Card game - Wizards and Warlords

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The_Gnat
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Card game - Wizards and Warlords

Post by The_Gnat »

I had this good idea about a card game, it is inspired by wesnoth's many attack icons and images but it is not at all an attempt to make wesnoth into a card game. I and Co-creator Forest Dragon are primarily responsible for the ideas and creation but if anyone is interested in posting feedback i would be interested in hearing it! Here are some pictures of what it looks like:
Image
Basically how the card game works is that each player has cards in their hand that are either attack, or defense, or story cards. You win by killing all other players or playing 3 items. (about 1/6 of the cards are items and each player has 8 hit points before they are killed, so it is about equal likely hood of each)

On your turn you pick up 1 card and then play a card from your hand. 1 card per turn, unless you have a card which specifically says otherwise. (some cards can be played with attacks or defenses and some cards allow you to play extra cards)

You can kill other players by attacking them. Each attack has a "damage" rating. A mace may have a damage of 2. That means the player you attack loses 2 hitpoints, but that player may defend with a defense card. Each defense card has a "defense" rating. A shield may have a "defense" of 1.
An example of play may go like this
- [Player 1] picks up
- [Player 1] plays an attack card. Broad sword "Damage = 2"
- [Player 1] declares he is attacking [Player 3]
- [Player 3] defends. Helment "Defense = 1"
- [Player 3] loses 1 hit point.
[Player 1]'s turn is over

- [Player 2] picks up
- [Player 2] plays an attack card. Long bow "Damage = 1"
- [Player 2] declares he is attacking [Player 3]
- [Player 3] defends. Great shield "Defense = 2"
- [Player 3] loses 0 hit points.
[Player 2]'s turn is over

- [Player 3] picks up
- [Player 3] plays an item into his item pile.
[Player 3]'s turn is over
As you can see it is quite simple. But you probably are thinking "sounds too simple, and quite boring". This would be true if not for a few other features:
Some other things
- Each weapon and defense has an "element" Fire/Water/Lightning/Stone. Fire has a +1 damage and defense against Lightning. Lightning +1 against Water. Water +1 against Fire. Stone is neutral.
(yes i realize that having lightning as an element doesn't make sense but that is how it is)

- There are also power cards. Power cards include things such as "Skip a players turn for 1 round", "+1 hitpoint", "Play 2 more cards" and things like that

- As in wesnoth not all units are warriors. There are also many magical attack cards. This includes things such as:
- Staff of Magic "Damage = 2" of the element Fire "Pick up another card".
- Force Shield "Defense = 4" of the element Lightning
- Great Dragon "Damage = 4" OR "Defense = 4"of the element Fire
...

- Items also have uses. Sometimes it is worth sacrificing an item to use its power. At any time on your turn you may use one of your items (if they have a use). Uses include:
- Bomb "when used every other player must discard a card"
- Deadly Sword "when used -1 hitpoint to any player, can not be defended"
- Magic Clock "when used discard your entire hand and draw 5 new cards"
Also there are some other minor rules:
Minor rules
- When you have only 1 card left in your hand (as a result of defending many attacks) pick up to 5 at the start of your turn
- [new rule] At any time instead of taking your turn you may pick up to 5 cards in your hand
- At any time instead of playing a card on your turn you can discard a card or do nothing
- You can exceed 8 hitpoints if you play armour or magic potions on yourself that increase hitpoints
- When playing with only 2 players you must get 4 items to win
- It is recommend for any duration cards that after 1 round passes the card is turned face down (to signify it is only active for 1 more round)
If anyone is interested in discussing this game please post. Or if you would like to play this game i can upload a pdf of the cards which can be printed and cut out and then played!

Since the creation of this game which originally only had about 50 cards, massive improvements and changes have been made! Co-creator Forest Dragon has helped come up with around 100 cards and many alternate game modes have been made (see rulebook) which allows the game to have nearly infinite play-ability. Forest Dragon has also been a huge help with text corrections and error fixing in the card game! :D

--= DOWNLOAD THE GAME =--


The card game is separated into four parts: The Base Game, The Advanced Game, and Event Cards. (The wolf pack has been replaced by the wizards game but it is not yet complete with the new tier rankings.) Also there are more comprehensive rules and tokens which are both helpful to playing.

