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Juggernauts: A GPL(ish) customizable card game.

6 replies [Last post]
Fri, 04/07/2006 - 12:53
Invisible_Jon
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Hi All,

I'm making a game called Juggernaut. It's a customizable, non-collectible card game that I intend to release under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. (To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.)

I've submitted an entry for Juggernaut to the Downloads section of the BGDF. I've also made a "pre-release" PDF of the rules and cards (64KB) available at:

*EDITED - The URL changed*
http://www.invisible-city.com/file_download/50

Here's my vision for Juggernaut: My intent is to make Juggernaut the Invisible City Game of the Month for May or June of 2006. That means that in one or two months you'll be able to download a free copy of the core rules and cards, print out as many cards as you want to, build a deck, and play with another person who's done the same thing. After playing a few times, you may want to make up new cards (following "official" guidelines), add them to your deck, and play some more. (You may need to tell your opponents that you're playing with non-core cards before the game starts.) Once they've seen your new cards in action, other players can "certify" your cards as "fair" (and might make copies of them for their own decks) or offer constructive feedback to help you make the cards better. Similarly, you might have cards played against you (made by your opponent) that you think are cool and make copies of them for your deck or offer feedback to make those cards better.

What I'm asking from y'all: If you have the time, I'd like you to download the PDF, read it over, and provide feedback. If you have a chance to actually *play* the game, that's even better. I'm especially interested to know if you've seen any games that use similar grid layout mechanics with random die selection and combat. I'm not aware of any quite like this, but I don't know the mechanics of every game ever made (Who does?).

Best Regards,

- Jonathan

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Thu, 06/29/2006 - 08:33
#1
Invisible_Jon
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New files for the game...

The Juggernaut files were downloaded quite a few times, but i (sadly) didn't get any feedback on them. I figure that's due in part to the difficulty in creating an initial deck for a game that's unusual and unfamiliar. So... I've made new starting files up.

attacker deck.pdf: This is a 44-card Juggernauts deck that's attack-oriented. Remember to remove 4 cards before you play with it.
core deck.pdf: This is a 44-card Juggernauts deck that's defense-oriented. Remember to remove 4 cards before you play with it.
defender deck.pdf: This is a 20-card "core" deck that's designed to have 20 cards added to it.

You'll still want to grab the juggernaut rules and cards.pdf so you know how to play and have extra cards to customize with.

- Jonathan

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Thu, 06/29/2006 - 11:34
#2
Hollyhock
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Juggernauts: A GPL(ish) customizable card game.

First of all, it´s great that you license your game in Creative Commons 2.5 to let everybody share it. These things are great for the gaming community ^_^

I have read the PDF, I think I have to try it before making more suggestions, but these are my first impressions:

-Your game looks light, high-randomized, fast and fresh. I have the feeling that it has to be fun, but very few strategical.

-First of all, I don´t understand why a player could choose as Commander a die with few faces... the bigger the Juggernaut, the better! If each player draws cards equal to THEIR OPPONENT´S COMMANDER, the game would be somewhat balanced between different sized Juggernauts.

-As you say in your game, the "commander" mechanic to activate your cards is too random. A player can have bad luck and roll three times a bad number, obtain three alert tokens, and lose miserably despite a perfect play. I encourage the variation of throwing 2 command dies and pick one as regular play. You could name the numer of commander dies you throw as "Command Level", and let some cards modify it up to 3 or down to 1.

-"Remove all alert tokens when you activate a damaged sector" -> You GAIN a alert token when you activate a damaged sector, so... what does it mean? it is correct?

-About the theme: These mechanics are strange, but maybe they resemble long-range missile warfare betweeen two nations (¿have you played Metal Marines videogame?). In order to give more sense to the mechanics, you could place it in a sci-fi fantastic background (that way you can justify most effects that have no sense in real life, as cities that can resist a nuke). Offensive can be seen as long range missile launching. Defense can consiste on huge energetic shields that cover the juggernaut (city) tiles. Neutralized cards can be suffering effects of nuclear radiation or an EM pulse.

However, I don´t like the customizable aspect. Be aware that always there are people who play to win. They will invent cards that seem fair and safe, but then in conjuction they´ll be unstoppable. They will ruin your game. Customizable card games are well for fun (like "1000 blank cards"), but not for strategy, even light-strategy. I suggest you the following:

-The non-core customizable cards that a player brings are not used by that player, but shuffled with the same number of non-core customizable cards of its opponent. Then the custom cards are randomly given to the players. This way, the customizable cards are used only when BOTH players use them, and no one is going to design a overpowered card, because it may end in his opponent´s hands! Only cool and balanced custom cards will be designed this way.

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Thu, 06/29/2006 - 11:41
#3
phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
Juggernauts: A GPL(ish) customizable card game.

Jonathan,

Have you ever considered porting your game into one of the many internet play programs such as Thoth (check the downloads section) so that people could play it online. With so many great games that already exist to play, it sometimes difficult to find time to print out a game and test it, especially a customizable card game.

-Darke

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Fri, 06/30/2006 - 08:54
#4
Invisible_Jon
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Juggernauts: A GPL(ish) customizable card game.

Thanks for the comments!

Hollyhock wrote:
First of all, it´s great that you license your game in Creative Commons 2.5 to let everybody share it. These things are great for the gaming community ^_^

This is the first game I've put out with CC licencing. I'm curious to see what happens with it.

