Hey All,
I've had this idea percolating for about a year now. The premise is: a cooperative, or quasi-cooperative, game where players take the role of monks who view war as an art and seek great honor in battle- not only are players able to fight like the Jackie Chan they always wanted to be, but they posses the ability to go back in time and alter outcomes in a fight. Didn't punch that one Orc quite as hard as you wanted? rewind. Wanted the roundhouse kick to land a little higher? rewind.
I imagine players gaining hands of different actions (punch,kick,duck,block,etc) and playing against enemy/monster cards. These actions can chain into combos, and/or certain moves must be preceded by others (to uppercut one must have first ducked)
I've thought of fighting taking one of two routes: 1, enemies have preset "moves" of their own, that a player must consider as they choose they're own actions, or 2, enemies do a set amount of damage, and the longer it takes to defeat them the more damage a player takes (probably will stick with the second initially since it is simpler).
Enemies will come it "sets," so there will be a boss with a certain number of minions. A game will be playing through 1 set, with each set being a different enemy with different conditions (similar to Catacombs, but with card actions instead of flicking actions).
The time travel aspect will be similar to prince of persia: sands of time. It will be a "rewind" mechanic that requires "energy" or some resource to manage- the farther back you go the more energy is required and consumed.
Every turn (or two turns, three turns, etc.) a new wave of enemies comes. The tension comes in balancing not being overwhelmed, while trying to achieve "style points" (terminology pending), handling a growing backlog of "past" while trying to effectively handle "present"
I also am going to introduce a variable role mechanic with powers that can do things like change a whole set of actions from the most recent turn, or reach farther into the past and change only 1 action, or a amplify action(s) in the past, or add benefits to the present (better attack, defense), gain "energy." etc. i also want to add a role called the "storyteller" who can add modifiers to actions in the past (giving more "style points" but not any damage/strength/defense/or action changes)
The main road block I'm stuck on is how to create a "timeline" that is easily visible and changeable. It doesn't seem quite as easy as just laying cards out as they are played, because there needs to be a way do differentiate between an active enemy and a "dead" enemy- and potentially ways to record a "jump" back in time. And there needs to be a way to differentiate between player actions- and since this is a cooperative game, everyone having their own separate timeline seems clunky- plus if one player wants to help another player fight an enemy- there needs to be a way to differentiate between player actions.
Any thoughts? Does it seem like an interesting idea? should I scrap it? change it?
Mechanic ideas for the timeline?
Thanks for encouraging the idea. I wish I could do a movie! Or at least pay more capable hands to do so. I could see a story coming out of this.
As far as the energy component- I made a passing comment about it- right now it is gained through the variable roles- so every role will give a certain amount of "energy." Like a fighter role might give just 1 "energy", a time-traveler role might give 2, a unique role might give 3 but no other special ability. This would be a resource you can stockpile.
As a side note, the roles thematically are "schools" in the monks order. Kind of like praying mantis/crane/tiger/dragon styles in kung fu. But specializing in certain types of time-travel fighting.