Freesia TCG design

[Onyx Tanuki]

I'm actually a little confused by the mana system. What's keeping a player from loading up on Up cost spells and only a few high-power Down cost spells? Do you start off with mana in your mana pool, or is it 0 by default? Is there a maximum amount of mana? Do you retain mana throughout the match, or do you lose any mana you don't expend at the end of a turn? Is there only one kind of mana, or does each race have its own? If the former, why would I bother having a deck circulate around one or two races (except in the Angels' case, since that's explained already)?

As for the problem with characters vs. troops, I'd suggest making events and actions that are able to target characters incredibly rare. This would make it harder for a character to be eliminated by a source other than a creature or another character. Also, because they require you to play another card to summon, I'd suggest making creatures typically stronger than characters. That would solidify their importance in a deck, as they'd become vital to destroying and defending against characters. On the other hand, characters should generally have more life, so it might take three or more turns to take them down.

This reminds me a lot of a TCG idea I had based on an RPG styled battle system. It was kinda complex in that you had to keep track of HP and MP, but I don't think it was too shabby. Maybe I'll post it up sometime.

 

[FzGhouL]

First off, how the hell did you design those cards? I'm not talking about the art, I'm talking about the actual card, looks great. I've been using text documents for my shit so it doesn't look very good at all. Please PM me how you did it, as I am very curious and don't want to lose track.

Second, wow. You can basically take each card you have and point it back to another equivalent type card, you are offering no unique types (characters basically are legends) with a couple of extra rules, and slightly re-tweaked "mana" system. I honestly, looks like you played magic, and decided to "make your own" but didn't really innovate much. Its almost as bad as the 50billion D&D rip-offs out there.
I mean I hate to sound harsh but the fundamental mechanics are too similar. I've got my own CG I've designed for use amongst my friends but evolved from a RP'ing game I designed over the course of the last ten years. There was inspiration. I don't see inspiration.

I know you want story as a hook, but as it now stands you could just go write a new "Block" in magic, design some interesting cards, and get the same feel.

Now, what to players represent? Are we really going through the same drill of "Life totals?" Have you played the WoW TCG? This takes some slight elements out of it.

First things first, the best way to design is to limit. Most designers of Video games or RPGs, or TCGs, or whatever first thought is "Oh man I loved this! I want to make it better!" How do they make it better? More. They just throw more or twist some slight rule. Same flavor, same basis. Not good design.

You need to take a step back and say "What does my world have?" and represent it. "What does Magic have that I don't want to have?" Lands? Artifacts? Renaming isn't good enough. Also "Graveyard" and "Library" are magic terms, specifically to convey the Planeswalker feel. You don't convey any feel re-using those terms without specific attention to it.

Maybe locations are important in your game, where you play location cards and draw out a map with tiles and units get bonuses on them. Maybe units have more attk types. Maybe creatures never survive battles and only have dmg values to the most guys they can fight at once. Whats "attacking?" whats "defending?" What are they fighting for? Territory? Ideals?

Go back to square one. At this point its not even worth presenting as "new."

Btw, you do have some real talent. I wish I had friends who lived by me with your talent, it'd make my life much better.

 

[Despain]

First off, how the hell did you design those cards? I'm not talking about the art, I'm talking about the actual card, looks great. I've been using text documents for my shit so it doesn't look very good at all. Please PM me how you did it, as I am very curious and don't want to lose track.

Just photoshop?

I know you want story as a hook, but as it now stands you could just go write a new "Block" in magic, design some interesting cards, and get the same feel.

I've designed a lot of Magic Cards and attempted a few sets but didn't get too far. This is actually a better idea than a new TCG, I might convert this to a block. I just think that MTG's design is SO FUCKING GOOD. That's my biggest obstacle -- there's nothing i WANT to change.

 

[FzGhouL]

I can't photo edit, big issue for me.

Magic design is good for what it does. You need a game that does what you want to do better. No system is perfect for every goal. What the hell is your goal? Story? Then make it story. And build around that.

Look at your events. I wouldn't say an event in a story is "summon with fire." I think of it like, "Night of cheating wife" or "betrayal of best friend" or shit like that. STORY DRIVEN EVENTS.

 

[Wizard]

Wahou it's awesome =D
...
We need some graphists like you for our project =D

 

[hima]

Hmm I don't think it resemble MTG that much, really. I've played/learn a wide range of TCG so I have seen many game systems and I can say that his one stand out. The problem of a player load his/her deck with all the up mana could be solved by balancing the cards. From what I see, the card that will rarery has up mana cost would be the character cards.

My comment would be, I feel like it is a bit indirect in order to summon a creature into play. You have to have both event cards and the creature cards in your hand. While in magic, this is solved by land cards being permanents that stay as your resources for the whole game, so you can focus more on having creature card in your hand. I did not say that this is bad. It just feel like it's indirect and whether that will be good or bad, I can't tell until I test play it (that mean please let me be your beta tester hahahaha)

Also, I don't like event card. I mean, they shouldn't be called Event Card because it seems like an action card to me (Summon from fire is hardly an event, no?)  An if action card cannot be played during your turn, wouldn't that be "Reaction" or "Reversal" card instead?

As for the life stats, this one is pretty common in many games. This doesn't mean you should not have it. The only problem with life stat is that you need a damage counter or some sort to indicate the damage received or life point remained.  So you might wanna consider limit the number of creatures on the game field, or else the player will suffer from finding more damage counters. Pokemon solve this by only have 3 Pokemons at a time, no? (It's been too long since I play that game.) Shaman King TCG (The original Japanese one) also solve this by only character cards can recieve damages. Any attack point that is overkill the creature (Attack - Defense > 0) will become damage dealt to the character who owns that creature.

Having only Character be able to finish off the opponent is pretty unique, but at the same time it limits player freedom. Can player be dished out by reaction or event?  It's interesting but you'd have to design the game so that this doesn't seem to limit.  I mean, think about a deck that is counter based. In MTG, you can finish off your enemy during enemy's turn, right?  But in this one, you then have to wait to get your turn and command your character to deal the finish blow. But the time interval could make a pretty big difference, i.e. the losing player also have an action card waiting to counter back or something like that.

All in all, I think it has potential. I would need to playtest it before I can say anything more about it though. And the illustrations are AMAZING. You hired artists to do those?