Hi,
"System Crash" is the game I've been working on for the last year, a Cyberpunk CCG (collectible card game), built on Unity. Think a mix of MtG and Spectromancer. Initial release is single player only vs AI, but if I sell enough copies I'll add in a multiplayer mode.
50 cards in the first release, story-based campaign in a dystopian, corporation-dominated future, in the best traditions of the genre. Play as a once-hotshot Runner who lost everything in a Run gone bad, and now has to rebuild their reputation and finances from the bottom. The plan is for regular expansions with new cards and new story campaigns.
Aiming for release December/January. PC/Mac/Linux, then looking at porting to tablet. More screens/videos/demos to come soon.
I'm working on getting a proper company/product site up, for now you can follow dev on my personal blog : http://garethfouche.com/blog
Windows version
Mac version
"System Crash" is the game I've been working on for the last year, a Cyberpunk CCG (collectible card game), built on Unity. Think a mix of MtG and Spectromancer. Initial release is single player only vs AI, but if I sell enough copies I'll add in a multiplayer mode.
50 cards in the first release, story-based campaign in a dystopian, corporation-dominated future, in the best traditions of the genre. Play as a once-hotshot Runner who lost everything in a Run gone bad, and now has to rebuild their reputation and finances from the bottom. The plan is for regular expansions with new cards and new story campaigns.
Aiming for release December/January. PC/Mac/Linux, then looking at porting to tablet. More screens/videos/demos to come soon.
I'm working on getting a proper company/product site up, for now you can follow dev on my personal blog : http://garethfouche.com/blog
Windows version
Mac version
Comments
I imagine you've got your own ideas/expectations... But I'd expect that the multiplayer in a game like this would drive sales and allow a community to form.
Though I have only second hand knowledge, my understanding is that MTG online lives and dies by it's multiplayer (and the single player is for training).
I couldn't hope to predict what your sales will be like (I simply don't know the card playing video game market), but it feels a little like this to me: "Singleplayer, then if enough sales happen I will add multiplayer" is a lot like "Chicken, then if the chicken comes out right I will work on the egg".
I mean, singleplayer first release is something we're debating in our own project... though as you might have gathered I am against it.
Though I understand how daunting multiplayer can be. In fact my advice might be completely terrible as I don't really know your situation.
That art is awesome! I do however have a comment on the rest of the art in that the interface's design doesn't seem to compliment the really cool character art very well - a CCG particularly relies on quite a distinct graphic design to convey certain things - like MTG has mana colours/symbols, and netrunner has faction colours, Assassin's Creed Recollection has factions all in different card colours. It feels like your interface could benefit from a bit more design direction that makes sense of your mechanics. Like titles in a size/colour/bold, different colours of symbols, differentiating between players, etc.
Of course, I know nothing of your game so I guess I can't really guess too much at what any of it means. And if you're still busy with the art that's understandable too. It does look a bit prototypy.
Second is the multiplayer thing - I'm building a little CCG type prototype myself and I must say I think it's much harder to build a semi-competent AI than to allow multiplayer - so I'm not sure why you've decided to start single player than multiplayer? Multiplayer, as @Blackshipfillthesky said, is THE driving force for games like this - I ran (still do but it's very quiet now) the unofficial Assassin's Creed Recollection forum, and had plenty of engagement there - and I must say the ratio of people talking about multiplayer vs single is at least a 9/1 split to multiplayer. It's the multiplayer that'll get people to tell more people about it, and that's what you need to start the initial growth.
Oh and one last little thing is that your blog looks awesome and would be even more awesome if it drew people into each post with image - on the front page :)
So either way looking forward to What Lies Ahead (Netrunner inside joke) :D
@Blackships : Yeah, I'm well aware of this issue, and I regret it. The original plan for the game included multiplayer, and I got some of the basics working, but I came to the conclusion that it would take too much time to get it really solid.
I'm working to a fixed money/time budget, so I can't afford to blow past my deadline. I have some evidence that single-player duelling card games can get SOME audience, though nothing like MtG. I'm hoping to get enough sales with the sp only game to add in multiplayer later.
If it doesn't work, lesson learned.
@Tuism : Yeah. There aren't any factions, it's one card pool everyone draws from. Bit simpler than MtG, I know.
The basic interface will undergo tweaking all the way to the final release. Will probably add some way to distinguish between the different types of cards (Agents, Events, Resource, Modifiers and Tactics).
AC Recollections, eh? I researched that game a lot when I was starting out on System Crash, for a while the system had "battlefield modification" slots. That's actually where "Tactics" cards evolved from. You'll note each player has a row of 3 cards on their side of the field? That's where the play Tactic cards, though they have a limited duration.
Looked like a lovely game, pity I had no iOS device to play it on.
I hear you about the MP vs SP activity, but there is a small danger with MP too. If you don't get critical mass of players online at any one time, you'll struggle to find people to play games with. So, in my mind, it's important to have a single player VS ai mode, at the bare minimum. Especially if you're a small indie, you can't make the marketing splash that WotC can to make sure you have critical mass at launch.
Which is why, when faced with the fact that I couldn't do both in time, I chose to get SP finished first.
