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"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

9 replies [Last post]
Mon, 09/15/2003 - 15:45
Anonymous

Hi, I'm working on a tournement fighting card game (Most likely not collectible) that uses a reflexes fighting system. (inspried by the game Egyptian War)

How it works is, when a player attaks both players attempt to slap down on a pad in the center of the table. If the attacker slaps it first (His hand is on the bottom) then the attack hits the opponent. If the defender's hand is on the top, then she does not take any damage at all. Though the combat is real-time, I think the turns would be take-turn.

There would be different kinds of fighters, moves, specialty cards and arenas.

So what do you think? Is this too "Goofy" to make it in to an adult market? I know there are some real time fighter games already out there, but do they incorperate a system for punches blocks? I've always wanted to make a fighting game rhat was purly about reflexes and quickly dogging the blows (Probibly ever since I saw "Karate Kid" Especcialy)
Any thougths are welcome thanks!

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Mon, 09/15/2003 - 15:54
#1
Anonymous
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

Hmm... This sounds like a pretty good idea. Well, at least to me. I don't know of any games who use this mechanic(of course, I don't know of many games) The only thing I am having trouble understanding is how are you going to incorporate fighters, moves, ect. into the game?

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Mon, 09/15/2003 - 17:07
#2
Anonymous
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

Hmm... This sounds like a pretty good idea. Well, at least to me. I don't know of any games who use this mechanic(of course, I don't know of many games) The only thing I am having trouble understanding is how are you going to incorporate fighters, moves, ect. into the game?

Fighters
Each deck would feature a single fighter, that the player startsa with at the begining (Like "Brawl" by cheapass games).

Moves
I'm not too sure. I was thinking either:
a.)About 3 moves would be chosen as "starter" moves, the rest wouldbe put in to the deck, and drawn. this might lag down the game a bit
b.)about 5 movs are all prechosen and that are the only moves possible throughout the game

Arenas
I was thinking they would be seperate from the deck. The arena for each "round" would be chosen by the loser of the last round (from the loser's supply of arena cards)

Events
These cards would be drawn from a deck.

Another aspect of the game I'm going to implement is a fighter's "speed" desicdes just where the pad is in relation to the two players. It's moved twords a player a number of spaces/measurements equal to the difference between the fastest player and the other player's speed.

But how would I have a system for moving the pad around? I'm definitly going to keep it down to a minimum, but I don't want to have to use a grid. Should this game require the use of a ruler? Thanks! Keep sending your thoughts!

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Mon, 09/15/2003 - 17:16
#3
Anonymous
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

Foolster41 wrote:
Arenas
I was thinking they would be seperate from the deck. The arena for each "round" would be chosen by the loser of the last round (from the loser's supply of arena cards)

How would you descide who places the first one?

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Mon, 09/15/2003 - 17:51
#4
sedjtroll
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Joined: 07/21/2008
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

I don't think this will work too well. The attacker will probably always win, as they know when they are going to "attack"

Unless I'm misunderstanding... is the whole game just taking turns attacking? Or is there some other game going on within which players occasionally attack?

I think the way to go with this is to combine Cheapasses Brawl and good old-fashioned Egyptian Rat Screw (I believe you called it Egyptian War). Make a game where players take turns playing cards, and when a particular combination comes up the player that slaps it first wins that particular battle.

The game could be just a re-make of ERS, but instead of playing cards give it a theme and make cards that match the theme. Or, switch it up and have players make decisions about which card to play and when (based on whatever rules there are).

I'd lean towards the straight re-make of ERS though, where you pull cards out of the deck sight-unseen and when a particular combination comes up you try and be the first to grab it. If you want to switch that up, make different combinations do different things... and of course there's a penalty for slapping when you shouldn't.

As an example, in ERS you slap pairs and things that add to 7. Some people play variants where you can also subtract to get 7, etc. You can choose anything you want to slap on- any combination of cards can qualify. So make the cards unique, and then make certain combinations of them "slappable"

So when a player slaps the pile, just look at the top two cards and see if they were 'slappable' or not. If so, that player takes those cards, and the object is to get all the cards.

- Seth

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Mon, 09/15/2003 - 17:58
#5
IngredientX
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Joined: 07/26/2008
Re: "Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

Foolster41 wrote:
Hi, I'm working on a tournement fighting card game (Most likely not collectible) that uses a reflexes fighting system. (inspried by the game Egyptian War)

Nice idea! I'm very intrigued.

1) With realtime/dexterity games, there's always a component of fiddly-ish "sports" rules. These are rules like "only one hand on the card," "slap your head before putting your card down," etc. Your game sounds like (if you'll pardon the gross oversimplification) Egyptian War (though I prefer the name Egyption Ratscrew :) ) with multiple discard piles. This means that once a player plays a card on a certain pile, he'll have an obvious advantage to slap that pile.

One way around this is to use "slap cards" off to the side of the table or from the bottom of the players' decs. Players would need to have their slap card in their hand when claiming a deck.

Another way around this is for a player to have their draw deck in their hand except when slapping, during which a player must put their deck down to the table and not be touching it. For extra cruelty points, you can always keep the entire game real-time, so that if a player throws their deck down and scatters cards everywhere, his opponent can slap cards down at her leisure. :)

2) What triggers the slap event? In Egyptian War/Ratscrew, it's pairs and straights (I believe). I suppose if a card is put down next to its matching pair, one could be slapped. Or something like that?
Also, will your game be for two-players only, or will it be for three or more? The rules may change significantly depending on its scalability.

