Alright, hopefully making this thread earlier in the evening will get more traffic.
Making an animal-based cardgame. Not a TCG, a game that comes prepackaged in a box as a set. The cards will be in a pool available to both players like monopoly money. Maybe about 20 of each card, perhaps 1,000 in total?
Here's a quick rundown of what the stats might function like.
>Durability
Simply health. Damage taken = (Strength of attacker - Endurance of receiver). Animal is sent to the discard pile if it dies. If an animal successfully defeats another, that defeated animals total Durability could be added to the attacker's health or something maybe?
>Strength
Attacking power. Must be a higher number than opponent's Endurance or that animal cannot damage that animal.
>Endurance
How much gets subtracted from your opponent's attack damage.
>Speed
Highest number goes first (tiebreakers then compare Agility, a tie in Agility, compare Intelligence).
>Agility
I haven't thought of exactly what Agility might function like. I was thinking how easily an animal is hit, like the further apart an attacker's Speed is from opponent's Agility, would determine the likelihood of a successful hit. This stat could be dumped entirely, I was just playing around with ideas.
>Intelligence
I think Intelligence could function towards support cards or weather / environment cards. Like if there was a "Drought" action card, "Kill all animals with an Intelligence less that 10" or something, smart animals could survive and adapt, I dunno.
Thoughts? More in next post.
Types of cards:
>Animal cards
Divided into Ranks for balance reasons, tools for attacking, etc.
>Plant cards
support cards, restore health, etc.
>Environment cards
You need a certain number of these cards to put animals into play e.g. in order to play a Killer Whale, you need to have a minimum of 5 OCEAN in play.
I think there should be a cap on how many Environment cards a player can have out at one time. For example, a player could have only 1 or 2 kinds of environments and only summon the mega fauna of those environments, while another player might have 3-5 environments, and swarm the field with smaller creatures from diverse ecosystems.
Bumping with more cards. I only have this and one other one though, I'll make more after I'm done posting. I haven't thought too much more about the game and wanted to get some anons in on it to brainstorm and make a rad fucking game.
pls respond
While I'm working on a couple more cards, the little bit of action the thread got last night had some decent input.
Turning speed into the animal's actual speed in M/KPH and making room for some flavor text with animal facts.
So maybe right now, I might scrap the current format and start over regardless and see what the hypothetical (You) might think.
Needs more Hippo
>>46128741
Currently re-working Killer Whale for the new format with flavor text and MPH Speed. I'll do hippo right after.
Any thoughts about Font?
I'm doing this from my work computer so I'm limited to mspaint Windows XP fonts.
T-times New Roman it is.
I've decided that the MPH Speed stat isn't gonna work. There's too much contrast between it and the other stats.
What I will do is still base the Speed stat number on the animal's actual speed e.g. if a lion can run at 40mph and a tyrannosaurus can run at 30mph, I'd adjust the numbers to make a logical gap in Speed.
With the exception of Durability, stats will have a minimum of 1 and a max of 20.
So if the fastest animal on the planet is a Cheetah at 60ish mph, it will probably have a 20 Speed stat. So that would give a lion running at 40mph in short bursts a 10/15ish Speed stat, and a tyrannosaurus 9 or 10 Speed.
Is that fair?I know perigrine falcons or whatever can """"""""""""fly at 250mph"""""""""" but that's horseshit in my opinion. The falcon using its own muscles and power isn't flapping through the air reaching those speeds. It divebombs and freefalls towards its prey, reaching those speeds. A cheetah runs on its own legs, not using some stupid environmental factor to give it a boost. That being said, if peregrines make it into the game, they'd have a 20 Agility stat because of how they can even fucking maneuver at those speeds, and still a good Speed stat close to 20.
Regarding speed, I'm now having trouble converting actual speed into a stat.
A turtle can walk at a max pace of 3-4mph, so I'm making 1 Speed = 3mph and making 20 Speed = 70mph.
So
> 1 = 3mph
> 20 = 70mph
> ? = 30mph
pls
Ok, I think I have it.
Just gonna change the 20 cap to = 58+ mph. Then everything falls into place.
This is hilarious, but I'll help anyway.
