As someone who was interested in trading cards and Board games I have pondered an idea for a bit and thought it would make for a unique challenge to Card Game designers. I've recently been trying to create a couple of card games myself so after finding this site I felt I'd like to share and see what everyone thinks and would like to take up the challenge.
Here is the challenge, do you think it is possible to create a game that makes use of, or only uses non-TCG Cards as playable cards?
If we break down trading cards into their basic elements we should be able to assign things like attack power, weapon type, and a whole slough of other abilities to their elements. Those elements include, Card numbers, stats (like baseball cards) rarity like foil cards, character type from the pictures/illustrations, weapons also from illustrations or even stand alone item cards from other trading cards like the zelda series. Card colors, hierarchy of letter sizes etc. and special things like pieces of jerseys or bats can give special abilities. I feel that with a little thought and some creativity, this would be possible without too much difficulty given a lot of people to think on it.
Probably the more difficult aspect to figure out is the game type? should it be a fighting type game like Yomi, or more like MtG, does the difficulty in figuring out the card elements require it to be more simple like an RPS type game? heck there's no reason why several types of game would work either!
I would like to know initially what you think about the concept? if you know of anything like it, or think it's possible? What's a some of the challenges, and where is a good place to start? You can try and figure out any aspect of this it is a discussion after with the hopes something could be figured out. One thing I thought would be worth keeping in mind is having to use fresh packs of cards when you play a game so that there is a total unknown factor of what you're getting. And if you want to gamble a little to the victor goes the spoils.
I'll edit and try to direct the discussion as it progresses, but mostly i hope you all find it a fun exercise!
Edit#1:
Thinking about the type of info on Trading Cards, it would make sense for sport cards to used for a Magic the Gathering type Game. Complex but should be doable.
Thanks
jer
Yes filtering the card info through a formula is the essential idea, though the formula wouldn't have to be TCG specific and could be simpler if possible. For example instead of being complicated like MtG it could be more basic like a variant of WAR or RPS but with a few different abilities. This is a big part of the challenge.
I like the thought of including other sources. But for sake of not getting too crazy with items I figure keeping it with Trading Cards is more than enough. Trading Cards are one or two steps away from TCG Cards so why not keep it simple and just try to develop a game formate for them. I only picked Baseball (or other sport) cards just because of how prolific they are. You can find many other types of trading cards, like video game and comics etc. I've been collecting some zelda one recently that would work just as well (no stats but i don't see that being a problem depending on the game type). I just figured there is already a huge source of different trading cards that you can make use of, something you may already have or can buy at any grocery/supermarket. TCs have all the same production of TCGs so why bring too much confusion with coupons, labels etc.
Books however I like, might be worth looking into a variant, i like the ability of the player to source things to help their "character" but that could prove difficult. The benefit of sticking to Trading Cards is all the stats, info production is the same, already taken care of and it's more a matter of deck building, or blind fighting or any other type of play that can be worked out.
I don't want the focus on Sports Cards Only, but there may be types of games that would best use sports cards since they tend to have the most info.