I gotta say that I think Magic is a great card game, but I tried the recently released "Magic Online" and I didn''t like it at all. I think the problem lies in card sizing. One of the biggest problems I had was the inability to see what each card was, and sometimes I ended up clicking the wrong ones causing me to lose games miserably.
Anyway, in my opinion you can look at Magic as an example of a good game, but don''t follow the formnat of the computer game; the way you view things on cards layed on a table in front of you is very different than the way that feels natural to view them on a computer screen.
The only complaint I have about Magic as a card game is that it feels slightly unbalanced at times. The game took off and grew very rapidly: it may have needed a little extra attention to ensure that while each color is unique in playing style, neither will have too noticable of an advantage over the others. Put an emphasis on a well-thought out method of using the cards you got rather than finding and getting the cards that can''t be beat.

Pokemon!

I''m going cheap paper Trading Card Game style.

Keep the accessories to a minimum. When a CCG requires "several tokens, a single six-sided die, pen and paper, a coin, miniatures to represent your wizard, a Games-Master''s screen to hide your hand" and so on, you know something is wrong. As far as possible, everything should be in the cards. Too many CCGs have been glorified board games or wargames, as ahw said.

With this in mind, I would probably dump the ''hitpoints'' aspect of your cards as that could end up as a lot of book-keeping when you have a lot of locations and structures. I''d have it a bit more like Magic - if their planes beat yours in any given attack, then a plane is destroyed, and if there are no planes there, the location gets damaged/destroyed.

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quote: Original post by SI_78
interesting topic... how many ppl here have played / would play ccg''s?

I play Magic: the Gathering, and that''s it(though i used to play Pokemon when it was popular ). Oh and BTW, what is L5R??

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BASIC programmers don''t die, they just GOSUB and don''t return.

Anyone remember Battletech(it was a TCG based off of MechWarrior)? I loved that one, but I never found anyone to play with. (Everyone was too busy playing Magic.) It also seemed to suffer from ''When I buy a deck I don''t ever get an *average card*, much less an above average card.'' It was a lot easier to play than Magic.

gamechampionx: You should look at Battletech as perhaps a jumping off point. I know Battletech dealt with large walking mechs and your game is based on WWII, but it handled combat so well I think you could apply a lot of that game''s structure to your own. (Actually, if you change the mechs to WWII vehicles, your game sounds almost exactly like Battletech.) I still have my cards and the rulebook, even the dice I used to keep track of damage. I mention this cause I think the game isn''t in print or played anymore, but I could be wrong.

quote: Original post by GarlandIX
Oh and BTW, what is L5R??

Legend of the Five Rings. A card game based on asian the asian culture.

A while ago back in my youth I made a simple CCG that worked as a combination of Stratego and Netrunner as a bit of a hobby.... Magic would be my favourite ccg, but I liked how in Netrunner both players had very distinct roles in the game, something that I don''t think you see enough of, especially in video games...

Just my 2p

There was a not really collectible (that is, only one expansion, not a dozen) card games a long while ago, based on the Battle of Gettysburg.
I think they also developped a few other great conflicts/battles.

Definitely avoid turning your game into a glorified board game (as Kylotan and myself said).
The reason is not because it''s a bad idea (I loved Guardians and DarkAge, personally, as I thought it was a very cool way to make what would have been a slightly boardgame, an otherwise awesome game), but because of what people EXPECT.
If you make a card game, they expect just that : something they can play without to much hassle. Eventually having to keep scores is OK, but keeping track of every single of your cards is just too much. I have played Magic since 1994 and at first, one or two counters to remember where OK, but nowadays you need a freaking bucketload if you want to do anything, and that''s not a *good thing* (but at this point, no cares, M:tG has such momentum that such a minor flaw wont break it down).

Besides, Hitpoints are not a necessity, except for heroes, just look at Epic40K (a wargame by Games Workshop), units only have 1 hitpoints, if they get hit, they possibly have a saving throw (vehicles and heroes) and that''s it. It makes for a very fluid game, which is brilliant given the large scale.

If you absolutely want something , you could give your pilots special manoeuvers they could attach and discard if they would otherwise have been killed, "Parachute" to bail out and be out of the game for a few turns but alive, "Immelman turn" to cancel an attack that would have hit you, "Minor damage" your plane is out of the fight, but you dont die, possibly it takes a few turns before you can use the pilot again.
Or you could simply keep them in your hand and use them as you would use Instant cards in Magic.
Or you could mix both approach ?

Anyway, as I said before, you REALLY should go out there and look up card games. There is TONS, and quite a few that simulate wargamesque conflicts, so you could probably learn a few things...


Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Anyone remember Battletech(it was a TCG based off of MechWarrior)? I loved that one, but I never found anyone to play with. (Everyone was too busy playing Magic.) It also seemed to suffer from ''When I buy a deck I don''t ever get an *average card*, much less an above average card.'' It was a lot easier to play than Magic.

Hum, I think IMHO that the order is Robotech, an anime that also had a few OAV (Macross), then Battletech, a board game developped by FASA, around the same time they also had a Roleplaying game (MechWarrior), then you got all that computer game hype, the MechWarrior series, but also a RPG a very long time ago.

I didnt play the CCG as I was busy trying others, and although I am a fanatic of the series (the anime) I wasnt really impressed by the card game itself.
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GarlandIX : indeed, it''s a fantasy game based on a mix of various asian cultures (mostly japanese). There were originally 6 great clans, but there is so many twists and turns in the storyline it would take a little while to describe the whole thing. To put it simply, the designers werent afraid to drop totally one or several Factions if it fitted the story, split a Clan in two, ressurect another, promote a fe popular characters to a fully fledged Clan, all of this thanks to the player base !
(for instance, Toku was a cheap but useful card that was so popular that the character got developed, and from a noname became the chief of the guards of the imperial palace, and later got his own clan IIRC). When some cards became **way** to powerful (Hitomi, Yakamo, Togashi), they simply kill them off in a dramatic way (Killing Lord Moon and taking it''s place in Heaven, or Lady Sun for Yakamo; during a final confrontation with the big baddy, ripping its own heart where a secret scroll was hidden for a thousand years in order to save the world, etc)... raaah, they even killed Bayushi Kachiko :''-(
ah well... I am getting sentimental now.

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SI_78 :
Yeah, NetRunner had a pretty cool concept (but I didnt have enough money to collect too many games at the time).
I think you could look at the new LotR TCG, each turn, one plays the good guys, while the rest plays the baddies. The trick is that every body has baddies cards, so that each turn, every body gangs up on the one who is playing the goodies...
I still have to find players, but I like the idea.

Although I would love to play a cool cyberpunk TCG, it''s something that isnt exactly common. DarkAge was cool and not too head wreaking, but the company sunk
And I havent tried Shadowrun, that would be interesting given that some of the art is by Paul Bonner *drools*


Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !