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Pokemon type card game

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 00:43
cerpn
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Hey! im a LGS owner (i sell boards games and tcgs). Im from Mexico. so, sorry for my english.

There is a Pokemon league in my store, but they have a lot of problems and i try to explain parts of the game with card games.

So here's the thing... In the Pokémon videogame are 18 types of pokémons (im thinking about a green card with the word "Grass" and a yellow card with "Electric" can do the trick) is a Rock-paper-scissors very complicated (you know, "rock beats fire", "fire beats grass", "grass beat rock but water beats rock and fire and lose to grass") so, i try to thing how can i make more easy for the players keep that info in their minds.

Im thinking about a card game (+4 player) where the players put a card in the center and choose "left" o "right" the player to the choosed side "try to beats" the card with another card. if the players beats the card he can put a new card, if the player cannot he took the card and draw a card for the main deck (180 cards, 10 for each type) the player that run out of cards win.

Im looking for "UNO" or "Gran Dalmuti" experience and i surely put cards with effects later, for now i try to design a mechanic to make this actions fast and clear, any thoughts?

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 01:52
#1
radioactivemouse
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cerpn wrote:Hey! im a LGS

cerpn wrote:
Hey! im a LGS owner (i sell boards games and tcgs). Im from Mexico. so, sorry for my english.

There is a Pokemon league in my store, but they have a lot of problems and i try to explain parts of the game with card games.

So here's the thing... In the Pokémon videogame are 18 types of pokémons (im thinking about a green card with the word "Grass" and a yellow card with "Electric" can do the trick) is a Rock-paper-scissors very complicated (you know, "rock beats fire", "fire beats grass", "grass beat rock but water beats rock and fire and lose to grass") so, i try to thing how can i make more easy for the players keep that info in their minds.

Im thinking about a card game (+4 player) where the players put a card in the center and choose "left" o "right" the player to the choosed side "try to beats" the card with another card. if the players beats the card he can put a new card, if the player cannot he took the card and draw a card for the main deck (180 cards, 10 for each type) the player that run out of cards win.

Im looking for "UNO" or "Gran Dalmuti" experience and i surely put cards with effects later, for now i try to design a mechanic to make this actions fast and clear, any thoughts?

I think many people will agree with me when I say that we'll have to see this as a prototype. While there are great ideas out there, all ideas must be refined by the fires of play testing before they are considered "good". The idea has merit, but an idea is just a thought until it's implemented.

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 10:58
#2
cerpn
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Need help!

Thanks so much for your review , you are right . The truth is the i'm playing around, I was started printing the cards and try to see the interactions. It works, but the game is pretty boring (that 's the reason that i say that i 'll put it in later effects cards) . but I have not even developed the prototype and looking for ideas, or mechanics .

i'm here to ask "game examples" or any ideas.

Again, thanks for your time and answer.

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 14:53
#3
X3M
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As how I have read your

As how I have read your explanation. It seems to me that players are simply doing rock/paper/scissors with the cards.

The only gaming element is that 1 player chooses the next to react. No one wants the others to win, and you simply get some sort of "choosing the player with the most cards".

180 is a lot you know?

***

How about this?

Players pick out of a deck of about 36 cards. (18*2, 12*3, 9*4 or 6*6)
How you do the picking is up to you. But I think letting players choose one by one is the way to go.

1 player has to start and is in turn. For the picking, but also for the rest of the game.

The player in turn places one pokemon.
All other players have to react with one pokemon of their own, and that pokemon has to win.

For each player that can't place a pokemon for a win. The player in turn gains 1 point.

Once a pokemon is played, it goes to the "graveyard".

At first, no points are given. Eventually points will fly around.
The player with the most points wins the game.

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 15:47
#4
ruy343
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X3M's idea

That's really not a bad idea... Perhaps introduce a drafting mechanic to allow each player a limited amount of information by seeing what they can't seem to find. ("Huh, I haven't seen any water-types come my way recently... I bet that my opponents will have lots of them, so I'll grab extra electric-types to beat them!").

The only difficulty with this system is that the number of players would have to be relatively small, depending on the number of possible types that beat other types. If player 5 has no hope of possibly scoring a point if the other 4 have played, then you should only allow 4 players to play.

