Slowly, but steadily…
Last weekend, a friend of mine came over from the good old Netherlands to see my newborn son, and of course to get a taste of the Wuxia Pian card game. I already mailed him the rules, so I could get an opinion from someone not already ankles deep into the game. There comes a point where you are so “into” the game, that you are not able to see flaws and errors. That’s why an opinion from outside is great every now and then.
The good thing was that he understood the rules, without having seen a single card. That was fantastic news for me. Even though he does have some CCG/TCG background, he immediately understood the goals of the game, and how to get there. :P
Peter and I did not play too many games, just 4 or 5 or so, but he really liked it, and we both felt pretty good about it, even though the demo decks we used were “old” style cards, with some very broken game text on it.
While we were talking about the game, it occurred to me that this game would be awesome with some form of raid decks, just like WOW TCG has. Players would team up with each other to Storm the Evil temple of the Poison Ivy monk, or something like that. I will have to read up on the WOW raid deck rules to see if it is at all possible, but I think it will be. Maybe players will be restricted to just 3 warriors in the “raid” decks, but that is for later. I’ll keep it on the backburner for now.
The first batch of combat cards is finished, and there are a whooping 194 cards so far. It was a pretty difficult task of getting the game text on each card right, without having too much text so that it makes it difficult to understand, and also to keep each card in the same grammar form, so that players will not be confused about cards having different wordings.
It was also difficult to give each warrior type their own playing style. Balancing that was probably the hardest thing to do, and unfortunately, it sometimes just comes down to gut feeling, instead of clear cut numbers to use.
For example, if I give the Monk type the ability to heal, how can you balance that with other warrior types? Does direct damage for example balance healing? Or does discard balance card draw?
I hope they turned out to be somewhat balanced, so that I only need some minor tweaks on the cards itself.
I am sorry I was not able to provide demo decks for you all, but when I get all of the 194 cards into the demo deck template, I will put them all online, so that you can have a go at deck design and make me some very broken decks! (so I can fix some immediate problems). Maybe I will be able to create some form of database where you can select 9 cards that will automatically be printed (so you don’t have to print 194 cards all in once)
I am now working on creating about 50-60 different Warriors, and after that, some 20-30 different element types.
Then I need to buy some 800 protector sleeves, a table cutter (not going to cut it by hand this time), print out all the 194+60+30 cards three times, cut them, put them in sleeves and build some decks to try out.
Peter was nice enough to offer it to their playing group in the Netherlands, so they will have a go at it. I hope we can see this way what cards need fixing.
The demo decks I had were in fact only to see if the rules held up, but I am now confident that they do, so I can skip directly to card balancing.
I have not heard of Cyrus yet, but I expect to see a big update on the card templates that he is making for me. I am exited to see them!
Wuxia Pian card game is still moving forward! The rules are at version 2.0 now, and pretty much each possible thing I could think of, is in it now. I don’t think there will be a version 2.1 soon. All my attention goes to the creation and balancing of the cards now.
On a side note, I still do not have any free time, so the website won’t see any updates soon, unfortunately. But since I am not really on a deadline, I don’t mind to wait a few more months.
Hopefully next Blog entry will see some great downloads with it…
Last weekend, a friend of mine came over from the good old Netherlands to see my newborn son, and of course to get a taste of the Wuxia Pian card game. I already mailed him the rules, so I could get an opinion from someone not already ankles deep into the game. There comes a point where you are so “into” the game, that you are not able to see flaws and errors. That’s why an opinion from outside is great every now and then.
The good thing was that he understood the rules, without having seen a single card. That was fantastic news for me. Even though he does have some CCG/TCG background, he immediately understood the goals of the game, and how to get there. :P
Peter and I did not play too many games, just 4 or 5 or so, but he really liked it, and we both felt pretty good about it, even though the demo decks we used were “old” style cards, with some very broken game text on it.
While we were talking about the game, it occurred to me that this game would be awesome with some form of raid decks, just like WOW TCG has. Players would team up with each other to Storm the Evil temple of the Poison Ivy monk, or something like that. I will have to read up on the WOW raid deck rules to see if it is at all possible, but I think it will be. Maybe players will be restricted to just 3 warriors in the “raid” decks, but that is for later. I’ll keep it on the backburner for now.
The first batch of combat cards is finished, and there are a whooping 194 cards so far. It was a pretty difficult task of getting the game text on each card right, without having too much text so that it makes it difficult to understand, and also to keep each card in the same grammar form, so that players will not be confused about cards having different wordings.
It was also difficult to give each warrior type their own playing style. Balancing that was probably the hardest thing to do, and unfortunately, it sometimes just comes down to gut feeling, instead of clear cut numbers to use.
For example, if I give the Monk type the ability to heal, how can you balance that with other warrior types? Does direct damage for example balance healing? Or does discard balance card draw?
I hope they turned out to be somewhat balanced, so that I only need some minor tweaks on the cards itself.
I am sorry I was not able to provide demo decks for you all, but when I get all of the 194 cards into the demo deck template, I will put them all online, so that you can have a go at deck design and make me some very broken decks! (so I can fix some immediate problems). Maybe I will be able to create some form of database where you can select 9 cards that will automatically be printed (so you don’t have to print 194 cards all in once)
I am now working on creating about 50-60 different Warriors, and after that, some 20-30 different element types.
Then I need to buy some 800 protector sleeves, a table cutter (not going to cut it by hand this time), print out all the 194+60+30 cards three times, cut them, put them in sleeves and build some decks to try out.
Peter was nice enough to offer it to their playing group in the Netherlands, so they will have a go at it. I hope we can see this way what cards need fixing.
The demo decks I had were in fact only to see if the rules held up, but I am now confident that they do, so I can skip directly to card balancing.
I have not heard of Cyrus yet, but I expect to see a big update on the card templates that he is making for me. I am exited to see them!
Wuxia Pian card game is still moving forward! The rules are at version 2.0 now, and pretty much each possible thing I could think of, is in it now. I don’t think there will be a version 2.1 soon. All my attention goes to the creation and balancing of the cards now.
On a side note, I still do not have any free time, so the website won’t see any updates soon, unfortunately. But since I am not really on a deadline, I don’t mind to wait a few more months.
Hopefully next Blog entry will see some great downloads with it…
for those not able to wait, here is a screenshot of the first cardbatch, with some gametext to drool over, if you are as geeky as me :P
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