ready
Exhausted ~ Engaged
Stunned ~ Dazed

and I'm thinking the game will be played turn by turn. But then if I daze us both on my turn, when you go and recover your guy, my guy is still dazed so what do you do etc. Maybe if I put a "Whenever a character becomes dazed, that character cannot attack the turn it becomes undazed" rule into place then back to the previous scenario, On my turn I daze us both, your turn you undaze, no one to attack, rules state you can't attack anyways, you're good. My turn, I undaze, I can't attack you because I just undazed this turn. It then goes to your turn, and you could attack me. Thus the balance you attack me then I attack you is reached. And I just thought of that rule while I've been typing this; there's soo much to iron out.

Next up is turn order. Right now, I'm thinking:

1. Draw
2. Undaze
3. Pre-Combat
4. Movement
5. Combat
6. Post Combat
7. End

1. Draw - draw a card. Nothing special.
2. Undaze - makes sense to do it before movement; even injured people can move.
3. Pre-Combat - play a character, lay down locations. Maybe I'll get rid of the Location Type, I don't know. I mean, just because the Season 1 Showdown happens at Kirby Plaza, Should Kirby Plaza itself have a different effect? There's a ton that happens in DC especially in the Fugitives Arc; leaving one effect for an entire location seems kinda' restraining. Locations stay in for now, but I can't see how they'd be any different from Event-Map cards. Ohwell. Yeah, this would be the time to play those cards too.
4. Movement - Moving diagonally counts as two squares. Other than that, move however you want as long as you're within your movement range.
5. Combat - if you're within range of somebody [one square unless said otherwise], then calculate damage the same way you do in Magic; the only difference is that Main Characters Daze, while other characters actually die.
6 - Post-Combat - do whatever you want that you could do in the Pre-Combat step; however if you've already played a character, you can't play another character in the Post-Combat Step. Playing characters are limited to once per turn.
7 - End. Doesn't do anything unless an effect in play says so.

I think it's important that the movement step is before combat and after pre-combat; otherwise an opponent can put potentially 'bully' you. A couple other closing thoughts; I think playing characters should be encouraged. Characters on the show get from point A to point B with the help of others; Hiro/Ando. Sylar/Victim. Ted/Matt. I'm thinking of the card types as being Characters, Events, Locations, Items, and Motivations. Motivations might be stripped down the line, but basically, what lies at the core of every character? Their motives. HRG is the family man, or the company man. Hiro wants to be a hero. Peter wants to help people. Sylar hungers. These cards would be like Alternate Egos; except they'd be very limited and maybe only usable once per game or something. Maybe it would allow for partnerships, like team Matt/Suresh/Peter in the flashback episode about HRG.

Finally, the win condition. How do you win? Right now, I'm thinking of these three ways:
1) 20 Eclipse points - whenever you kill an opposing character, gan an eclipse point. Whenever you daze an opposing main character, gain eclipse points equal to that character's cost. There'll also be card effects that give you points too.
How to level up? Spend 5 Eclipse points. But if you're taking away from your win condition, then it's only fair to:
2) Evolutionary Victory - reach your highest level. To have a character be your main character, you'll need to have at least the level 1-3 of that character. If your opponent has a level 4 character that they can get to and you can only get to level 3, then you cannot win by Evolutionary Victory. This encourages that players play the higher levels.
3) Forced Surrender Victory - occupy all 5 Prep row squares that belong to your opponent. This will encourage players to play more characters and to protect themselves.
4) Alternate win - Some sort of win condition, like blowing up New York or something.


Well, that covers everything I've done so far. I'd love to hear your thoughts and thanks for reading!
- OSM