Anyway, I'll let you all know how it works out. Maybe it will flop horribly.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Yeah, you're right, I should see about putting the latest blog activity on the front page.
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The recent City of Cadwallon iOS game of a Fantasy Flight boardgame is one such example - it has no single player AI option so it's not gonna get my consideration even if the gameplay seems really cool.
Cool tune! :) Looking forward to more beats, I have a favourite Netrunner background music album (C418's 72 Minutes Of Fame) :)
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I do like that you've gone in a different route than magic's route, as dislekcia said, but that would make card design that much more limited... As everyone can use any card in conjunction with any other card without restrictions. In games there is room to make powerfully cool cards if there are restrictions around them: the colours in magic serve to channel power together so that decks can't just pick the best of everything and toss them into the same deck (though that's largely debatable these days with the meta being full of multi lands nowadays), and Netrunner has faction points which makes a wonderfully diverse set of very powerful cards that cant just be tossed together in a best-of deck. Recollection has the limitation of only two colours per deck (out of five) with non-coloured resource.
So just my two cents :) looking forward to seeing it in action :)
@dislekcia Yeah. I'm not going to pretend I was super original with SC, the design is a mix of MtG and Spectromancer, primarily. I took a look at various card games, broke them down to core strategies, and implemented some of them in the core set. With certain twists. More strategies will be added via expansions.
@Tuism New stat symbols were added in the last alpha release, I don't know if that's the build you're playing? Give it a try now, let me know what you think. :) You are 100% correct. In fact, I'd say that the limitations in games are often just as interesting as the abilities.
However, in this case my design was driven by necessity, to a degree. I actually started off with different factions, rather like the colours of magic. But the problem is there is a lot of overlap if you go that way. In MtG, all the colours have plain 1/1, 2/2, 3/3 creatures, etc. Going with one faction meant I didn't have to pay for art for variations on what are basically the same cards, just different factions.
Even with that, I still had to compromise a bit more than I wanted to fit my art budget by introducing the "Limitless" keyword, so that I can get away with not having to do too many variations on basic, ability-less Agents. There is one Limitless basic Agent in all the low to medium cost tiers, you'll notice ;)
I agonized over this, a lot. I had to cut my initial plans from a 120 card core set to 57. But, that's just reality, you need to work around your limitations as best you can. I may expand SC with some faction mechanics in the future, or perhaps write other card games on this engine with factional splits (I've actually got a few ideas there already). I'm hoping what is there is enjoyable enough to be worth playing, at least for a core audience. :)
Anyway. Beta comes swinging in through the skylight!
Slightly later than I hoped, sorry about that, but we've finally reached beta! All major features are in, it's pretty much bugs and finishing the mission content from here on in. Which will be my focus for the rest of the month.
I'll open up pre-orders shortly, once I've setup the financial stuff (gah, banks). For now, give the beta a try! Now with added mac build!
Windows version
Mac version
Please note the new tutorial popups in the game. I'd particularly appreciate any feedback about whether the tutorial is a good enough introduction to playing SC, or if people new to the genre still find themselves a bit confused over what to do. Also, I am a little bit concerned that I might have made the things too easy now. Let me know if you find the missions a cakewalk with the new card unlock progression, please.
Thanks!
List of changes in beta :
- Many bugs fixed.
- All final card art is in.
- Card balance tweaked.
- Counter-hacking cards overhauled. They now provide a sort of 'armor' against hacking effects.
- Added .Nuke to the counter-hacking arsenal, a card that lets you destroy hacking tactics cards directly.
- HE Grenade functionality changed. Now does 5 damage to primary target and 3 damage to Agents on either side of the primary.
- New tutorial popups and tooltips.
- Concede option in duels (flag icon in top right)
- Better phase and turn indicators, gameplay sped up again.
- Deck size verification.
- New card / buy metagame. You now win cards individually in duels (instead of, when unlocking a card, gaining essentially infinite copies of it for deck building). You can buy and sell your cards from the black market.
- Broadened the card choices available earlier in the campaign. Combined with new card economy, players have more options in deck building, sooner.
- Made end-of-turn card discard more user-friendly.
- New mission narrative.
- Email messages make clear what rewards are offered for doing the missions.
- AI in SenseSim mode can play with user decks as well as campaign decks. User decks will have the tag "(Custom)" next to them.
Use the starter deck, please. Of course, you're free to edit it once you start earning cards, build new decks etc.
just OMG!
The campaign story has me sucked in like a black hole, the UI is polished, the art enticing me to look for more and the music suitably moody; and I haven't started a match yet! I'm blown away with what I've experienced so far. Well done!
@wogan, yeah, you can easily skip the tutorial stuff. There were some folks who were struggling to figure out what they were supposed to do next, so I erred on the side of thoroughness, with the option to turn them off.
Interesting, most of the people who've had trouble, it's because they hadn't played CCGs before. Anyone who's played something like MtG seems to get it fairly quickly. So it's cool that you found it easy to get into without any prior CCG experience. :)
There was this one card (that gives -1 attack and +2 armour to all your agents) that kind of annoyed me, because at one point I got a whole lot of them, and didn't see the point. Only later on when I started getting agents that would give me +2 OP just for being in play, did it make sense. I kind of felt as if I got those other ones before they'd actually be useful.