This idea is bad. Sorry. You don't seem to understand what makes card games work, so you've stapled way too much complexity into even the most basic animal cards.
Give cards fewer base stats. Your scrawniest animal should take like 6, 7 seconds to explain to someone who has never played before. Boil them down.
Pick a more interesting (or more sense-based) subject. Its boring as sin. You can't have real world plants heal every real-world animal in the real world, anyway, so you're half way to fantasy as is. 1000 cards with each card having 20 copies means, what? 50 unique cards? There's no variance and an eternally fixed meta. Itd be interesting for maybe a week to a very small number of people. Fewer copies, more cards.
>>46130571
>subject
>boring as sin
>>46130571
Oh, forgot to mention, this is pretty much HP Tracking: The Game. If you're going to have persistent damage, it needs to be in the single digits, so it can be tracked with tokens.
>>46130658
Sorry, man. Poisonous T-Rex and platypus aren't doing it for me. You're not really opening with interesting cards. Maybe my mind can be changed. I'm just not dazzled.
>>46130571
>Give cards fewer base stats. Your scrawniest animal should take like 6, 7 seconds to explain to someone who has never played before. Boil them down.
You know, to be quite honest, I haven't even thought much into exactly how the game would be played necessarily, other than the animals would fight/interact with each other, like the field/environment and such.
But as far as animal combat goes, seems pretty straight forward.
>Animal must meet Environment Card requirement to put into play
>Durability = Health
>Strength = How much Damage an Animal can inflict
>Endurance = How much Damage you shave off an attack
>Speed = who goes first
But so far Agility and Intelligence only provide tiebreakers for Speed, but I figured based on some Action cards or support, they would come into play. Like an Impala's Special Effect for example might be "Only an Animal with Agility of 10+ can attack Impala" or something. Or for support cards, only animals of certain intelligence can use them. This would serve to gimp otherwise OP animals like Dinosaurs. So the stats aren't too overly complicated albeit there's quite a few of them, as besides the former 4 stats, the latter two don't really come up unless it's a specific scenario which would be self explanatory based on whatever effect.
>>46130719
>HP Tracking: The Game
Fuck. Time to go revamp health. I really appreciate your post. This is the exact shit that needs to be discussed. What, for you, would make a game based on animals fighting more interesting?
>>46130764
>Poisonous T-Rex
T-Rexes were like Komodo Dragons in that they badly infect any prey who might have survived their bite. Just thought throwing neat factual shit like that into the game would make it neat.
>>46130764
And I only did Platypus because someone last night suggested it.
>>46130571
As far as the number of cards goes, how many cards would theoretically fit into a box the size of monopoly, but maybe twice as thick?
>>46130882
> latter two don't really come up unless it's a specific scenario which would be self explanatory based on whatever effect.
This is what I'm talking about. On some level, even you're aware that two of these shouldn't be stats, but you're trying to justify the unneeded complexity with edge cases. These are things that could be better represented with things like keywords, like 'tool user' or something, which brings me to my next point, which is that under the current setup the only execution I can see conflates intelligence with capacity for manipulation.
You also-and man, I'm really wasting my time here if this is a problem- decided to make stats before you know how the game /works/. An important part of designing games is that they need to have everything they need AND need everything you have. 100% of your game has no purpose. Design a central resolution mechanic, then make cards that facilitate it.
Stats also create some weird scenarios, as a side effect: 15 creatures with 20 strength and 20 Endurance gang up on a single creature with 21 of each. He kills them all effortlessly and walks off without a scratch. When you have the biggest monster, you literally can not be challenged. I don't know any other game that does that that didn't fail gloriously.
>>46130998
I don't honestly know, that's a tough one.
>more interesting
Is there a media genre you like? That isn't documentary? Do that.
>>46131159
I'm typing, one sec.
But I should say that I'm not really doing this for profit or anything like that, but rather I was introducing it as a concept and seeing if anyone was interested, then build it together. But if it's universally thought of as gay, then fuck it.
The 4 or 5 people who posted last night all said they were interested, but to try the thread at more high-traffic hours, but I work 11pm-8am 5 days a week so I have to do it then...
>>46131112
No you're right.
Sorry I'm just retarded with ADD. I can't remember what I said last night and tonight.