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 17:42
#5
X3M
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Players might discard the

Players might discard the wrong card first though. That way, they can keep certain cards for the end round and score better. The fifth player HAS the most info each round.
Of course the next round, player 2 goes first, and is player 1 the 5th player (in a 5 player match)

To add strategy to this, some pokemon are electric and weak, other pokemon are electric and strong. I suggest giving the weak ones a bonus point if they win.

In that case, having only strong pokemon in your deck might win you often, but does not win you points.

I used this mechanic before, and it worked... mediocre. But I only worked on it for a short time. Perhaps you can do better.

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Tue, 12/01/2015 - 21:07
#6
questccg
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Don't forget EVOLUTION

X3M wrote:
To add strategy to this, some pokemon are electric and weak, other pokemon are electric and strong. I suggest giving the weak ones a bonus point if they win.

In that case, having only strong pokemon in your deck might win you often, but does not win you points.

Aren't you talking about "EVOLUTION"??? What's Pokemon WITHOUT it? Definitely not Pokemon. So maybe your evolution Pokemon are MORE powerful but SCORE less points. Or perhaps you could do some kind MATH, like:

1-Opponent PV - Your PV = # of points
2-if # of points > 0 then that's how many points you score.

Let's test this...

Powerful 8 - Powerful 9 = -1 (no points)
Powerful 7 - Medium 5 = 2 points
Weak 3 - Weak 1 = 2 points

From my examples seems like it could work... Go for EVOLUTION!!!

Note: Evolution can occur IF you have already played Pokemon X (non-evolved version). All you have to do is go through your "graveyard" and demonstrate that you have already played the non-evolved version or the middle version (if there are two (2) evolutions possible)...

Note 2: Perhaps you could do the OPPOSITE: play an evolved creature and win the battle and TRANSFORM to the non-evolved version to try to MAX-OUT the points. But this is risky, because a non-evolved version is weaker and somebody can play one of their evolved creatures to defeat you...

Note 3: I like the PYL mechanic which means depending where you are during the turn, you have either MORE or LESS information about what competing cards have/will play. Again the whole "opposite" evolution could be interesting as a PYL mechanic!

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Sat, 12/05/2015 - 00:19
#7
cerpn
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Stay basic

I think that the game must involve only the types not the pokemons. The players can "try to beat" revealing a card from the main deck and, "try to beat" with another card from his hand, players who cant beat gets a punishment (drawing more cards from the main deck) first player runs out his hand wins.

when a player "try to beat" a card must put a facedown card and reveals when the opponent has a card facedown too. that way isnt must be "fast" and players can take his time.

For example, type "Fire" is face up, Antony and Brandon (player A and Player B) try to beat and put a card face down. Later the players reveal his cards. Antony reveals "Water" and Brandon reveals "Ground". "Ground" beats "Fire" but lose to "Water".

I was thinking about add more information (how much x0, x1.5, x1, x2 types beats and lose) but im very concern about the mechanical. "Try to beat" is a example.

I think that later i can do a board game to explain specific attacks calculating damage over a specific pokemon (how much Ice Beam can damage a Pikachu)i wanna focus only in the pokemon types.

Thanks a lot!

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Sat, 12/05/2015 - 01:12
#8
questccg
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I'm confused?!

I thought the point of the game was to use an RPS system and "try to beat" a player's Pokemon. Something like:

1. Player #1 plays three card: 1 Face-up and 2 Face-down
2. Player #2 tries to see if he can beat the Face-up card
3. If YES, Player #1 places his card in the "graveyard"
4. Now Player #1 reveals card #2 Face-up (remember 2 were Face-down)
5. Now Player #3 can either beat Player #2 card or Player #1 card
...
8. Now Player #1 reveals card #3 Face-up
9. Now Player #4 can either beat Player #3, #2 or #1 card

Once this is done, the round is RESOLVED and points get score:

For each card Player #1 has, he gets +2 Victory Points. Other players get +1 Victory Point for each card they have. So you normally would want to beat the First Player - but because score may vary per round, you may choose to beat another opponent's card (to even the score - so to speak ).