The tutorial felt quite wordy (although I get that there's a lot to say), but I also felt it was inconsistent. Sometimes it'd tell me about a certain area, and show the area using highlights and arrows; but at other times it'd just have text, and it'd refer to some area that wasn't indicated, and I'd be confused as to what it was actually talking about. It wasn't really a big deal, because I could figure it out later on (in which case... maybe the tut text wasn't really needed in the first place), but it was just something that felt odd to me.
I was pretty lost in the first story game I played, because I didn't have any agents to play at first, so the opponent had the first 2 combat phases I think, and the combat phase was only explained to me when I was finally able to take one. When I restarted knowing how it worked, it was pretty easy... until I got roflstomped by the 10,000G mission. :P
I think it'd be something I'd play while waiting for the countless loading bars I often have to sit through, if only I could click-skip the splash screens at the start of the game. :)
Congrats on the imminent release! :D
First of all, I was actually only making my previous comments in relation to the screenshots I had seen, so when you asked me which version I had played... None :P
So I did download it and check it out now... And I must say... WOW!!! WOWOWOWOW!!! The production value is phenomenal, the interface is nice and slick, detailed, with little bits of animation. The illustration are of very high cyberpunky standard (a bit too smooth for my liking, but that's a personal preference thing). It manages to feel like an old-school cyberpunk adventure too, without looking bad. Kudos for that :)
As others have said, the text heaviness does weigh the whole thing down a bit - it's not only the tutorial but the story bits too. I don't know exactly how this may be alleviated, maybe with slightly easier to read typography...? Or seeing less of it at a time...? (so it scrolls/crawls along by itself?) Or... Not sure! Maybe it just should be shorter. Or headings. Headings help reading.
The gameplay is where I felt a bit sluggish - being the starter deck vs starter deck scenario I guess I shouldn't expect too much, but I felt that the mechanic can be a bit grindy - I could never really concentrate my resources to attack a certain spot, equipment and tactics came slowly, I could never choose between draw or play... Credit came and left my hand as soon as I could, and a match felt pretty flat. I could do with a bit more agency - choice in what I should do. The 4 limited slot feels like I'm just plugging holes half the time, waiting for the next tactic card to come along.
The cool interaction like Elyaradine mentioned above was cool, but there was only the one copy (of the girl that gave you points by just "being"), if my memory serves me right. I got and played her before I could take cover and I was stuck on 20 OP for the rest of the game........ So... My first game I drew with the computer @_@ I either completely missed the point or it just was because that's what decks did to each other - it seemed like the same decks yielded very similar outcomes because the choices felt pre-determined by your deck? Oh and there was a bug - when we ran out of cards, the game crashed... Can't draw, can't play, can't even quit - I had to just alt+F4...
Oh in terms of the interface, I really feel like it could benefit from a bit more variance from the single green tone - for example, between the two halves of the battlefield, a bit more visual cue at division could be good. The iconography took me a while to figure out and understand, but they're pretty clear once committed to memory. I especially like the touch where red is "damaged stat" and a cyan vice versa.
I'll give it a few more games, I really want to like it, being an avid avid fan of card gaming in digital formats, but I do hope that the deeper card interactions will give me more scope of choice during the game.
Maybe I'm just spoilt rotten by Netrunner though...!!! I do want to feel that sense of agency in a game about hacking and cyberpunk - like I could dedicate my strategy towards something and overload channels of threat - in deckbuilding AND on the field.
I'll persevere more and report back! Congrats on the releasing, it's a quality production and I'm sure plenty of fun will be had by all! Can't wait to see more cards :)
Ps if I sound too harsh I'm really not, it's a great production, and the mechanics are fresh enough to differentiate, it's just little things that end up feeling big to me, and I'm really good at blowing up little things till they're all I see, so please take my points with a grain of salt!
I also feel, after getting through the first couple of battles that the starter deck is kinda crappy with only 1 Maddox. Either there need to be more in the starting deck or the player can be more forcefully directly (i.e. a tutorial) to go to the black market and update his deck with better cards.
I agree with @Tuism that the battlefield could be improved visually delineating better the player and AI area.
On a final note PLEASE tell me you have some plans for multiplayer? Even something like a play-by-email where you pass a file between players so they still have a "single player" experience would allow me to battle against my friends.
@Elyaradine Yeah. That's the thing about CCGs games, the random element is always a factor. Sometimes, the gods of luck aren't with you ;)
Also, that starting deck isn't built to be efficient. The idea is you start with a poorly tuned deck, against poorly tuned opponents, and slowly earn new cards and tighten up your deck strategy, in fact build multiple efficiently-designed decks.
As you mentioned, the Take Cover card is great for hacker decks, where you wanna sit tight, block their attackers while waiting for your hacking Agents and Tactics to earn you free OP.
You'll unlock more cards that support that strategy as you play the campaign. Or try the Showcase - Hacking deck in SenseSim to get a feel for how that kind of deck will work out. Thanks, I'll give that another pass, try to make sure everything is indicated clearly. Heh ;) :) Yeah, that's the idea. It's a fun game to play a quick match every now and then, or experiment with different deck builds, more than something you sit down and burn through in one sitting.
