I had an idea for a CCG a while back (Toy Wars), and I ultimately decided that it would work better as a deck building game. Any tips for how to make one in general? Or how to make the conversion simpler? Criticism is appreciated as well:
My old rules (are definitely going to change): http://txt.do/dzbkr
My current cards: http://txt.do/dzbkq
Some general things that I can think of:
I advice you to make sure every card has an use. Or else they never end up in the deck.
The fact that you only allow 1 card of each is a good rule.
Solution?
1. Place the cards face down until both players are done.
It is not mentioned in your rules.
or
2. Let players place cards 1 by 1 in turn.
What happens when the front line is destroyed?
Did second line cards already move up?
Or do they wait until the last front line card is gone?
How is health tracking done?
See if you can divided the numbers by 5 or 25. Aka, the smallest number is 1.
hi. after a cursory look...
i think you need some "filler" cards. the cards that are pretty useless and clog up your deck.
in marvel legendary they are the shield agents. they are fairly useful at the start but once you have, even a few, hero cards the agents just get in the way.
to fit your theme they could be broken toys or baby toys (like a rattle), that start in your hand and give you a way to buy your first few cards.
although i haven't played it i think dominion makes the filler cards the way you score. so the more points you have the more crap you have to cycle through (I'm sure someone who has played can explain it better).
you also don't have to divide all your numbers. infact you could increase them to ridiculous amounts. its more fun to kill a monster with 100 hp than one with 1 hp, and its more fun to deal 1000 hp than 10.
my only other tip for deck builders is the more cards you have, in both volume and variety the better. this is mainly because the "discovery" of new cards and combos is one of the most appealing part of the genre.
toy faction ideas: dolls (barbie), vehicles (hot wheels dumper trucks),board games (meeples, minitures the dog from monopoly), NSFW edition "mummy and daddys toys".
My only other advice is to design as much as possible cards to discover.
But in that regard. There will be plenty of cards that will be useless from a certain point onwards. If you want to prevent that in contrary to MtG. Have new cards making the oldest better.
Generation 1 could have a simple card.
Generation 2 has a better replacement to that simple card.
Generation 3 has a card that makes the simple card also better than the generation 2 card.
Generation 4 has a card that makes the better replacement even better.
etc. and so on.
The order, and how much diversity you use is up to you.
But there is a limit on how many times you can do this before players know what is going on.
In conjunction to Wob's idea of factions. You can also use this for "upgrade" cards.
All barbies + 10 damage.
All wheeled + 20 agility.
etc.
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I advice you to make sure every card has an use. Or else they never end up in the deck.
The fact that you only allow 1 card of each is a good rule.
I don't know how much strategy there is in the game. But if positioning is very important. The starting player is in a bad spot. The other player can simply adept.
And this makes it twice as bad.
While I like ABBA as order for games. There are instances where the effect is opposite.
Solution?
1. Place the cards face down until both players are done.
It is not mentioned in your rules.
or
2. Let players place cards 1 by 1 in turn.
What happens when the front line is destroyed?
Did second line cards already move up?
Or do they wait until the last front line card is gone?
How is health tracking done?
See if you can divided the numbers by 5 or 25. Aka, the smallest number is 1.
You’d probably be surprised to hear that I’ve heard most of these things before XD so I’ll clarify some things
I do plan on dividing all the stats by 25, and when a card in the front row is placed in the discard pile, the card behind it immediately takes its place. I never even considered the set up being one sided. I like your suggestions, but perhaps maybe I should just keep the back row secret and then give the person who sets up first some kind of an advantage? And do you have any tips on how to make it a deck building type game? (Examples include Legendary and Smash Up)