The Base Game (version 10)

Wizards and Warlords - Base Game - v10.1.pdf

The Advanced Game (version 9)

Wizards and Warlords - Advanced Game - v9.pdf


Tokens (to mark how many hitpoints each player has)

Tokens.png

The Rules v7 (the thing every game must have)

Rules.pdf
--- Extra ---
The Event Cards (version 5 cards that change the game)

Wizards and Warlords - Events - v5.pdf

The Wizards Pack (version 3 cards extra 120 cards for the game)

Wizards and Warlords - Wizards pack - v3.pdf

The Monster Pack (version 4 cards extra 88 cards for the game)

Wizards and Warlords - Monster pack - v4.pdf

The Reversal Cards (a special card that changes attacks to defenses)

Wizards and Warlords - Reversal cards.pdf


COPYRIGHT
All rules and text are copyrighted 2017 nathansoftware.com under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0,

All images from the battle for wesnoth (wesnoth.org) under the GPL (version 3 or later), unless otherwise stated.


This means that:

All ATR WORK is: "free to use" and do what ever you want with!! And if anyone finds artwork they have made in the game please tell me and i will credit them!
Spoiler:
However, all RULES, and TEXT are copyrighted by myself (nathansoftware.com) (this is merely a precaution because i would prefer my game not ending up for sale somewhere), as i said before it is copyrighted under the CC BY-NC-ND which means: legally you Can Not make any money off of this game, you Must credit me, and you Can Not modify this game.
Last edited by The_Gnat on December 25th, 2017, 12:51 am, edited 23 times in total.
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Re: Wesnoth card game idea

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Creator of "War of Legends"
Creator of the Isle of Mists survival scenario.
Maintainer of Forward They Cried
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The_Gnat
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Re: Wesnoth card game idea

Post by The_Gnat »

Thank you that is very interesting i will look into it! :D
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Re: Wesnoth card game idea

Post by The_Gnat »

That game is really good! :D It makes my idea somewhat inferior :P ...

Overall though my creation is a quick game more like Monopoly Deal or Uno ^_^ where as that card game seems to be a complex strategy game that truly parallels Wesnoth.
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Re: Wesnoth card game idea

Post by The_Gnat »

ForestDragon and i sent some PM's about discussing this:
ForestDragon wrote: So, I read your card game idea/seen the sprites. While making a full game requires lots of time/effort/quite a bit of skill/and lots and lots of assets (not only card sprites, but menu art, background art, music, etc.). In my opinon, a better idea would be to try making a mp era(or mp mod) out of this (This will most likely require to drastically change the idea, but as far as I know, there are no card game add-ons in bfw yet, so it's a nice opportunity to make an add-on that stand out :) )
The_Gnat wrote: That is an interesting idea. I had not actually considered making this game for the computer but instead as an actual card game. But now that you mention it i believe it would probably be achievable as a wesnoth add-on also.

My only question, however, is how would you suggest making it so it seemed like an actual card game with a deck and hand and opposing player's hands?
ForestDragon wrote: Each card would probably be an [option] (with [show_if], and a variable filter) in a [message] (this will make the deck vertical, instead of being traditionally horizontal, though, but I don't know any other way to implement such a thing. This will probably require making cards just use (attack) icons as images (it won't be difficult, considering you already put attack icons on your card images)). About the enemy player's cards, maybe make them not shown to other players, but when a player chooses cards, he'll know what the opponent's currently selected card is (basically put something like $player_side[$enemyside]_currentcard_description| in the [message] tag). Any other questions?

Anyway, you could work on the card game add-on/card game itself independently. speaking of which, judging by it's description, I suggest renaming 'druidstaff' to 'sonic wave' (or something similar), and giving it this icon:

Image

Also, It would be nice if you drawn a printable (like the cards) rulebook with a wesnoth-themed background.

And here are some card ideas for your card game (alongside icons):
Dark Rune
Imagedefense card: no defense bonus, but discards opponent's currently used card (power cards don't count), meaning that the opponent has to use a different card (the user of the 'dark rune' card also has to choose a card again (isn't the case if the opponent uses a card which skips the target's turn))
Nature's Wrath
Imagedeals 2 stone damage (or whatever number you want), restores 1 hitpoint for the attacker if successful
The_Gnat wrote: That is a good idea. I think it would be cool to make this add-on but i probably won't do it yet because i do not have that much time right now, and it is not a particular urgency for me because i made this game to be a card game rather than digital.

As for the cards you have mentioned i like that sonic wave and will put in that attack icon (it makes more sense). @ Dark Rune & Natures Wrath - Both are nice ideas 8) , I will create those cards! It is good to have interest in this game.

(I have about 100 cards if you would like to see them but i thought that might be an excess amount to post on the forum because i did not know if anyone would care ;) )

(also would you mind if i post this discussion on the topic about the card game, now that the images have been uploaded in the PM they can be added into the off-topic forum)

Here are the cards you suggested:
Spoiler:
ForestDragon wrote: Nice! Small issue, though: it says 'stopped cancelled', while it should be 'stopped or cancelled' or 'stopped/cancelled'. Btw, I noticed there are some grammar issues/awkward-sounding text. I'll send you more feedback on the matter once you post all the cards. Also, the ancient rune is supposed a defense card, not a power card.
The_Gnat wrote: Thank you i will fix that! I am using Microsoft Powerpoint so it is easy to make changes such as that!
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
As i mentioned i have made about 100 cards here is a pdf with them.
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by The_Gnat »

Thanks to ForestDragon quite a few new cards have been added and the text of all the cards has been improved! Find the newest version of the cards here.

If anyone has any suggestions for new cards i would be interested to hear them!

Also going to make a rulebook/sheet soon to explain how to play this game! :D
Can-ned_Food
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by Can-ned_Food »

When i look at the cards, my eye is not guided to distinguishing the blocks of text — e.g. the card description, the “flavor”, the instructions on how to play it, and the directions on how it changes the way you play other cards.

Perhaps you add some borders to partition the cards a bit more?
The upper halves are separated well enough, but the bottem halves seem be muddled. Although you add images to confine the text to smaller columns, some of the alignment seems in need of tweaking.

E.g. the Magic Hammer: the “And play another card” is very near the bottom margin, and the way it wraps around the icon on the right looks awkward.
Warlord: the “+2 vs. fire & lightning” text block should be vertically centered with respect to the icon on the left.

Other than those minor complaints, though, I like the background. Very clean and simple; unlike some other designs, where the background is thickly decorated, you do not need to separate the text backgrounds for sake of legibility.
Well, except near the bottom, where it the text needs a little outlining or embossing to add some contrast. That, or simply widen the margin there.

I hope this is helpful!
LittleHandle
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Suggestions for rules

Post by LittleHandle »

Seems like a quick and easy game to pick up and play. I think it would be much more fun with 3 or more players. Unfortunately, there seems to be only a few decisions a player can make, especially with only 2 players.
If you'd be welcome to some suggestions, here are a few that I think would make the game much more fun.
The_Gnat wrote: ....
Also there are some other minor rules:

- When you have only 1 card left in your hand (as a result of defending many attacks) pick up to 5 at the start of your turn
- At any time instead of playing a card on your turn you can discard a card or do nothing
- You can exceed 8 hitpoints if you play armour or magic potions on yourself that increase hitpoints
- When playing with only 2 players you must get 4 items to win[/section]

If anyone is interested in discussing this game please post. Or if you would like to play this game i can upload a pdf of the cards which can be printed and cut out and then played!
The first rule, pickup 5 cards if 1 or less cards, gives a big advantage to having 1 card, and a disadvantage to having 2 at the start of your turn, as new cards gives more options for great ones. This rewards both unlucky (getting attacked a lot) and lucky (getting lots of power cards) players.

For the second rule, I don't think it would ever be to anyone's advantage to discard, unless they were at 2 cards, cannot play, and want to be attacked or pick up a card that allows two card plays get down to 1.

An easy rulechange would be to allow filling your hand up to 5 cards instead of taking your turn. However, I think you can combine these rules brilliantly to add some trade-off strategy to the game. Keep the restriction to having 1 (or zero) cards at the start of the turn, but allow the player to discard as many cards as they like (usually down to 1) instead of taking a turn. This means they have to weather an attack round with only one card before they get a new set of cards next turn. This adds a little bit of strategy to the game.

What would add a lot to this game is a dummy hand, adding something like a 3rd party faction with shifting allegiances. This allows each player to see a little what the others have available, and to plan ahead a little, while still keeping gameplay fast and reliant on luck-of-the-draw.

Here's one way it could go:

- Deal a 3rd hand of 5 cards face up, place next to the last player to play (ie: ccw of first player with clockwise play).
- For the first round, the last player 'owns' the dummy hand, and can play it as a second hand during his turn (one attack or item card + any powers), and use its cards for defense on other player turns.
- At the end of the round (last player in sequence has played), fill the dummy back to 5 cards, and move ccw (second-last player, or first player in 2p games)

This gives many more options, especially for 2 player games. You can see a little what is coming (the dummy hand is always face-up on the table), and can decide whether to play more cards from the dummy (and give the next player a chance for a really good dummy draw) or play things more conservatively, maybe defending from your own hand instead. This works well with the draw/discard rule above, because it gives a player low on cards a chance to discard safely if the dummy had good defense (and the other players would be able to see that in advance). The chance at new draws in the dummy still makes it worthwhile to attack someone holding it!

There would be some things to tweak (for instance it might make more sense to play with 4 cards when using a dummy), but try it out when making your ruleset. Hopefully it will make the game more fun!

One final thing, I think collecting 3-4 items would be a good optional way to win the game, regardless of the number of players, especially if there was a dummy hand to pass around (ie: if the last person used up many cards in the dummy).
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by LittleHandle »

Taking a look at the cards, I might have misunderstood one of your rules. Did you mean that the player can only play one (1) card on his/her turn? If so, your example card of nightstalk can never be played, because it has to be played on top of an attack card. Because of this card, I was assuming that you could play any number of power cards on your turn.
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by ForestDragon »

LittleHandle wrote:Taking a look at the cards, I might have misunderstood one of your rules. Did you mean that the player can only play one (1) card on his/her turn? If so, your example card of nightstalk can never be played, because it has to be played on top of an attack card. Because of this card, I was assuming that you could play any number of power cards on your turn.
certain power cards (like nightstalk) are an exception to the general 'use 1 card per turn' rule
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by The_Gnat »

Can-ned-Food wrote:When i look at the cards, my eye is not guided to distinguishing the blocks of text — e.g. the card description, the “flavor”, the instructions on how to play it, and the directions on how it changes the way you play other cards.
Very good point, i agree. Thank you for posting comments it is always great to hear that other people are interested, and it is very helpful because often i miss out on obvious things like this :D I will change the cards so that the "flavor" text is in a different font.
Can-ned-Food wrote:some of the alignment seems in need of tweaking.
Yes it is :whistle: i don't have the time currently to go through and align all of the cards right now, but i definitely agree this is something that needs to be done. :D
Can-ned-Food wrote:Well, except near the bottom, where it the text needs a little outlining or embossing to add some contrast. That, or simply widen the margin there.
I am sorry i don't fully understand?

----
LittleHandle wrote:Unfortunately, there seems to be only a few decisions a player can make, especially with only 2 players.
True. It is, as i mentioned, similar to Uno or Monopoly deal: a shorter card game. And as you said it definitely is better with more than 2 players. I recommend 3 or 4 and though it can be played with 5, with 5 players you could die before your next turn :whistle:
LittleHandle wrote:For the second rule, I don't think it would ever be to anyone's advantage to discard, unless they were at 2 cards, cannot play, and want to be attacked or pick up a card that allows two card plays get down to 1.