Keywords are a great idea. I will definitely change that up right now and think of some.
As far as nerfing giant tyrannosaurus creatures, you see how animals have Rank? Unless otherwise specified by a card effect, what I was thinking is Rank 5 animals can only interact with Rank 5 and Rank 4 animals, and can't touch a Rank 1 or 2 animal, which would eliminate matchups like an ocelot vs stegosaurus and also create what I thought were like "warring factions" or something, different battles taking place across the board among different ecosystems.
Does any of that sounds not retarded.
>>46131260
Watching a horror movie, stopped watching the thread. Yeah, Rank sounds neat. It doesn't fix the problem you think it fixes (my example from before still applies even with rank), but it's neat in a vacuum.
>>46132334
FUCK.
Last thread I mentioned a 0 Rank (microbial life forms) to check big things. Diseases, bacteria, etc. I dunno, still just spitballing.Maybe a Rank 6 for mystical animals like dragons and shit.
>>46128234
>>46128385
>>46128438
My initial thoughts:
I'm not as immediately against it as others have been. But there needs to be a solid amount of re-work put into it.
I also don't mind the rather generic genre, as I see this as mildly useful as a sort of educational game.
Here's my initial complaints:
Card design is wonky. I think you need to push the real-world facts about the animals to the bottom of the card, because it's a sudden shift of attention, and causes the worry that length and weight will be important to the game somehow. I'm not a huge fan of the kanji as type signifiers, but I'll accept them, as long as they Also have something to remind me (A simple W or S in the corner would work)
Second: too many stats, and their lay-out isn't as interesting to me. I would definitely scrap Agility, and potentially Intelligence as well unless you can make some interesting effects.
I think it would work better to build your plant cards into the environment cards. So, like, You don't just have Ocean cards, you have:
Coral Reef, Kelp Forest, Tropical Waters, etc which ARE all Ocean Cards.
T-Rex feels much stronger than Orca Whale, and I'm also confused how contradictory environments work. What happens if I have nothing but soil, and my opponent has nothing but Ocean?
Side note: I think, while it stretches credibility, dropping to smaller numbers would be helpful. a 1-20 scale gives you a wide range, yeah but a 1-10 gives you a better focus/mathematics.
I also think you could use animal TYPES to replicate some of the plant effects.Maybe do something like:
Environments
Herbivores (derive benefits from specific environments)
Carnivores (derive benefits from Herbivores)
Omnivores (can derive from both)
I would also suggest stepping the number of each card down to 10 to 5 copies (likely dropping copy number as rank increases, so a guy could have 10 rank 1s, but only 2 rank 5s)
(cont)
>>46133444
ayy
>>46133444
I honestly agree with everything you just said.
EXCEPT Environment cards.
I think there should be, I don't know, 5-10 kinds of environments.
The "kelp forest" etc. cards you mentioned could function as buffers for the Environment i.e. you can only place "kelp forest" when you have at least 1 OCEAN E-card in play, but it boost all ocean animal's endurance by 5 or something like that. Make sense?
Ok, card format-wise, I've blown up the length/weight box to also fit flavor text and put it underneath the stat/ability box.
>>46133444
Now, I had an idea that mildly answers my contradictory environments question, and it ties into another question I have:
What is this game about? Like, what's the goal? In your first couple posts, you don't mention a win mechanic. And I think I had an idea for one, that I hope was somewhere near yours:
It's a game of, for lack of a better word, evolution. You're trying to, after some set number of turns, have the greater total rank of creatures than the other player.
So Apex Predators (Killer Whale, T-Rex) are useful cards because they allow you to smash your opponent's infrastructure, while Dominant Herbivores (I.e, Blue Whales) can bully predators, and force them to waste time trying to take them out. (So, to use the Blue Whale Example, it'd have something like 60 durability, and 12 Endurance, but only 11 Strength, So it'd take two Killer Whales 3 turns to kill him, but there's no real risk of him killing the Whales in turn)
>>46133510
I don't see how what you said differs from what I said.
I'm saying have 2 or 3 "classes" of Environment (Soil, Ocean, Water) and have 5 or so varients of each.
