Hi,
I signed up here a few days ago and I guess it's a good time to introduce myself. I'm a Canadian who's always been interested in gaming (of any variety) and has had a particular interest in board game design, though I've always been a bit too lazy to create anything of substance. I've had the urge to design a dating sim/life sim card game for a while now, but find it hard sometimes to get motivated for the "grind" of designing. It's like writing a novel - imagining the end product is great, but sometimes the steps it takes to get there are hard. You could be working along and then hit a hurdle and then the work you put in seems to be a burden and a chore. That's how I feel sometimes. Yet, it's something that I want to make, like everyone else here, no doubt.
My game is a storytelling game, where characters overcome challenges and threats in the form of PLOT cards. As I mentioned, the first genre I'm tackling is a dating/romance simulation, so I'm in the process of designing strong personality traits for the CHARACTER cards, so that each character plays distinctly different from the others. My goal is complete customizability, so that a player can choose any character and play as that character if they wanted to. Also, the game transcends genres so that a character that is meant to be played in a romance simulation setting could be inserted in a zombie survival setting or a murder mystery setting. I'm probably going mainly anime for the art (because I can't draw to any acceptable standard and I can obtain art for virtually any genre or storytelling form out there due to the ridiculous number and variety of animated series out there). WeiS Schwartz is probably one of the card games that inspired me in my current design. I found the amalgamation of so many animated series into a single game to be highly intriguing.
Anyway, my main problem right now is trying to balance realism/faithfulness to the source material and playability/simple and clean rules. This place seems to be good for sharing my ideas and my concerns and hopefully, I won't get laughed at too much. Hopefully, I came to the right place, in the presence of people with a like-minded passion for game design...
How are threats and challanges resolved?
I'm still early in my designing, but PLOT will be divided into event cards and threat cards. An event card is drawn at the beginning of every turn and usually details an action that can be performed for that turn (DAY). Generally, if you succeed in fulfilling that event, then something good usually happens, most likely an increase to the bond with the girl that you decided to chase after. For example, an Invitation to Comiket would increase a girl's bond if she agrees to go with you, and gives a bonus if that girl has the "Otaku" trait. Sometimes, not fulfilling an event might give a penalty but not always. Each event card will show how many, if any, threat cards enter play that turn.
Threat cards are obstacles and hindrances that prevent you from winning the game. Some have instantaneous or one turn effects, while others last for a select number of turns, probably up to three. There are also threats that stay in the play area until you get rid of them. An example would be disapproval of the parents which would make increasing bond or meeting with a girl more difficult. A permanent threat would be a stalker girl who gives penalties to the girls that you don't spend a lot of time with (via gossip tokens), which forces you to either divide up your time amongst the harem and try to uncover and get rid of the stalker girl.
Another interesting threat would be the "rival", who increases his own bond with the girls every single round, which either forces you to be one step ahead of him in the bond rating or find a way to get rid of him.
Each character has stats such as physical, mental, charm and skill. Each threat has a rating or difficulty and a corresponding stat which is used to overcome it. An iron door for example would require a physical ability check, while trying to persuade someone or something would require a charm check. Being a dating sim/romance sim, mental and charm abilities are used the most. However, I don't want to just use straight number-crunching to process all the threats. Some may require the use of items or card abilities. Of course, I'm still developing this stuff, but I hopefully can eventually create a game system that is interesting but still playable.
Laughed at? Not too much, but that’s the risk you have to take when you put your work up for public scrutiny. In fact game designers do best when they can keep their egos in check and accept criticism for what it is, an opportunity to improve your game.
Welcome to the BGDF
Thanks for the welcome. I guess there's a bit of hesitance on my part because I lack confidence in my design abilities and my choice of genre isn't a mainstream one. I've seen enough combat and RPG games that I don't even want to get near that genre - mainly because anything I design would probably pale in comparison to something already on the market. An english anime amalgamation game (like Weiss Schwarz) is something that is not abundant in Western circles. I've always wanted to play something like that, and instead of trying to track down those cards (highly EXPENSIVE), downloading translations and then inserting translation slips into card sleeves, I thought why not just make it myself... That way, I could create and develop the series and the characters that I wanted.