An easy rulechange would be to allow filling your hand up to 5 cards instead of taking your turn.
Yes :D i have already added (though i forgot to post it) the rule that allows you to fill your hand to 5 instead of taking your turn. It is indeed necessary.
LittleHandle wrote:However, I think you can combine these rules brilliantly to add some trade-off strategy to the game. Keep the restriction to having 1 (or zero) cards at the start of the turn, but allow the player to discard as many cards as they like (usually down to 1) instead of taking a turn. This means they have to weather an attack round with only one card before they get a new set of cards next turn. This adds a little bit of strategy to the game.
This is a good idea, but if a player has to have 1 card for an entire round they are almost guaranteed to die. The only way this would work is if other players did not know how many cards you had.
LittleHandle wrote:What would add a lot to this game is a dummy hand, adding something like a 3rd party faction with shifting allegiances. This allows each player to see a little what the others have available, and to plan ahead a little, while still keeping gameplay fast and reliant on luck-of-the-draw.
:D :D That is a really good idea!!! I was trying to think up something that would add more uniqueness to the game and that is just it! 8) I will test that out and tell how it goes, but i think it will work really well.

EDIT: After testing i believe that this is too powerful. We played with a 5 card hand that passed clockwise at the end of each round (and was visible) and it was not as successful as i thought it would be. I think it should only have 4 (or even 3) cards or that the player with it does not pick up 1 card at the start of their turn. Also it was not quite as strategic as anticipated because usually only 1 and often no cards from the hand were played because only 1 card per turn can be played. Do you have any suggestions?
LittleHandle wrote:One final thing, I think collecting 3-4 items would be a good optional way to win the game, regardless of the number of players, especially if there was a dummy hand to pass around (ie: if the last person used up many cards in the dummy).
The_Gnat wrote:You win by killing all other players or playing 3 items/When playing with only 2 players you must get 4 items to win
I'm sorry i do not understand, do you mean that players should have to get 4 items even in a game greater than 2 players? :D
Taking a look at the cards, I might have misunderstood one of your rules. Did you mean that the player can only play one (1) card on his/her turn? If so, your example card of nightstalk can never be played, because it has to be played on top of an attack card. Because of this card, I was assuming that you could play any number of power cards on your turn.
As ForestDragon has said the rule is you can play 1 card per turn, unless you have a card which specifically says otherwise.

For example the magic hammer says "And play another card", The nightstalk card says "Play this card with another", The x2 card says "Play 2 more cards", and there are many other exceptions. But unless their is an exception you can only play 1 card.

Thank you very much everyone for the feedback and interest!! :D
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by LittleHandle »

Thank you for trying out my suggestions!

The dummy hand was based on my assumption that you could make multiple power card plays on your turn. This would make the special cards like nightstalk not need separate rules, but still allow multiple attacks/story plays with special cards. It might be worth trying out this rule change, as it could offer some interesting strategies: Do you play all your power cards, but leave your hand empty and open for attack? Is that person holding onto defense, or are they hoarding power cards and both dangerous and susceptible to attack?
EDIT: After testing i believe that this is too powerful. We played with a 5 card hand that passed clockwise at the end of each round (and was visible) and it was not as successful as i thought it would be. I think it should only have 4 (or even 3) cards or that the player with it does not pick up 1 card at the start of their turn. Also it was not quite as strategic as anticipated because usually only 1 and often no cards from the hand were played because only 1 card per turn can be played. Do you have any suggestions?
The dummy hand is also more for 2 or maybe 3 player games, and would work less (or not at all) for 4 or 5 player games. Maybe restrict to 3 cards and also try with 2 or 3 people? It is also important that the last player to play gets the dummy hand first, and the first player in the game gets it last, since there is already a first player advantage and last player disadvantage. Also, the idea was that the players with the dummy get two card plays a turn (one from their hand + one from the dummy). This shifts the balance of power every round. Another option could be a smaller dummy (2 or 3 cards) but allowing any number of cards to be played.

---

Going with the limit to only 1 card, another option might be a 'mercenary hand', face up in the middle. This could either be set to 2 cards, or track with the number of players (3 cards for 2 player games, 2 for 3, 1 for 4, 0 or 1 for 5).
The idea would be that on each person's turn they refill the mercenary hand to full (everyone has access on their turn). Instead of playing a card, they can take a defense card instead from the hand and place it in front of them, to use at any time they are attacked.