I'll add click-to-skip when I get some time.
@Tuism Hah! Well, welcome to System Crash ;) Thanks! That's been a big focus these last 3 months. Glad to know people like it.
Hmm. Well...some people like the text a lot, some people want to skip it. I'm not judging either group, but when you have a split like that, I'd default to what the developer prefers. For me, personally, I'm a reader. So the text stays. But I might shorten some of the fade intervals so it's quicker to skip past, if that's what you prefer. Yeah, I understand. I want to write a blog post about this sometime, but it was rather difficult to actually create a progression curve for a CCG. You're a CCG player, so you know how to build efficient decks. Well, to make enemies easier, I had to essentially make their decks less efficient. And match that with a correspondingly inefficient player deck.
So one of the issues you'll face is that the starter deck doesn't have any good mid-to-upper cost cards in it. All your stuff is in the low-cost tier. So in the beginning, you have tons of options to play, but all very similar. And late-game you have...the same stuff you had to play in the early game.
As you earn better cards, this curve evens out. You'll have starting hands with cards that are too expensive, so you can't play them immediately, and you'll have better combos to build towards. And, more lethal cards, which will clear slots on the field faster, giving the game a greater sense of "churn" or "turnover" of in-play cards.
tl;dr - balancing CCGs to have a progression curve is a giant PITA. Yeah, this again comes down to my limited budget. MtG 1st edition had over 300 cards in it. I planned for 120 in this game, because of the cost of art I had to scale that down to 57. So, really limited at the moment.
Your starter deck is fairly similar to the first few decks you play against. Which means, if the computer plays a good game, the luck of the draw will have a stronger impact on the game than your strategy, for those games. That will change as you earn more cards in the game.
I am sorry for that, but it comes down to the challenge of balancing how many cards you have in the start vs having enough cards to serve as campaign progression rewards, given the small pool of cards I have in the game. I need to be able to offer new cards to players as rewards for story progression across the 50-mission campaign. You start with 12 unlocked, leaving 45 to earn through play.
I might add more to the starting roster once I've finished balancing the late game, if I feel that there are enough cards to ensure a regular reward progression. I understand, as a CCG player, how first impressions might turn one off. I'll do my best. I'll take a look at that. Lol, don't worry, I have a thick, leathery skin. ;) And I value honest feedback more than anything else. I'm also aware that different types of players will have different responses. The person new to CCGs will have a different outlook from the CCG veteran, as will the narrativists vs the mechanics-focused types. All valuable to hear.
@aodendaal Don't stress, I don't plan to ;) Yeah, some elements, I admit, have been done in ways that, in hindsight, could have been done better. I'll look at forcing the card order for the tutorial. Yeah. I'll relook at the early game card distribution once I've balanced the mid-and-end game distributions. I know the early deck is fairly boring, I just don't want to make it exciting at the expense of making the late game boring. ;)
Oh, if only I had a few more thousand rand to commission the cards I've got planned in my spreadsheet. For now, they will have to wait for the expansions. ;) Multiplayer is something I'd like to add, but it will all depend on how well sales do, and how much of a fanbase the game builds. Basically, it will take an extra 6 months to build MP, so I need the game to sell well enough to cover its costs off + 6 months more dev.
Current plan for updates is, assuming the game does decently :
- 2 expansions (expansion = 20 or so new cards + new story campaign themed around the expansion card set, priced around $10) in the next year
- look at porting to tablets, have to do some fairly substantial reworking of the interface.
- looking at adding multiplayer support.
Beyond System Crash, for Rogue Moon Studios, I have an idea for another CCG or two I might try building on this engine. Different rulesets, of course. But I have this CCG framework now, it makes sense to build on it.
Alternatively, because this is found in the beginner AI decks it should change to cost 2 credits and be a once-off +3 health to an agent i.e. a medpack.
Haste reverses the "first in lane dominance" convention. I think cards with Haste should cost a bit more, making Nem0 cost 5-6 or more credit chits.
After the cost has been addressed, whether Nem0 is an overpowering card still not difficult; a wounded Neonmonger is toast immediately when Nem0 comes into play and the "fist in lane dominance" means he'll take out CorpSec or Maddox long before they can get him to half health. Add to Nem0 buffs and he's a deal breaker which makes me think he should be a late game card and should cost even more, 7-8 credit chits. At that high cost the opponent has enough money as well to buff or counter him.
Finally, I'm still upset that mission after mission I'm getting duplicates of cards I already own and the Sell rate of them isn't worth buying any other card you might want. I would like to see missions unlocking new cards.
First off, remember that you are only playing the first few missions of the campaign. The starter deck is fairly crap. Intentionally. I need to create a progression curve for the campaign.
Primarily, the way I do this is to limit you to low tier cards in the start. You'll notice you only start with cards in the 1-3 Credit range. And in the beginning, you'll face only opponents who use similar cards.
After a couple of missions though, you will face enemies who start to have a few of the mid-tier cards (Notice Nem0 / bike guy is 4 Credits). They will be tough fights, given the selection of cards you have at that point in time. Intentionally. Think of them as...early boss fights.