So Coral Reef, for instance, could be an Ocean Environment card that lets Rank 1 or 2 creatures use Speed instead of Endurance when attacked in it, or Taiga is a Land Environment that inflicts -2 Strength and Endurance on any creature without Arctic in its name fighting in the environment.
These are just my 1 AM first thoughts and impressions.
>>46133628
I really, really, really like where you're coming from.
So, how about this for the win, you have to get a certain number of points (let's say 100 points). You get these points by having that many Animals on the field at one time. The combat could come from the want to kill your opponent's animals taking away their points, or another thing you just inspired, battles for territory.
E-cards can basically be spawn points for animals that you can STEAL from your opponent so your animals can spawn there (like command posts in Battlefront II). Eh?
This is what I have so far, format-wise. Haven't thought of how to layer the stats in the box, or where and how to use Keywords that might indicate Intelligence or Agility and stuff like that other anon mentioned (which is a good idea).
>>46133701
I think I would have the base game just be spawn-points/ bases for your animals that enemies in the same environment class can attack (So my barracuda in Tropical Waters can attack your Clownfish in their Coral Reef, natch), and include an advanced rule-set for potentially stealing environments.
I suggest it be done that way because I know the difficulty that balancing resource theft like that can be (MtG had to neuter Land Destruction, plenty of games just avoid the issue)
You could have it work a little like Smash-Up, where whoever has the most points in an Environment controls it.
Another interesting idea to potentially consider is limiting Apex Predators by biosphere infrastructure: or, to be less hoity-toity: They have to have enough prey to feed to be placed in an environment. So you can't play a Killer Whale unless there's 5 ranks worth of smaller creatures in your environment. This could also be extrapolated into the environment-stealing mechanic to prevent steam-rolling: If I only have 4 rank 1 critters in my Kelp Forest, your Killer Whale can't attack it, because there's not enough food for him.
I gotta call it a night, but, like I said, I think with some stat modifiers, and a unified goal, there's a neat little quasi-educational game here. (Having environments benefit animals realistically native to those regions serving as the quasi-education.)
>>46133803
I'd have the Keywords be like Magic, where they're the top line of effects in the rules text *after affects that modify casting
So Killer Whale might have "Clever, Pack-Hunter" , where Pack Hunter is the bonus to strength for another one in the environment, and Clever could be your intelligence replacement/ "This creature wins speed ties"
Anywho, I've got company coming in 8 hours, so I must retire. I hope you got something out of my posts.
>>46133840
No thanks a lot man you've steered this thing in a better direction, thanks for your input.
>>46130903
Good to see that this idea is taking off better now that there are people awake
>>46130764
Platypuses are actually venomous, (The males at least) with their venom being strong enough to kill small dogs and cats and in humans it causes swelling and excruciating pain (One army vet said it's worse than being hit by shrapnel) the latter of which can last for months and can even have minor effects such as stiffness lasting for YEARS after the incident. Also morphine don't work on it and there's no antivenom so be careful
>>46133892
Platypi/Platypussies are no joke.
>>46133903
They're still goddamn adorable. Even if the venom is terrifying
>>46133943
Well said platypus anon.
>>46133980
The funny thing is that I've never even see one of the bastards in person. I'm not australian and they're TECHNICALLY contraband in every country BUT australia due to aussie law .
It's mostly for the animal's own good though, their electrosensitive bills make them highly susceptible to being shaken about and things like long horse rides and WWII era Depth charges can easily kill them
>>46134016
Deathmatch. Who wins.
>>46134056
I don't know much about beavers but what i DO know is that platypuses would likely LOVE beavers, since IIRC their main food source (Insect larvae) prefer slower moving waters, which a beaver is more than happy to provide. That and I don't think that a beaver would mess with a platypus' nesting habits either, since beavers wouldn't distrub the soil.
But if it came down to an actual fight, I'd have to say the platypus would win if it was a male, since that venom would probably just straight up kill a beaver
>>46134113
My fucking sides.
Probably the best, least shitposty, deliberate and factual _________ vs _________ assessment I've ever seen, and it's about beavers.
>>46134113
I think they'd both mortally wound each other. Beaver being twice as big rips platy-puss a new one, but the puss will leave the beave something to remember it by in the form of a poison barb right through its grundle. So sayonara to both.