An option to this is to allow unlimited plays from the mercenary hand instead of just one, with the trade-off of giving more options to the next player.

The problem with mercenary hands is that they give even more advantage to earlier players, so this should be balanced in some way, either by giving later players more cards to start, free draws from the mercenary hand before gameplay, or ranking play order based on previous games.

---

Another thing I noticed is that this game could be played completely card-face-up. You still don't know what cards a player will draw (or what the mercenary or dummy hands might be if using them), but you can plan ahead. Even better, you can make plans, make alliances, and double-cross other players for a more political style play.

---

The idea of all this is to give the players more decision points. If adding a feature is a false choice (ie: players will always play exactly one card from the dummy), then it complicates the game without adding depth. I think the choice of playing more than one card (power cards) or adding the choice of mercenary card to choose (say attack, story, or defense) would add some variance.
---

Anyway, lots of things to consider if you're willing, and hopefully at least one of these will add something to the gameplay, and also help make 2 player and 3 player games as fun as 4 player ones:

1) Play power cards with no limit, limit of 1 only for attack/defense/story (option: no limit on story cards either) + can combine with options 2,3,4 below

2) Changes to dummy hand, 3 cards face up, 1 card in addition to player limit

3) Mercenary hands (2 cards face up, one extra play from this hand every turn, face-up defense cards, balance for later players)

4) Completely face-up gameplay

EDIT: With more thought, I don't think multiple plays from the mercenary or dummy would help, can could lead to too many card plays and early player death, so removing the options. Instead, multiple power card plays could work in concert, and a combo game with mercenary and dummy (protecting the last player in the first round, and giving them 3 or more plays on their turn) could be interesting to try at least.
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by LittleHandle »

The strategy analysis for mercenaries + elves (dummy hand) is very interesting indeed!

Consider the first round in 3-5 player games. The first player sets the tone for the game, and the last player has all the power in the first round. However, the penultimate player, though weak to start, holds what could be the strongest position in the game: if they can survive they will get the elves in the next round when everyone has shown their hand a little and maybe been damaged.

The first player can either play it safe and draw a defense mercenary, or signal an attack: most likely against the penultimate player, but maybe the last player if the dummy has little or no defense. The next players (if they exist), can either follow the first player's lead, or lead a revolution and attack another player instead, resetting the tone of the game. The penultimate player now has an interesting choice, especially if they've not been attacked. They might want to attack the last player, and hope they will use up an elf defense card, rotating that card out for their next turn. Alternatively, they could play it safe, or even signal a new attack to prepare for their strong next round with the elves. The last player is now the kingmaker of the game. If another player is weak, they could press the attack. Alternatively, they could go into survival or story mode, or even signal the launch of a new attack on another player. They will probably be weak (no elves) for the rest of the game,so have to choose carefully.

Every subsequent round has a similar dynamic to the first, but the roles have changed, and not everyone will have the same health left.

Special Note: 4 story cards might be needed, to avoid the chance of going out on the first round. Even with 4 story cards, since each player can play 2 or 3 cards a round, having two or even one story card in play is a serious threat, and will likely lead to everyone else trying to destroy that player before they get their next round. Also, since there are so many card plays between turns, choosing NOT to play from your hand might be a viable strategy to hold onto story cards, shore up defense, or not make that first attack.

Special Rules: There should be a hard limit of only one card each from mercenary or elf hands on a player's turn, no matter what special card is played.
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by Can-ned_Food »

The_Gnat wrote:
Can-ned-Food wrote:Well, except near the bottom, where it the text needs a little outlining or embossing to add some contrast. That, or simply widen the margin there.
I am sorry i don't fully understand?
The background image of the cards becomes tarnished and darker near the bottom, like old parchment would.
Unfortunately, this makes it so that it doesn't contrast well with the text. See the example:
Image

Alas, I don't know how to do two-color fonts with Gimp, so I used a dropshadow filter on that text instead. If you know how to do duo-color text, you can use a font that has an Outline, Embossed, or Shadow style to it.