3) I developed a pretty stupid real-time game. I learned that the biggest favor you can do your playtesters is making the cards as legible as possible.

I'm not just talking about no script or large fonts. I mean that for your prototype, use a simple/stupid font like Times or Arial, and make it nice and big, with lots of clean whitespace around it. If you're using numbers, be sure to underscore the numbers 6 and 9, so they won't be confused.

Remember that these cards need to be read in a fraction of a second, and the easier you make it for your playtesters, the more receptive they'll be to your game.

Once you have the rules in decent shape, you can start experimenting with fonts; but remember to keep your information very clear and sharp.

This advice applies for just about any prototype, but for a real-time game, it goes from "recommended" to "essential."

4) For my realtime game, I printed my cards in regular paper, cut them into 3.5" x 2.5" cards, and slipped them into collectible card sleeves. Once I was happy with the rules, I made a back for the cards that faced out of the other side, and inserted cardstock between the two pieces of paper. I found that it was relatively easy to make changes to my cards this way, and I found them very durable.

5) Try to keep your ruleset simple. It's much easier to add rules than to take them away. Very important for a realtime game.

6) My problem with a lot of realtime games is that they have interminably long scoring periods. This killed Fightball for me; it took 15 minutes to set up, 30 seconds to play, 15 minutes to score, and 15 minutes to put away. You can fix this by making a very short scoring system (though long enough for players to rest between rounds), or by making your scoring system dramatic, like James Ernest and Tom Jolly's Light Speed.

Also, be warned that a lot of people just plain don't like realtime games. Spooking up playtesters may be a little more difficult than with an ordinary game. But this is offset by the fact that there aren't a whole lot of realtime games out there, and there's plenty of territory to explore.

7) As for influences, I see that you're already familiar with Brawl, which is probably a good thing (I don't know Brawl too well, unfortunately...)

Also, check out Lunch Money, if you haven't already. It's not a realtime game, but it is very fast-moving, and it incorporates blocks, as well as roundhouse punches and kicks (which affect adjacent players if they miss), and weapons. This could give you good ideas about the moves your fighters can make in your game.

Finally, another realtime game to look at is Fightball, also by James Ernest. This game uses multiple discard piles set up as an arena. It might give you some ideas about how to lay out your game.

Good luck!

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Tue, 09/16/2003 - 16:07
#6
Anonymous
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

I played a test game last night with my little brother (Age 9), and I quickly realzed that the attacking player calling out attacks was always going to win. So I went and got 10 traditional playing cars, 9 black and 1 red. Egyptian war was an insperation for this game, but using a deck didn't occur to me until I actually tried to play the game. When a player chooses his/her attack, he/she draws cards one at a time from the deck. When the red card comes up, then the attack is made. The game was fun and fast paced, And my brother seemed to like it.

As for who plays the fist arena, I guess that would be chosen by the player who doesn't go first. Arenas varry in sizes and some have special effects in them that can effect the way you can score.

I'm, hoping to eventually add thrown downs and out of arena scoring as well. A round is played until either a player is knocked out, thrown down
or falls out of the arena bounds.
Scoring is as follows:
KO: 4 Points
Throw Down: 2 Points
Out of Bounds: 1 Point
Then the deck is shuffled and a new round is played with a new arena.
The game ends when a player gets 8 points.

One difficulty in designing this game is I want to have two levels of two pads (A left and right pad on the bottom, and two pads over them) to represent the head and body areas so I can do moves like "uppercuts" and such. But designing something that not only will hold them up, but also stay up when slapped is a challange. Any thoughts on this?

I'm not really familaiur with Brawl any more than reaing about it on the site, but I realized some of the aspects of this game is a lot like mine. I'm just about as familaur with milk money. I've heard about it and the basic idea.

Thanks for all your interest and input!

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Thu, 09/25/2003 - 05:46
#7
FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

Just FYI the published game Halli Galli uses a slap mechanic (where you slap a bell first) and seems somewhat similar. More info at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid=2944

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Tue, 10/28/2003 - 11:15
#8
Anonymous
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

I have a suggestion for your Arenas.
Put them all on cards as well, then before you play, shuffle them. Every game, draw an Arena, that way it is always random...

If you wanted to get really creative, you could find ways to incorporate Arena cards further into the game, i.e. have an Arena card that might change into another Arena card halfway through the battle, or moves that could actually change the Arena card ("Judo throw opponent through the wall: he takes X damage and change the Arena card to the next one in the deck.")

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Tue, 10/28/2003 - 16:07
#9
Anonymous
"Slap down" Real-time Combat mechaic

The arenas are on cards, and are chosen by the player who does not got first, that way there's an avantage for the player/team that goes second.

I did design an event card called "New Arena!" Tha allowed to you to change arena, but an transforming arena is something I didn't consider, and sounds really interesting. I'll have to work that in too.

Oh yeah, "Halli Galli". I never played it, but I did a search on gamegeek for simutanous action games to see what was out there and that was one to show up in my search. I guess a good quesion is has anybody played Hali gali, and is it fun?

My main question in this topic has been; would kids (My primary target is boys 10-12 years old.) enjoy a fighting game with a real time element like Halli Galli? And would I be able to pull in any adult market as well?

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