I have a theme for CCG but I'm having some trouble with the mechanics.
The theme of the game is this:
There is a two-dimensional world called StickLand in which all kinds of
stick figures and doodles reside. In reality, StickLand is nothing more
than a huge drawing board that a bunch of artists use. One day someone
erases StickLand, creating a blank slate. The artists, seeing an
opportunity to showcase their talent, begin drawing all over StickLand.
Pretty soon, artists begin to fight for space in StickLand.
The player takes on the role of an artist trying to find some space for
his artwork in StickLand. The player creates a sketchbook (deck) from
pages (cards) consisting of things like Doodles, Items, Locations, and
Actions.
The overall theme for the game is kind of humorous and light-hearted. I'm
trying to aim for a simple design that's easy to learn but still offers a
a good amount of strategy as well as multiple ways to achieve victory.
Now this is where I've hit a roadblock. I have a bunch of ideas but none
of them seem to fit the theme I've come up with.
This is what I have so far:
You win the game when your opponent deck runs out of cards.
Doodles, which represent the artist's drawings, are not only the primary
means of attacking your opponent, but they are also the primary source of
Sketch Points (or SP - the resource in this game). Most cards cost SP to
play them. I think of SP as the artist's imagination. My problem with
this involves the use of counters to keep track of them. I would prefer a
more elegant system that involves nothing else than the cards themselves.
For combat, I had the idea of Battle Points (or BP). They are a kind of
combination of health and strength. When a Doodle takes damage his BP
lowers, meaning it has less health and less strength to deal damage with.
When a Doodle's BP reaches zero, it's discarded. My problem with this
involves the use of counters to keep track of them. I would prefer a more
elegant system that involves nothing else than the cards themselves. I
also feel it doesn't work with the theme too well. Maybe a system like
Rock-Paper-Scissor?
If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, they would be most welcome.
Nothing I have so far is set in stone. Thanks in advance!
I really like the idea of using the cards in your hand as the main resource for the game (BTW, San Juan looks really interesting; I have get a copy and try it out).
After mulling it over this weekend, I've come up with couple of ideas as far as paying for cards go.
There are four different ways to pay for cards. The types are:
a. Discard cards from your hand
b. Discard cards in play
c. Discard cards from the top of your deck
d. Discard cards from your discard pile
By doing this it allows for variety, not only in paying for cards, but also in deck design. Most cards will require only one type of payment, though some cards will require two or more, depending on their relative strength in-game.
By using these methods to pay for cards, it definitely makes you think about every card you play. And since you lose the game when your deck runs out of cards, it also adds an a lot depth to the game.
I'm still a bit stuck as far as combat mechanics go. I'm leaning towards this idea at the moment:
Each character card you play has a Battle Point (BP) rating. This value represents both the character's strength in combat and the amount of damage it takes in combat. As it takes damage, its BP lowers. When its BP reaches zero, it's discarded. When you play a character to the table, you take anumber of cards off the top of your deck and place them under the character card face-down. Those cards represent the character's BP rating. When the character takes damage, remove the appropriate number of cards from under the character and place them in the discard pile.
My problems with this arise from using the cards in your deck as a way to keep track of the character's health/strength. This could severely lower the number of cards in a player's deck and cause a game to end far too quickly. This also causes the player to potentially never see a good chunk of his deck, causing players to stack their decks with multiples of key cards and therefore degrading the overall variety in a game. The other issue I have with this idea is where should the cards go when they are removed because of damage? The discard pile makes sense, but it causes a player to essentially lose a large amount of his deck.
On the other hand it does achieve what I'm looking for, which is a game that uses nothing else but the cards themselves.
Once again, nothing is set in stone and I'm completely open to suggestions. Thanks in advance and thanks for the previous ideas!