Once you beat them, you will start facing more opponents using mid tier cards, but you will start earning mid tier cards too. So you will be able to more comfortably fight these opponents.
But then you will face an opponent using high-tier cards. And you will probably struggle, as they can bring out bigger guns than you. But then you will start earning high -tier cards, etc.
Now, I know that high cost cards aren't necessarily better than low cost cards. But what you'll find is it adds pressure. Because, once you reach the point where those cards come out, you'll find yourself losing the initiative.
But you have an advantage. You're smarter than the AI, and can make better tactical decisions. Sure, luck plays a factor. But build a tight, focused deck, play a good game, and have a little luck, and you'll beat them.
If you can't report it to me and I will check and see if it's not balanced properly. For a tough fight, with a good deck, you should win at least 1 in 3 or worst case 1 in 4 matches. Unless you have an unfortunate run of bad luck with credit draws, which is statistically possible, but not that likely. Nah. Regen is not actually that powerful, because the cards are designed to create a high turnover rate of agents in play. Agents generally have a ratio of around 1:2 in terms of attack vs health, meaning they will usually stay in play for about 2-3 turns, max. Regen of 3 is decent, but mostly it just slows down the death rate of an Agent, or forces you to use one of your kill cards to tip it over the damage threshold.
For 2 Credits you can buy Body Armor. It isn't healing, but it applies vs multiple sources of damage per turn, whereas regen just gives you 3 health if you make it to the next turn. It's balanced well enough. Although, it stacks quick powerfully with Back Street Doctor's healing effect. Nah, he's just a very solid 4 Credit card, and you're probably fighting him with 3 Credit Agents. He's actually weaker than the generic 4 Credit Agent, MetroSec.
For comparison :
MetroSec - 4 Credits - 5 Attack, 11 Health. Limitless.
Even though Nem0 is guaranteed to get the first hit in vs MetroSec, MetroSec will still win that fight. he'll kill Nem0 in 2 shots vs Nem0 needing 3 to kill him.
Let me list the other 4 Credit (Mid Tier) cards to compare, so you see Nem0 really isn't imba.
Yakuza Soldier - 4 Credits - 4 Attack, 8 Health. At the start of opponent's turn, Yakuza Soldier reduces their available credits by 1.
Simon West - 4 Credits - 4 Attack, 9 Health. Hacking 3.
Wei Lee - 4 Credits - 3 Attack, 7 Health. Lethal (Destroy any non-Mech unit dealt combat damage by Wei Lee this turn)
Bounty Hunter - 4 Credits - 5 Attack, 8 Health. When Bounty Hunter destroys an Agent, your Credit Pool is permanently increased by 1.
CyberSec - 4 Credits - 4 Attack, Health 9 - Countermeasures 1 (Reduce all Hacking effects against you by 1 OP)
Nem0 is quite good, especially for a fast, aggressive deck. Don't get me wrong. But his special ability basically just lets him get in one free hit immediately. But I don't believe it's imba. He's slightly below par in attack and health for a 4 Credit Agent. Heh, naw dawg. The 5-6 (Mid Tier) and 7-8 (High tier) cards soundly thump Nem0. Let me give you examples.
Declan - 5 Credits - 5 Attack, 14 Health, Hacking 2.
Hacked Satellite - 5 Credits - All Agents you control get +2 Attack. Duration 3.
Hendricks - 6 Credits - 7 Attack, 17 Health
X-32 Paladin - 7 Credits - Mech. 6 Attack, 15 Health. Armor 2.
Go play a few SenseSim battles with the "Showcase" decks to get a better sense of how the game is balanced once all the cards are unlocked. But please, don't use them in the campaign. I put them in just to show some of the cooler stuff that will become available, they will totally unbalance the campaign matches.
He isn't particularly tough for his cost, and even a Neon will likely get in at least 1 hit on him. Grenades or Crippling Shots and he's manageable.
If players are saying that those first missions feel bad, maybe there's room to poke those missions so that they feel better? I don't think there's anything wrong with stacking things in the player's favor early on. Maybe even something as blatant as simply not having the enemy deck play a Nem0 if the player doesn't have a grenade or debuff available?
I'm certainly keeping it in mind, but what I'm going to do now, as I said above, is wait until I've got the mid and end game missions laid out and balanced decently before I do another pass on the early missions.
I may well find that I have more than enough cards to cater for end game rewards AND be more generous in the start.
Or perhaps, if I don't, I'll look into commissioning a few more cards to try to beef up the early game. Money's tight, but making the best first impression I can will pay for itself. And if I get some pre-order sales I can spend that on more cards before the final release. (Hurry up, FNB)
Reward is so much more tangible if you tasted it in the beginning - especially in a game that's about power levels of stuff.
Not sure if that would be the perfect answer, but I think it's a good fit - I just feel like I'm not familiar, not expose to the cool stuff, and therefore makes me not wanna invest time to get better.
Plus I'm not feeling like I'm progressing - being stuck to fight the same fight 3 times on level two or three isn't making me feel like the game is going to be fun - it makes me feel like I might get lucky. And if the early levels don't reward the players a feeling of accomplishment, then the player isn't tempted to forge forward.