Hollyhock wrote:
I have read the PDF, I think I have to try it before making more suggestions, but these are my first impressions:

-Your game looks light, high-randomized, fast and fresh. I have the feeling that it has to be fun, but very few strategical.

A lot of the game is about trying to reduce the impact that the randomness has on your success. I suspect that strategy comes more in to play when you're making your deck, although thre's actually quite a bit of strategy in how you lay your cards out in your Juggernaut's matrix - especially if you're using cards that trigger or alter adjacent cards.

Hollyhock wrote:
-First of all, I don´t understand why a player could choose as Commander a die with few faces... the bigger the Juggernaut, the better! If each player draws cards equal to THEIR OPPONENT´S COMMANDER, the game would be somewhat balanced between different sized Juggernauts.

It's nice to have a bigger Juggernaut because you can take more damage, but big Juggernauts have a few disadvantages:
* You have a lot less control over what card you activate each turn (If you have very little variance in the cards in your Juggernaut, this may not be a big deal.).
* It's very hard to defend against an attack (You have to roll the number of the card that's getting hit at least once in three rolls. The larger your die, the less likely that is.)

In the games I've played so far, small Juggernauts have tended to be more effective than the big ones.

Hollyhock wrote:
-As you say in your game, the "commander" mechanic to activate your cards is too random. A player can have bad luck and roll three times a bad number, obtain three alert tokens, and lose miserably despite a perfect play. I encourage the variation of throwing 2 command dies and pick one as regular play. You could name the numer of commander dies you throw as "Command Level", and let some cards modify it up to 3 or down to 1.

Tahnks for the suggestion. That's a really interesting idea. I think I'll give it a try.

Hollyhock wrote:
-"Remove all alert tokens when you activate a damaged sector" -> You GAIN a alert token when you activate a damaged sector, so... what does it mean? it is correct?

That's not correct. It's a typo. It should read, "Remove all alert tokens when you activate an undamaged sector." The funny thing is that I haven't been playing with that rule at all, which is probably why the smaller Juggernauts have been winning.

Hollyhock wrote:
-About the theme: These mechanics are strange, but maybe they resemble long-range missile warfare betweeen two nations (¿have you played Metal Marines videogame?). In order to give more sense to the mechanics, you could place it in a sci-fi fantastic background (that way you can justify most effects that have no sense in real life, as cities that can resist a nuke). Offensive can be seen as long range missile launching. Defense can consiste on huge energetic shields that cover the juggernaut (city) tiles. Neutralized cards can be suffering effects of nuclear radiation or an EM pulse.

The other "flavor" I've been considering for this game is warring nation-states. The Juggernaits I'm picturing are huge, lumbering, unwieldy, semi-sentient monstrosities that the Commander can barely keep under control. I'm still considering whether I want to keep this flavor or not.

Hollyhock wrote:
However, I don´t like the customizable aspect. Be aware that always there are people who play to win. They will invent cards that seem fair and safe, but then in conjuction they´ll be unstoppable. They will ruin your game.

You're right. I hadn't really considered that people would make unstoppable combos, but I'm sure you're correct.

Hollyhock wrote:
Customizable card games are well for fun (like "1000 blank cards"), but not for strategy, even light-strategy. I suggest you the following:

-The non-core customizable cards that a player brings are not used by that player, but shuffled with the same number of non-core customizable cards of its opponent. Then the custom cards are randomly given to the players. This way, the customizable cards are used only when BOTH players use them, and no one is going to design a overpowered card, because it may end in his opponent´s hands! Only cool and balanced custom cards will be designed this way.

That works, but it makes it hard to make a deck that's specifically designed for the cool new card(s) you've made. There's a few other ideas I've been kicking 'round also that involve peer review and such.

Thanks for the feedback!

- Jonathan

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Fri, 06/30/2006 - 09:05
#5
Invisible_Jon
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Juggernauts: A GPL(ish) customizable card game.

Darkehorse wrote:
Have you ever considered porting your game into one of the many internet play programs such as Thoth (check the downloads section) so that people could play it online. With so many great games that already exist to play, it sometimes difficult to find time to print out a game and test it, especially a customizable card game.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't considered porting Juggernauts to Thoth, but you bring up a good point. Like some of us here, I'm kind of a "tangible games" snob. I really like the face-to-face element of board and card games. In this case however, it may be good to make an exception.

One of the problems I encounter with online game engines is that my promary computer of choice is a Mac. Often, these games only run on PCs. Yeah, it's my fault for choosing the platform with 5% market share. After doing a little research, I think I'd adapt Juggernauts to the VASSAL engine, since it's Java-based, runs on all platforms, and has an active community.

Now I just have to find the time to teach myself about porting a game to VASSAL...

- Jonathan

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Fri, 06/30/2006 - 09:48
#6
Hedge-o-Matic
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Joined: 07/30/2008
Juggernauts: A GPL(ish) customizable card game.

Invisible_Jon wrote:

Now I just have to find the time to teach myself about porting a game to VASSAL...

Good luck with that! Vassal's a real pain to learn. Some real tutorials would be nice. Maybe cards games are simpler than boardgames, but...

Anyway, I like you games, so it's good to see you hanging around here. I'm lodged in the middle of a huge game design project myself ("Vast"), so, unfortunatly I'm not of any use in testing another game right now, but I'm glad to see you're getting some feedback.

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