Making and developing a card game right now. What should I avoid?
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Making and developing a card game right now. What should I avoid?
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Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
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>What should I avoid?
Making and developing a card game right now
Don't make Yu-Gi-Oh because that already exists.
It has definitely been influenced by Yugioh, but as a long time fan I'm being careful not to commit the same mistakes Yugioh did
Paper cuts.
>What should I avoid?
That depends.
What is your core game loop? What kind of cards do you have? What does a typical turn look like in your game?
>What is your core game loop?
Basically the same as MTG, Yugioh. You play monsters, spells, etc, and pass your turn.
>What kind of cards do you have?
The basic only for now: Field, Monsters, Spells.
>What does a typical turn look like in your game?
Same as MTG, Yugioh. Draw cards, play monsters, play spells...
But I'm trying to keep monster and spell effects really simple for now. No spell speed, continuous effect, etc. Plus position matters, but it's nothing too crazy. I think
That's my biggest focus right now. I'm trying to trim down some stuff I added before so it's not too crazy
Sounds boring. If there isn't anything to distinguish your game from MTG or Yugioh, then why bother?
Anyway this
and also come up with some interesting "gimmick" that gives people a reason to play your game vs others.
>Sounds boring. If there isn't anything to distinguish your game from MTG or Yugioh, then why bother?
Aside from card types and how the turn goes, it's not similar to MTG or Yugioh
Unnecessary complexity. Keep it engaging and fun. Keep turns fast enough for both players to feel like they're playing.
Without knowing anything about your game, your focus should 100% be on the gameplay loop and making the mechanics as smooth and enjoyable as possible. Design your game in such a way that someone who's never heard of it before can play with minimal learning effort.
Your gameplay loop should be your entire focus - what is the goal of the game, how do the players get there, and where do they start. None of the basic rules should require more than a few sentences to explain, and all of the starting card mechanics should be easy to grasp.
Avoid what I call "digital gimmicks", card mechanics that may seem easy to implement, but in practice are only viable in a digital game. This includes things like dexterity mechanics (flip the card over in the air to get x ability, for example), randomization, or variant versions of cards (all cards with the same name should do the same thing). If you have a mechanic that requires players to do something beyond the confines of the game, such as playing a subgame or calling a friend, do yourself a favor and forget it. Do not include mechanics that change the values of a card unless that change ends at the end of the turn or is marked clearly by counters/tokens.
Absolutely none of your energy should go into making the game 'collectible' or 'marketable'. Efforts by other game companies to make their TCG's collectible artificially almost always backfire and lead to them being despised by the community. Lay out the basic rarity system and stick to it - over time the virtue of your game as a collectible will drive up the prices of the cards naturally, rather than artificially, and will lead to a healthier community.
There's a few other obviously annoying things you should avoid, like meta nonsense, but for now keep this in mind.
>What should I avoid?
Anything that requires a specific playmat or more than a handful of counters/markers
The more STUFF your game requires the more excuses you're giving someone to say "nah"
Randomization is fine if you have it as a core mechanic like coin flips in pokemon or if you have it as a niche mechanic on a few cards that can be a fun gimmick that kids might enjoy without impacting the metagame too much.
>Anything that requires a specific playmat or more than a handful of counters/markers
Not even deluxe paddocks?
you what mate?
Ideally any market or token or whatever BS on a card should be measurable with d6s. That doesn’t need to be the rule but yeah, avoid extraneous bullshit
Yeah, the only positive exception I'd make for your game "requiring" any sort of counter beyond a handful of dice is if you have a core mechanic that uses some kind of basic core set of counter/tokens like keyforge's keys/amber.
That can be fine so long as you include a cardboard set in just about every tier of product, especially since this sort of thing can be alternatively tracker with dice and a piece of paper but tokens can add a nice tactile element.
Anything more than that is where it becomes untenable
-do not copy Magic
-come up with a proper resource management
-dial in player to player interaction
-reduce the amount of time a turn takes
-experiment with board layouts
-ARTWORK
-text legibility
-card durability
Avoid mechanics that aren't choices. If a mechanic always results in the same choice, it's just an extra step and not an interesting decision
Don't be a Magic clone.
Don’t make it a TCG, make it a LCG (living card game). The difference is that one sells packs with random contents made to encourage trading while the other sells boxes that have all the new cards in it you need to make decks. In practice the latter is easier to do for small devs because you don’t need to get packs in stores and new adopters are more likely to buy it if they know that this is all they need to pay to get everything they need to make a few decks and play with friends.
>What should I avoid?
putting energy into anything beyond art and marketing