So that's probably a difficulty curve comment.
For the record, I don't think it's a matter of needing more cards. Low cost cards shouldn't equate to low power. Colossus of Sardia is expensive as heck, but isn't a great card. Lightning Bolt only cost 1 and is construed overpowered. I don't think it's got to do with needing more cards, or more "powerful" cards.
FF6 [spoiler alert] when the world literally ended... And started back up? WOW. :)
This is because of how power scaling works. Something that is 2X as expensive is MORE than 2X as powerful.
If you build a deck with only low cost cards, generally it is less efficient at all stages of the game (early, mid and late) than one with a spread of cheap, medium and expensive cards. Generally speaking. You can of course build a tricked out deck that relies on weenie rushing.
I certainly get your point, and you may feel this is the wrong way to go about creating a campaign progression in a CCG. I'll relook at adding in some "higher cost but less efficient" cards to the starting hand in a bit, once I balance out the late game fights.
Starting you off with cool cards and then taking them away might work, sure. The intro narrative already describes the player as being an elite runner who loses everything in a mission gone bad and has to start from the bottom.
I'll see, when I do the next pass on this section.
Again, good to meet ya at the Joburg meetup, super impressed with your stuff :)
Here are some references to currently hot and up-and-coming CCGs to see what's working in the marketplace, in case you haven't seen them. I think what's interesting is the kind of marketing and communications that they're doing - sure they're big teams, but there are still learnings applicable to indies, I think. Scrolls especially.
Duel of Champions - this one's by Ubisoft, and I think it was done after the learnings from the Assassin's Creed Recollection game which they seem to have abandoned. I heard it's pretty good. It also employs the lanes mechanic which is interesting to see in action.
http://www.duelofchampions.com/en/index.aspx
Scrolls - this one's by the guys who made Minecraft, and is literally a game of 5 lanes :) Things are pretty sketchy, but it's beta so there should be playable code. Looks pretty good, like MTG on lanes... I made a prototype before hearing about this that's a dead ringer for this so I stopped bothering with it :P
http://scrolls.com/
Good luck on your stuff! :D
Also was wondering if you thought how to put constraints in your game to avoid the infinity loops as in MTG when strange combos mix, which can really break a game?
So what was the most challenging part to develop in a card game for you?
I play lots (or use to) of MTG, I actually own AfricaMall.co.za and run the AfricaMall bots on MTGO, so I do live card games. If I may way in my 2 cents on the SP vs. MP debate, I think you ultimately need both like in Starcraft; well blizzard believes you do. However scale-ability and future revenue will depends on MultiPlayer...especially if you build it on similar basic mechanics that relates to say MTG.
Will try your game now, if I can find the download link (maybe make the access easier).
Congrats!
only complaint is little blurry text on left panel in game while playing, I used max and best game resolution.
If I wasnt keen on SA indie, just another random stranger I probably would buy it only if it had more cards in pool, but since I'm also an SA indie I would probably be keen to donate to get it there or support a crowd funding at this point..as some feedback.
Also I think the text is just fine.
I hate the spam email though gosh, but the email as a game mission mechanic I think is really relevant! A shame the emails are not proudly SA email addresses haha
Maybe think of not show life as 3/5 but just as the current life total of the creature or unit..
Really polished!
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Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnd after a long and unfortunate silence, System Crash Beta 1.0.1.3 is out!
Grab it HERE
This is a big release! A lot has been added or changed in the new beta. Let me go through it.
- 26 new cards, bringing the total from 55 to 81 cards, an almost 50% INCREASE in variety!
- EXTENSIVE rebalancing. Many cards have been adjusted in some way. Many cards have shifted in cost and power tier, and had their special abilities altered.
- Greater variety of cheap and expensive cards, for more variety at ALL tiers of gameplay. No more sitting with hands full of Neonmongers.
- Black Market card buy/sell costs COMPLETELY redesigned. No longer is it a case where a card is more expensive the "bigger" it is. Cards are evaluated based on how powerful they are relative to their tier, and how specialized.
- More variety in the Starter Deck, addressing one of the primary complaints, that gameplay is a bit dull in the beginning because of lack of variety and deck-building options.
- Rebalanced campaign missions and rewards. Card rewards are more generous now. You'll receive new cards more often, opening up deck building options at a faster rate.
- Tournament Mode added to SenseSim. Campaign missions unlock SenseSim Tournaments against varying AI difficulties, which you can play to earn extra credits outside the campaign missions. If you're finding a mission difficult to beat, play some Tournaments, earn some credits, and go buy more powerful cards in the Black Market before tackling that mission again!
- 3 new Showcase Decks to try : Buff, Rush and Attrition! Take them for a spin against each other, or against the original 5 showcase decks! (Note, all Showcase decks have been moved to the Testing Helper campaign.)
- Duels introduce the following 3 new mechanics : Starting Credit, Just Played Armor and Battlefield Conditions :
[i]Starting Credit : Players now start with 1 instead of 0 credits, which speeds up the first few turns play.Just Played Armor : Agents that have just been played onto the battlefield have a bonus point of Armor, until their next turn only, which lessens the advantage of getting an Agent into a lane first. It's still an advantage, but the weakening of this effect has a subtle but widespread effect on balance.