>>46134135
This probably deserves a screencap then.
Also platypuses sound more like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwZ6BXZHZ6U
>>46134260
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imSiXiqtMS0
>>46134305
I'm surprised how accurate that is considering that they gave him a fucking beaver tail
>>46134324
Wow, I only just realized they have fur on their tails.
>>46130090
30/3.5=8.6
So 9
>>46134364
Took me like a half hour to figure that out.
>>46134341
Yup. They don't use 'em for propulsion either, the tails are basically rudders (And fat storage) and they use their front feet to swim.
It's actually pretty cute how they swim, since it looks so goofy
>>46134376
So much platypus learning.
Why don't you write the flavor for the platypus card. Use the half-finished orca card above as a reference for length.
>>46134383
For the normal (Alive) platypus I'd say something like... "Arguably one of the most abnormal animals on the planet, the platypus a venomous, egg laying mammal that can use electricity to see it's prey. Despite this, the platypus prefers lazy days swimming in the rivers of eastern Australia looking for food and tend to leave most other animals alone unless provoked.
I might need a fact check on that last bit and this definitely needs some editing but I think it's good. Though I am sad I didn't manage to work in that a platypus did die in service (Technically) during WWII in a german submarine attack
>>46134429
Sounds good. I'll tweak it to make it fit, but it's fine all the same. The WWII thing sounds rad, but it's more trivial than facts about the actual animal.
>>46134443
yeah. It's still super interesting to know
>>46134452please don't become a platypus-related tripfag
>>46134463
I won't, don't worry
>>46134478
Hey, should durability involve an animal's weight?
I changed the Speed stat so that it reflects how fast and animal is IRL, so weight might be a neat way to set durability.
That being said, there'd be a much bigger gap in Durability/Weight than Speed/MPH thinking on it, e.g. a 4 pound platypus vs a 10 ton orca. That would be too big of a margin. You'd have all these animals that get one-shotted by anything and giant animals that take 100 attacks to kill.
>>46134499
Weight being related durability would be good if you went on a logarithmic scale. Though obviously some animals like turtles and such should be rated at higher durability ratings for obvious reasons. You also could factor burrowing ability into durability or maybe make it so burrowing makes it harder to attack that specific animal
>>46134524
>turtles
I'll probably give them an attribute like "tough hide" or something that doubles their endurance or something. I guess either that or make their durability higher doesn't really matter though.
And burrowing animals will probably have something similar.
>>46128741
Sorry it took so long to do hippo m9. Still trying to get the formula down.
Alright, I think I've got the card format down and slimmed the overabundance of stats with Keywords.
But now, I have no idea what to fill the right side of the stat box with. I guess it will have to be some special animal effect that's not connected to a buzzword? The original Killer Whale's effects in the OP I basically turned into Keywords. "Pack Hunter" for example would effectively function as the original card's secondary effect.
OP, I really like your ideas. Animals are dope, dog, and not boring at all. Just need to work out some kinks. Best of luck.
>>46134998
Thanks m8, we'll see what happens.
>>46135010
Just bear with the slow board. Everything takes forever here.
>>46135015
All these years I've never browsed /tg/ because I never played WH40k, MTG or any tabletop type games.The only card games I play are YGO and classic Digimon to a lesser extent.But I knew this was the place to go to get the best advice for putting a game like this together.
>>46134998
Jackie Chan is my nig.
>>46135062
I'd be willing to bet there's also plenty of tutorials out there online for aspiring game designers. Basic card design and resource management and keywords and shit like that. Looking at other TCGs also certainly helps, shit like Magic, Netrunner, Wow's, and the Star Wars one, etc.
>>46135106
You know (and I'm not bragging in any way) I've been making games like this all my life (used to make card games and board games based on my action figures) and it may seem like I'm a little retarded (I am) but that's only because I came up with this idea last night. After a few more threads with smarter anons than me with better ideas, we'll have a pretty decent game I hope we can all enjoy playing.
>>46135164
Isn't there a card game design general out there ? I see people sharing their ideas every once in a while. Why not making a thread so everyone can post their concepts in the same place, that would help everyone's implication on each other game
