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[Rebusmind]

CARD BATTLE KINGDOM

Summary:

• Genre: Card Collecting RPG
• Platforms: iOS, Android, maybe PS4/XboxOne/Vita or PC
• State: Working prototype
• Est. Release: 2017
• Engine: Game Maker: Studio

Card Battle Kingdom is my newest game project. It's a card game in which you build a collection of cards by winning duels against NPCs. It's inspired by the card game Triple Triad which can be found in Final Fantasy VIII, but Card Battle Kingdom will be much deeper and more strategic through some major changes which I will explain in more detail later.

The rules for the card duels look like this: both players have 5 cards, which they place in turns on a 3x3 grid. Every card has different attack values on its sides (there are 8 directions, horizontal, vertical and diagonal). Whenever you place a card next to another one of the opposite color, the attack values are compared and if the attacker has the higher value, the card is flipped and the color changes.
Whoever has the most cards of his color when the grid is full wins.

The current prototype

So far I've built a prototype with the card gameplay, but there's still a lot missing.

Things that are done:

• The basic card duel gameplay, matches can be played
• A first version of the enemy AI. It can have different characteristics and difficulty settings
• A setting and basic storyline

Things on my list:

• A deck system, with which you can build different card decks
• Card Abilities: some cards have special abilities that are crucial to win against stronger opponents
• A special rival system: throughout the story there are other NPCs that you randomly encounter. They are fully simulated in the background as the play duels and build their own collection of cards. Imagine them a bit like Gary from Pokemon
• A big story with dozens of places where you can meet different NPCs to battle
• Online battles: I've never done any network programming, but I want to give it a try in this project, as the amount of work it needs is pretty low compared to other types of games

The game will probably be on mobile first, but other platforms are also possible (PC, PS4/Vita/XboxOne).

Let me know what you think of the game and if you have questions, post them here and I will answer them soon.

[XtremeDry]

Nice man! I love Triple Triad games! Really like the animation on the cards, also I like that you've expanded on the rules. Online battles will really help the popularity of the game as well!

I've made a few of these in the past so feel free to shoot across questions/ideas and stuff or checkout HighlinTale, there's probably a few cross over idea's you can checkout/take reference from. Some of the rules we added worked pretty well. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highlintale/id1020784055?mt=8

Main things I learnt are add a butt load of cards, the most requested feature was online play and have a good variety of rules to spice it up.

Will deffo keep an eye on this, looks nice!

[Rebusmind]

Nice man! I love Triple Triad games! Really like the animation on the cards, also I like that you've expanded on the rules. Online battles will really help the popularity of the game as well!

Thanks a lot, XtremeDry! :D
I've taken a look at HighlinTale and it's a cool game with some great ideas. I especially liked the boss battles, as it added a new twist on the card system. If I had to critisize something, it would be the balancing of the card values. The opponents in one village were no match for me and then in the next I had absolutely no chance.
Why doesn't it have more downloads, though??


Update01: Decks and Winning Cards

I've been working on the result screen after a card match for the last few days. Not only does it show who has won, but it also lets you pick a card from the opponent's hand if you won (on the other hand you lose a card should you be defeated).

To make this system work, I've also implemented basic decks. They are represented through a grid of cards (x is for card data, y for cards). In the final game decks will contain 10-20 cards. From the first 10 cards 5 are randomly chosen for a match, the last 10 are reserved. When you lose a card to your opponent, these last 10 will automatically fill up the first 10 cards so you don't have to change your deck after you lose a match.

Here's a gif visualizing the new mechanics.

 

[Jasmine]

Right up my alley! Looking forward to seeing more!

[bdsowers]

I made this same game for mobile a few years ago in the Star Trek universe. Ours is off the app store now though, so you won't have to compete against it.

Since you're going mobile first, will you have asynchronous multiplayer? Both Game Center and Google Play Services have SDKs for that, so you don't have to write server backend.

Will your board have "environmental effects?" I believe the original Triple Triad had some squares that would buff some cards and harm others.

[Rebusmind]

Right up my alley! Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks, mate!

I made this same game for mobile a few years ago in the Star Trek universe. Ours is off the app store now though, so you won't have to compete against it.

Since you're going mobile first, will you have asynchronous multiplayer? Both Game Center and Google Play Services have SDKs for that, so you don't have to write server backend.

Will your board have "environmental effects?" I believe the original Triple Triad had some squares that would buff some cards and harm others.

Do you still have a trailer of your game up?
I'm planning to add online multiplayer, don't know yet how, though. I'll have to look into Game Center and if I can use this functionality with Game Maker: Studio (I know it can do networking).

So far no environmental effects are planned. I'm trying to minimize random elements and I felt the effects in Triple Triad didn't really affect the gameplay that much (only a handful of cards had elements, so you had to be very lucky to be able to use it).

[bdsowers]

Do you still have a trailer of your game up?

A search for "Star Trek Rivals" should yield a bunch of images and perhaps videos.

I doubt GM hooks into the Game Center async multiplayer. Just did a few quick google searches and couldn't turn up anything promising. A pity too, as it looks like a pretty simple API.