Battlefield Conditions : Campaign missions can now specify Battlefield Conditions, introducing bonuses, penalties or special conditions for one or both players. This changes up how missions play, introducing new challenges to overcome. How will your deck fare if your enemy is playing with an automatic boost to their Agents' attack, or if you have only 10 turns to win the duel? Good luck, have fun!
- New missions and flavour text!
- Significant AI improvements. No days of the AI hurling Agent after Agent fruitlessly against Wei Lee are over! Also, AI decks have hint tags, allowing you to adjust the AI's priorities in play. An AI playing an Aggressive or Rush deck will prioritize scoring OP rapidly, whereas a defensive deck, such as the Hacker deck, will prioritize blocking your Agents, giving its hacking cards time to work.
- New Player Avatars
- Music track playback shuffling
- 9 brand new pieces of card art!
All this done while holding down a day job again. Sleep, what is that? ;)Anyway, grab the build, if you're so inclined, and take it for a spin. If you want to test the new Showcase Decks, please start a new profile, go to campaigns, and select the Testing Helper campaign. This will unlock every card, all the Showcase decks, and give you 10 million credits. Enough to try out any deck build you can envision, and pit any of your creations against the AI in SenseSim. But please, do try the campaign(On a different profile to the one with every card unlocked, don't cheat ;)). I'm eager to hear your feedback on the changes! :D
Cheers!
Feedback which you may find useful:
Bugs 'n UI:
- I was able to surrender in the middle of an AI's turn, and during the next match that particular turn continued to resolve as some weird carryover thingie.
- I initially thought it intuitive to occasionally change my mind about which agent I wanted to deploy, clicking on one, then the other, and realising only too late that I actually still had the *first* one selected. Obviously not pleased to be spending credits on the wrong card! While I'd like to say that the option should exist to switch between card choices on this whim, I'd also be satisfied with just giving players a "currently selected" indicator for their pending card, whether by making the card itself bigger or just assigning a different border colour (maybe blue or green?)
Progression 'n narrative
- The game is very heavily frontloaded with tutorial messages, menus and story and it took me a while to even get to my first duel (which I lost -- I appreciate a reasonably challenging game, though I think others would be more impressed with a much easier first experience). It's a general rule of thumb to grab attention and show off your core gameplay as quickly as possible.
- If you've got room in your code, I'd strongly recommend adding functionality for story and dialogue in mid-battle. You could abstract your entire opening story with a tutorial card battle using seeded decks for you and your opponent, minimising complexity and stripping out a few of the game elements to be introduced later (mulligans, tactics cards, whatev). So, you could be loaded up with a superior deck containing very specific cards for educational purposes, bring the opponent to its knees, then on turn three a bunch of "???" holyshit-style cards come into play (maybe a battle event?) and your foe's OP starts shooting through the roof. Boom. You've hit so many birds with so many stones that ornithologists the world over are putting out bounties for you. You could recycle this mid-fight dialogue functionality for other missions where appropriate, like cutting out the pre-Lewis narrative and just having him speak to you directly.
- Speaking of Lewis ... after defeating him, the campaign choices EXPLODE. Five or six missions, I think? I like options, but this threatened to be overwhelming, especially when it's hot on the heels of my first-ever duel. Consider staggering this part of the campaign to two separate steps, or maybe just require players to do the multi-part mission in order.
Balance
- Hmm, I don't wanna comment too much on this, it seems pretty good and I haven't played enough to get the full experience. But I'd definitely say that, if it really has much use at all, the C4 is definitely for advanced decks only and has practically no value whatsoever in a low-powered fight. Making it cheaper or introducing it later is my thought.
Musings for now, may think of more stuff later.
I also like how well your AI is doing and there's obviously a few areas where it's been optimised for cleverness, such as priotising aggressive mod stacking as soon as they have an empty lane to attack. Kewl.
Onto the feedback itself :
Bugs 'n UI
Thanks for pointing those out. I'll see what I can do.
Progression and Narrative
I 100% agree with you on how it would be better to tell the story as you describe, and I'd *love* to, but I'm out of time and money, sadly. The way I've built the engine, the changes you're talking about would add months, and I'm months past my release deadline already. So I'm gonna release with the storytelling told the way it is now, with a view to improving it in either expansions or future games. Lessons learned, and all that.
I'm massively conflicted by it, I love a storytelling and it kills me to feel it doesn't work as well as I want it to, but I can't scope creep any further with this project. Game must ship!
What I can do, though, is reduce the difficulty a bit. I agree with you, I've probably tuned it a bit too much to my own experience level. I'll scale back the difficulty and possibly the explosion of options in the beginning there.
Balance
Yeah, C4 isn't much good for a starting deck, not by itself. I popped it in there (along with Neural Backlash) based on Tuism's feedback that the player should have a sense of the possibilities in deck building right from the beginning. Personally, I'd sell both of them immediately (they sell for a decent price) and use the money to buy a Myrmidon or MetroSec Enforcer. ;)
Though I dunno what C4 does, I haven't played the new build yet... Sadly, time @_@
But I wanted to give hints at the different types of strategies in the starter deck. So there are some hacking, discard and resource drain cards in there as well.