EDIT: I don't know what I was thinking: that white text should be slightly cyan or grey, not white, because as white it blends worse with the orange background than does the black text with the black stripes. :doh:


The chief cause of poor contrast is the lossy algorithm used to compress the image. It blurs text if it is a similar color as stripes in background.
Last edited by Can-ned_Food on May 27th, 2018, 12:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Wesnoth great card game idea

Post by The_Gnat »

Firstly i would like to announce a new type of card, event cards.
Event cards
Each round 1 event card is drawn, it effects gameplay in ways such as "+1 hitpoint", or "everyone picks up a card", etc. I haven't made very many yet, personally i think that the game needs at 40.

Currently these have been added merely to add a more unique element to each round (even 140 cards gets old when you play the game the amount of times i have), but i feel it is lacking strategy and merely adding randomness. Because of this is propose once more events are created one of two things could be done:

1. 5 (or some number) events are revealed at a time in advance to allow players to plan ahead
2. Taking turns (clockwise) at the start of each round the player whose turn it is gets to pick up 2 events (secretly) and choose which one is used.

Secondly i was wondering something. Currently the game is called Wizards and Warlords. However, i recently googled that name and it appears it has already been used. It doesn't really matter since i am not going to sell this game ;) but do you think i should change the name? Wizards and Warlords is apropos considering the game. Other names might be Clash/Battle/War of Wizards/Sorcerers/Warlords/Enchanters, or Wizards/Warlords/Sorcerers/Enchanters of Wesnoth or maybe something about elements.

@ Can-ned_food- Oh, yes of course. That is a good idea. Currently i am using powerpoint to make the images so it probably would be easier to create a slight glow around the bottom text, but either way i do agree the small parenthesized text needs to be easier to read. :D
TSK-TSK! Somebody doubleposted!
Once i posted 4 in a row. ;)

@ LittleHandle - It is again great to hear ideas and even if i don't agree with them all i still appreciate that you took the time to write them! :D
Spoiler:
EDIT: After playing a few rounds of the game i have noticed a few things:

1. The mercenary hand can't be allowed to have items because then (in 3p games) it is too easy to win by items. I suggest just discarding any items the merc hand picks up and drawing new cards for it.

2. The dummy hand is good better than the merc hand because it adds more decision points. Because the merc hand has so few cards it basically eliminates consideration of other players getting your unused cards. The dummy hand is best when played as follows: each turn with the dummy hand you may play 1 card from the dummy hand (or discard 1 or do nothing with it) and you may play 1 card as normal, but this 1 card as normal may also come from the dummy hand.

3. The dummy and merc hand shouldn't be used together ;) it results in large confusion, and lots of cards laying around (3 for dummy, 2 for merc, along with played items and duration cards). The dummy and merc together also give the option of playing 3 attack cards in a single turn. When combined with cards such as x2 "play 2 more cards" and attack such as holy sword "play another card" it gets a little ridiculous how fast players can die.
Power hand idea
Another thing i had considered is a power hand (similar to the merc and dummy hands) it is not quite as good though. Basically how it works is (like the dummy hand) players take turns having a power hand. When it is your turn to have the power hand instead of picking up 1 card you draw to 8 cards and place 4 face up infront of you. That makes up the power hand. The other 4 cards are kept as the 'normal' hand. The normal hand may not be played (even as a defense) until the power hand is empty, IF YOU DO then the entire power hand is discarded. When the power hand is empty the next player (clockwise) creates a power hand.

What this adds is a the visibility of cards that allow other players to strategize for what might be coming, also this gives the player with the power hand the extra choice of sacrificing his power hand to play a different card. Also the power hand gives players lots of extra cards occasionally (like a card boost) this makes the game flow differently then normal because once every few rounds a new player gets a power hand. The main difference between this and the other two types of hands is that it does not give any extra card plays (whereas the dummy and merc hand allow the players to play an extra card on their turn), because of this it has a less significant effect and fits into gameplay more subtly, which is nice but at the same time not as effective in achieving the goal of adding extra choices, and it does nothing in particular for 2 player games.
Ultimately though i think we should decide which hands to actually add to the game. Personally i think the revised dummy hand is better than the merc hand but the power hand (though different) is a close contender because it plays so well. Perhaps those two could be added as optional gameplay changes.
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