Hero Summary

Jul 18, 2006 17:36

I mentioned in my last post that I'm working on the design for a new CCG-type game. Here's the formal game summary--which is just about everything I've got whipped up so far, this early in the design process.

Since this is "Game Programming 101", I should probably mention that this is actually an essential first step in the game design process. Having the outline for the game written out this way gives me several things:
  • It's a relatively concise summary of how the game will work, so everyone else who works on the game can easily get The Big Picture
  • It gives the reader a quick preview of how the game will play, which is essential (especially for a relatively novel combination like this) to ensure that the game is adequate in scope and without major gaps
  • It provides the first warning if the game is too simplistic or over-complicated. If you can't picture yourself actually playing by the time you've read it all, then something fundamental is wrong.
  • It's a concrete foundation that I can refer to later, to ensure the basic game doesn't drift during the rest of the design steps.


Hero

Sample Card

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?


All these things are described below; just keep the sample card in mind as you go.

Game Description

Player Heroes

Each player controls exactly one hero. A player’s hero is placed on the board at the beginning of the game, and when a player’s hero dies that player loses. This, therefore, forms the object of the game: to kill your opponents’ heroes while your own survives.

Action Points

Each hero starts the game with a certain number of action points. Some heroes may begin with more action points than others. To move on the game board, a hero must expend action points: each AP consumed allows the hero to move some number of board-squares. To attack, a hero must expend an action point; if attacked, a hero can reduce or eliminate damage by expending action points for defense, and so on.

A hero gains some number of action points at the beginning of each turn, and if unused these points can accumulate to some hero-specific maximum count. There are no penalties for failing to use action points.

Hand of Cards

In addition to a hero, each player additionally has a hand of special action cards. The number of cards in a player’s hand is initially determined by a property of that player’s hero: thus, since players’ heroes are probably different, one player might start the game with six cards in his hand while another player might start with only four.

During the course of the game, each player’s hand is always kept full if possible; therefore, when a player uses or discards a card, it is immediately replaced with another. A player’s cards are drawn randomly from that player’s deck, and when used or discarded they are removed from play forever. When a player’s deck is depleted, that player suffers no penalties other than that implicit by having fewer special actions available than his opponents.

The size of a player’s hand may be affected by events during the game. When this happens, the player either discards randomly or draws new cards until the new hand size is attained.

Every special action card has an associated cost. In order to play a card, a player’s hero must expend the specified number of action points. A player can only throw out an unwanted card from his hand if his hero has a Discard ability, which allows the player to consume one of his hero’s action points in order to discard a card and draw a replacement.

Creatures

A hero does not have to fight the battle alone! There are three categories of special action cards: creature, modifier and instant. When a player uses a Creature card, he adds a new troop to his army. The new creature comes into play in any legal location adjacent to the player’s hero.

Creatures are very similar to heroes. Creatures come into play with some number of action points, and-as with heroes-those action points allow the creature to move, attack, defend, and to make use of any other innate abilities. Viewed in this way, a hero is really just a creature with an innate ability that allows it to make use of special action cards by expending its APs. In fact, during the course of the game it is sometimes possible to grant this ability to other creatures, or to strip the ability from a hero.

Most creatures come into play with no, or only a few, action points; if non-zero, they can use the points immediately, otherwise they must wait until the next turn to begin action. Like heroes, creatures gain action points each turn until they reach some maximum capacity-this is an analog of resting to gather strength.

When a creature or hero expends an action point to move, it is allowed to move up to N squares. The particular value of N is a property of that creature or hero, and can be affected by in-game events. For example, some creatures may be allowed to move ten squares for each action point; others may need to expend two APs in order to move a single square.

A creature’s (or hero’s) ability to defend against an attack is likewise governed by a combination of an innate property multiplied by the number of action points being consumed. One creature under attack may need to expend three action points to forestall half the damage, while a different creature might have been able to fully defend itself with only one AP.

Attack is slightly more restricted, in that most creatures can only attack once per turn. When attacking, the amount of damage that will be inflicted on a defenseless victim is a property of the creature or hero making the attack. Most creatures can only attack an adjacent creature, although some have an attacking range that is far longer.

Modifiers

In addition to creature cards, a player’s deck might contain modifier cards. These cards affect some aspect of the game-weakening a character, allowing a character to move farther, creating a fog over part of the board, allowing a player to have a larger hand of cards and so on.

Most modifiers are played against a hero or creature, though some are played against a particular region of the board. Once played, a modifier remains an ongoing presence in the game that can itself be modified or even dispelled. A modifier that is associated with a creature is dispelled when the creature dies. Some modifiers may dispel themselves when other conditions are met.

Many modifier effects last only as long as the modifier is in play: for example, if a modifier that grants a player a larger hand is dispelled, that player will have to immediately discard some of his cards.

Other modifiers have permanent effects. For example, a poison modifier might cause a character to take damage at the beginning of each turn; even if the poison modifier is later dispelled, the hit points previously lost are not automatically regained.

Instants

The third category of special action cards is instant cards. These are identical in scope and purpose to Modifier cards, except that their effect is always immediate and permanent-as if a Modifier had been played and immediately dispelled, but left its effect in force. Instant cards can deal damage to creatures, grant or revoke abilities, steal APs from a hero and so forth.

Instant cards, like modifiers and creatures, can be played at any time during a player’s turn-so long as the player’s hero can pay the card’s action point cost.

Turns

Game play is divided into turns, but no further divisions are made: there are no phases to a player’s turn, and no restrictions about how this must be done before that. Action points are granted as appropriate to all of a player’s characters at the beginning of the turn, and any repeating beginning-of-turn modifiers take effect. Thereafter, until the player decides his turn is over, he can use his creatures’ action points in any method or order desired.

When a player’s hero dies, all the creatures under his control are immediately removed from the game. Any of his modifier cards that are still in play, however, remain in play. The game is over when only one hero remains on the board.

Terrain

The playing board is composed of hexagons, each representing a particular kind of terrain. Different terrains have different effects:
• Grassland - the most common terrain. All creatures are capable of crossing and battling on grassland.
• Forest - creatures with the Woodscraft or Flying abilities can traverse a forest. Woodscrafted creatures within a forest can only be attacked (even from a distance) by other woodscrafted creatures-though fire attacks will destroy portions of the forest, returning it to grassland and potentially exposing the hider.
• Water - only creatures with the Amphibious or Flying abilities can traverse water. Amphibious creatures within water can only be attacked by other amphibious creatures.
• Desert - all creatures can cross and fight within desert terrain, but non-flying creatures lose one action point every time they start their turn in the desert. Note that this means some foolish creatures can wander into the desert and never leave without some kind of magical help.
• Mountains - only flying creatures can cross mountainous terrain.

It is rare but possible for a creature to be traversing a difficult terrain and suddenly-through a modifier or instant card-lose the ability to travel in that terrain. When this happens, the creature is immediately moved to the nearest legal terrain and forfeits any remaining action points.

There are some creatures with innate abilities to modify terrain. For example:
• digging - the character can expend N action points to turn a portion of grassland to water, or vice versa
• clearcutting - the character can expend N action points in order to clear the forest from a particular region, leaving it as grassland
• forestry - the character can cause a forest to grow on a particular region of grassland

These abilities also appear as Modifier and Instant cards, allowing any hero to temporarily acquire these abilities.

A particular board square can hold no more than one creature or hero at a time. A moving creature may pass through an already-occupied square, but may not stop there. Passing through an occupied square does not implicitly cause an attack; attacking is a separate and deliberate action.
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