The idea being that the starter deck is both lacking the very powerful cards and unfocused. You'll hone it over time, as you get new cards and tighten up the strategy.
Okay, you'll be pleased to hear that I reached the end of the campaign, paused for a moment, and decided to fire up your showcase decks. I gave them a fair shot and, after a few rounds, built what I considered to be an optimised Hacker deck. I then pitched it against the rest of the showcase decks (several times, ackshully) and consistently crushed my opponents, only running into trouble against enemy Balanced and Hacker decks due to us racing for points along the same routes.
My findings within this very specific gamespace:
- There are a lot of counter-agent cards in the deck and comparatively few "counter-tactic" cards. Agents can be killed directly, killed indirectly, debuffed or rendered inert via Smoke Grenades. In contrast, there's one nuke card which only targets Cybers, and the Hermes / Artemis counterhacking cards which, in my experience, can be waited out for reasons which I'll go on to describe (while having no offensive / defensive value in other game areas).
- Almost without fail, my plan of action involves grabbing Agent Coulton (or similar, can't remember the name) and using him to scum the deck for Smoke Grenades. Putting four of each into a minimally-populated deck shuts down a lot of builds including Rush, Assassin, Buff and Resource Gain. I don't even need to worry about Coulton getting killed -- his sole value is buying me what basically amounts to impenetrable turtling time, as I know of no card which can reasonably counter, nerf or destroy a Smoke Grenade.
- In theory (and surprisingly often in practice) I can get eight turns of unharassed hacking opportunities and credit buildup, plus a few padding turns where I'll let down my guard long enough to let my deck scumming agents soak up some attacks and even die if necessary (I'm occasionally happier when this occurs, as it frees up space for hackers). This is more than long enough to bait and wait countermeasures such as Artemis, while milling the deck and building credit for my hacking suckerpunches like Nikolai and HexagOn.
- Other cards I'd be worried about in theory, but don't actually rise to the challenge? My hand is often too full for Neural Shock to be much worry (and if I'm shrewd with tactic-harvesting, I'll immediately acquire and play a Smoke in-turn). Artemis and Hermes are temporary setbacks (I'd start to fret if they became agent-equipped buffs instead). Resource denial has little impact on me, since Grenades are dirt cheap and most respectable hacking options aren't much more expensive (Mr Russia is more of a luxury than anything else). And although it's possible I'm missing something, the cards I've looked at in the Black Market suggest that only two decks could take me down: (1) An opponent's Hacking deck (obviously 50/50) and (2) A deck built solely for the countering and destruction of my particular setup -- and while this gets the job done, I strongly suspect that such a deck would be weakened against most other standard decks.
Perhaps as an exercise I'll attempt to build such a counterdeck and prove myself wrong, but off the cuff I'd suggest getting more tactic-killers out there, whether through broader Nuke effects, agent on-play effects, combat events or even a tactic-focused version of the Smoke Grenade (no tactics cards for X turns!). This would rein in not only my strategy, but other potentially abusive builds which rely on the free reign that pretty much any Combat Tactic has when placed on the field (I'd shudder to think how any other deck responds to stuff like the Satellite Uplink).
And I suppose that's my contribution to Upper End Balance (TM)
On topic... I agree with Nandrew, every strat needs a hard counter, or else you'll end up with something undefendable, even if it's minor - and that'll just see majority play. Which sucks.
Ok, so these are my thoughts, tell me what you think.
1) .Nuke changed to general purpose Tactic destruction. Doesn't quite fit the card concept for an antivirus program to destroy a smoke grenade, but in this case I think it'll be worth glossing over for the sake of game balance. This makes it generally useful in any deck.
2) Counter-hacking decks like Artemis and Hermes changed to reduce OP gain from ALL sources, not just hacking effects. This would make them a lot stronger and generally useful in multiple decks. And that is actually fine, from a thematic point of view. The idea, conceptually, is that all your agents have SOME ability to ransack sensitive computer terminals and steal data/trash programs (the hacker cards just being the agents who are really specialized in interacting with The Matrix), so having firewall programs reduce their ability to do so makes some sense.
3) Change Cybersec's special ability to destroy a random enemy Tactic on play.
All would require rebalancing the cards, or course. I would want to make these changes and see how they play out before adjusting Smoke Grenade again. It used to last only one round, I could change it back to that, but maybe with these changes there are enough ways to deal with it that it's less of a killer strategy.
Previously you could, in combination with Transferred Funds, mill out the enemy hand fairly early on, leaving the AI fairly helpless for 3-4 turns (especially if you lucked out and milled off their Credit Chits), a near unrecoverable disadvantage. They're still moderately useful early/mid game now, even though I upped the cost, I believe. A Transferred Funds/Executive heavy deck with NB and SC, along with some Nem0s and Wei Lees, would work well methinks.
That would go a long way towards the dilemma of one strategy dominating - for example discard, because discard-enabled decks would be strong a that but weaker on something else, for example.
But of course that's way out of scope for now, so... Just a pipe dream comment right now XD