This is pretty BASIC and SIMPLE.

Probably TOO simple... But this is modeled on something like "Texas hold 'em" Poker. Where you reveal the cards as the game unfolds.

Why do you play cards Face-down? Two (2) reasons:

A> You want the Player #1 to have chance to WIN points with stronger Pokemon further during the round.
B> You limit Player #2 to only trying to beat that one (1) Pokemon and set up the stage for the other players.

Tell me if you like this... Maybe you can BUILD upon this basic premise.

Note: If Player #2 cannot beat Player #1 1st Pokemon (RPS), then he passes his turn and then Player #3 sees if he can beat the 1st Pokemon.

I would SUGGEST something MORE than just the RPS. Yeah RPS is fine, but I would ADD the condition that the opponent's card MUST have HIGHER HP to WIN. So you need BOTH RPS + HP.

If you do this, then the OPPOSITE should be TRUE:

Z> Player #1 will play his STRONGEST card FIRST and then use weaker cards for the #2 and #3 cards... This is kind of cool!

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Sat, 12/05/2015 - 01:20
#9
cerpn
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you get it

I dont even thinking that, the part when you can put several cards facedown and try to prepare a mini battle (each player put 5 cards from his hand and procede to "try to beat" until all cards are revealed) is really smart.

I was thinking about put VP (victory points sound neat and solid, i like it) on the cards based on the coverage type, for example normal type hits x1 except by two (steel and rock) is less useful and can give more VP for using it, and another has better coverage and you can make less points, rewarding the strategy.

Totally agree with you, face down cards can do the trick.

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Sat, 12/05/2015 - 02:14
#10
questccg
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But you GOTTA have EVOLUTION!!!

Like I said, the game is kinda boring without "Evolution"...

Plus for a FLGS, players will want to BUY "Evolution" cards - You could make some serious money using a game like this.

So my take on "Evolution" is this:

1. Each player builds a SMALL deck (maybe like 15 cards)
2. During a game, a player may play an Evolution card, if he also plays the earlier evo card.

So with 3 cards (for 4 players), he would play Stage 2 FIRST, Stage 1 NEXT and BASIC LAST.

BUT here's the DEAL: BLUFFING!!!

A BLUFF rule: a player may pretend to have the EVO cards - IF he is CAUGHT, he loses ALL HIS Victory Points for ONLY that ROUND!!! So you can bluff with 1 card (super-powerful), 2 cards (almost a meld) and 3 cards you are safe...

This is starting to shape up to a game... I may use this for my own small game (not Pokemon).

What do you think about THAT?!?!

Update: If a player is caught bluffing, each other player is awarded +2 Victory Points each. And that player gets 0 Victory Points that round.

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Sat, 12/05/2015 - 01:50
#11
questccg
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We could call it...

"Pokemon Draw" (tm)

I'll think about it some more... The game has:

1. Hidden Information
2. Set Collection
3. Deck Building
4. Bluffing
5. Hand Management

Man for a Pokemon game - not too bad! (Pats himself on the back) :P

Picture Pikachu wearing a Sombrero and pointing two (2) guns! Hehehe!!!

Also it works best with four (4) Players. Evolution is frequently 3 stages - so I would make the game for four (4) Players.

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Sat, 12/05/2015 - 02:25
#12
questccg
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Deep Strategy

The one thing I wanted to point out is that this "mini-game" has deep strategy when deciding what to do with your cards in your HAND.

See you may have a 3 card meld - but one of those cards could be used to WIN one Victory Point THIS round and force the opposing player to lose -2 VPs. But this will adversely affect you when it comes time for YOUR round.

So this is the whole "Hand Management" part.

It's not about just beating an opponent, it's about MAXIMIZING what you can or cannot do during SEVERAL rounds.

It may seem SIMPLE, which granted it is - because we're not doing all kinds of Math for tracking the health points of the Pokemons and we're not using the ability on the cards themselves.

For it's OWN game - not using Pokemon cards, I think it might be possible to design special abilities with regards to the rules of THE game itself. I will have to ponder on this some more, just to see what kind of abilities could be created. I'm not sure at this point.

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