http://www.globalgamespace.org/index.php/prior-art/
There are several programs I have not seen before. I have several play testers in other states that I gave up working with because programs like Thoth & Vassel are cumbersome to create games in and have plenty of limitations.
I’m hoping one of these will fit my needs. As I have time to test them, probably over the holiday break, I’ll post my opinions of them on this thread.
Comments
I'd be happy to answer any
I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about Battlegrounds Gaming Engine, if you decide to test it out.
Easy
My biggest concern is how easy it is to mockup my game with the software. Sometimes when testing a game we will find a flaw, make a change and start over. If making the change takes 20 min or I have to log out that would be a big negative. I noticed it has dice rolling support but there is no mention of cards. This is not surprising for a RPG system. I use cards in many of my designs sop no cards is an even bigger negative.
Card Support
BGE does indeed support cards. It says so right on the page that I linked you to.
"Support for card decks, including custom card deck creation"
And on the program's "Features" page, it says:
"Card deck support, which includes everything from simply drawing cards at random, to playing full-fledged card games. You can even hear the cards being shuffled, drawn, played, or flipped over."
The same card support holds true for BRPG, the RPG virtual tabletop program that you apparently looked at. A number of RPG systems (e.g. Savage Worlds, Deadlands, etc.) use cards, so any RPG VT worth its salt needs to support cards.
Both BGE and BRPG comes with a standard deck of playing cards, and both programs let you use cards either in a specialized Card Table, or right on the main Game Table (the program's primary window).
If you would like to see screenshots of the free digital game conversions for BGE which utilize cards, here is a quick rundown:
Games that use the Card Table
Dead of Night, Zombie Plague
Games that use cards on the Game Table
Island of D 2, Dungeon of D, Chunky Fighters, Zombinion, Aliens: TTIW, Up Front, Feudal Ops, For Sale, Battle Line, Schotten-Totten, Fantasy Quest
You can see screenshots of all of those game conversions by clicking the relevant link on the Product Releases forum.
To answer your other
To answer your other point:
An experienced BGE user can make a change "on the fly" (i.e., during a live game session) in a matter of minutes. It would actually probably take you significantly longer just to create the graphic asset for the changed/updated game component.