I really need some solid ideas for this RTS game. I've decided to make it with cards, and maybe card board units with no board. I am having trouble coming up with a way to move units and a way to have players interact but also work on their without turns. The cards will determine how far or how many steps the unit can take but how would you determine what a step is? A ruler? Do you need a board for this? I was thinking without a board it would make the gameplay much less ridged. Let me know your ideas please I really need it.
Game design help (RTS)
Sat, 03/02/2013 - 15:46
Sat, 03/02/2013 - 15:53
#1
1 Width + 2 lengths
While, if you base the distances on card dimensions it would make measuring super easy. Regatta has a similar system where it puts movement templates on the cards, but this can lead to disagreements about how lined up a card is.
You might want to stop thinking about this as RTS, especially if it's turn-based, and start thinking of it as a miniatures wargame, which is what you are actually describing. There's been quite a bit of work done on wargames over the years, and this could well inform your decisions. Of course you don't want that to overwhelm your own thoughts...
Sun, 03/03/2013 - 15:03
#3
No turns?
Well I want to create it in a way where you won't have to take turns.
All card games are about turns, same goes with board games... You can design such that the sequence of turns is not one to one. For example a player could play 3 turns based on the cards he puts into play... Something like that would be possible - but would still be turn-based.
Pure RTS is not possible in traditional tabletop games. You might want to consider re-designing your game for the video game market (Tablet, cell phone or computer).
JustActCasual is right that it sounds more like a wargame than an RTS. In a war game, units may move in any direction using a ruler to calculate the distance (max movement per turn). Same goes for Range weapons, you use a ruler to determine if you can reach your opponent...
Sun, 03/03/2013 - 15:51
#4
RTS Feel
You might also want to consider using a custom dice which could have values that affect the turn order... This might give the game a more RTS feel (sort of initiative value).
You could for example on your turn roll the dice and see what you get as "action points" (values of 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5 on the custom dice). You can from there figure out how you would want to use your action points. This would make it feel *less* turn-based and more wargame-ish.
And besides trying to make an RTS would be so arbitrary: a player would say I shot you and the opponent would say oh no, I moved away before you shot me... etc. With turns there is no arguing: either you were close enough to shoot the opponent or you were too far away.
Sun, 03/03/2013 - 17:00
#5
Tbone wrote:Well I want to
Well I want to create it in a way where you won't have to take turns.
From my perspective, you are not left with an either-or choice, where the considerations are turn-based or real-time. It's your game, so why not have your cake and eat it, too?
I don't know much about your game, and I've never played all card games, so I can't say for absolute certain that all card games are about turns. I would encourage you, however, to not miss the forest for the trees.
Think about the game, "Battleship." It's turn based, for certain, but what I want you to focus on is not the fact that it is turn-based, but rather, the little flip-top cases that house and hold the ships. Players of Battleship take turns firing at locations where they think that the enemy's ships might be. But, technically, those cases with all of the little holes in them are, in reality, nothing more than a board. Think of it as a board in two distinct segments.
Your game could have phases where players get a certain amount of time to do certain things (again, I really don't know the details of your game), and when the allotted time expires, they both then reveal their respective board segments. Thus, the decision-making process happens simultaneous, in real time, for both (or all) players, but no player knows what the other player(s) decisions were, until the reveal stage.
On the one hand, it would be turn-based (or phase-based, if you prefer that term of art for marketing purposes), but turn-based and real-time do not have to be wholly exclusive of one another. The most important consideration, I think, is that the mixture of game design that you ultimately go with actually works, far more so than making yourself a slave to a particular mixture that doesn't work.
Sun, 03/03/2013 - 17:29
#6
I guess what I was going for
I guess what I was going for was sort of like a deck building/unit moving game where the cards have options on them- actions. You can either move (the card would specify how far or how many steps you could take), take money (the card would specify how much money you can get from that card), attack (gives you the kinda of attacks you can use), resources (shows you what resource you would get from the card), or research points. The turns would be picking up your cards. So in turn it is a "turn-based" game where you have to wait to get new cards to do different things but you are all individually building your base/army. I just don't know how to configure the collision between players; switching from independent gameplay to dependent gameplay.
Also HP's and how the attacking of one unit to another would work.
Well I want to create it in a way where you won't have to take turns.