Going forward!

The Rules are done. Finished. Ready to be melted into gold. Bring out the chisels. Etc, etc..

Last weekend, we had 2 birthdays we needed to go to, but due to bad weather, we opted to held the “party” at our home (not very wise to take a 2.5 month old infant into the cold + rain just to get to a party), and since one of the persons getting a year older was Vicente, it was a very convenient way for us to be able to play test more on the Wuxia Pian card game.

I had already designed three different Demo decks, but due to low ink in my printer, we could only test 2 of them. Due to the increased graphical nature of the Demo decks, we actually felt like we were playing an almost finished product already. In the end of the play test, we even forgot about “testing” and were really trying to win the game, great!

The good:

The rules held up.. again. The only thing we changed was to change the way to decide who received Liú first. No rule questions came up, and no dead ends were noted, except this.
We actually had great fun playing just the Demo decks. Play was fast, we both went through a lot of cards and even found some nice combos.. with vanilla cards! Not to mention we really got the feeling we could win, even though it sometimes looked grim. The best out of 5 rule of Wuxia Pian is the best thing I came up with, I think, hahaha..
It was balanced. We both won 2 times with our decks, even after swapping. Great! Some cards were obviously good, but no card was over the top, and only a few cards felt far below the curve..
Due to the layout of the Demo decks, it was very easy to calculate each player’s Attack and Defense, and we never had to calculate beyond 15. I think this will be doable for each level of player who dives into the Wuxia Pian game.

The not so good:
Going first in the game was sometimes not so nice, and felt like a penalty most of the times. This made the player with the higher speed feel strange, because even though his or her warrior has a higher speed, it did not felt like an advantage. Luckily, this is easily solved by changing the rule for who begins first into:””The warrior with the highest speed decides which player receives Liú first this combat round.”” Problem solved. This way, a player can decide for himself if he or she wants to go first.
Reversing cards and Discarding cards were a bit overpowered, especially in the beginning of the game: I play 2 cards, you make me discard those and pound in my head. We will need to split these cards into special targets for Reverse and Discard. Example: “”Discard target 3 cost card””, “”Your opponent must choose and reverse one of his cards”” etc.. Making it more specific prevents the cards from getting too powerful (which we found out during the game)
Sustain. The sustain rule is golden, but because of the huge amount and easiness of Discarding and reversing combat cards, Vicente and I never really needed to follow the sustain rule. Only in one game it came up.. Solution: Reduce the sustain value on Warriors, but be careful NOT to increase the power of the Reverse and Discard cards through this reduction.. Needs more play test.
Since there were no combat cards in the Demo decks that handled speed, it was sometimes a very one way street game. More cards and abilities that target Speed are needed.

The Bad:
NONE! I just need to implement some minor changes in the Rules, change some cards in the Demo decks (split up Discard and Reverse effects, decrease sustain), and it’s good to go.

This really gets me exited. Now I know the rules hold up, it’s on to the best part of card game design: the real cards itself. Hopefully the Demo decks will be up this week, so we will get some feedback from players around the world.

Maybe I can begin to set up the website, with a message board, so players and designers can discuss the rules and provide insights and ideas for cards..

I have uploaded the new rulebook, version 1.8 you can download it on the right.

I want to Welcome and express my thanks for Cyrus from the
http://www.anarchycap.com/kingdom/
Card game for jumping in and helping me design the card templates. The first wip (work in progress) already looks great!

During the last few months, work on Wuxia Pian really went to an all time high, and I must say, I am very happy how it is becoming.
During play testing, there were moments when I was not too happy about some cards I had in my hand, because they could not help me at that time, or I faced a grim outlook with the cards my opponent had in play. In most card games, this means game over or a very tedious game, where you are forced to play, but unable to get back in. Not in Wuxia Pian. I just shrugged it off and prepared for combat # 2… I do not want to boast, but not often you find a game where you get 5 opportunities to get into the game and win.. In Wuxia Pian, you can! The rule where your opponent is forced to play his Warrior first if he won a victory point, works like a charm, because I get to choose a warrior who can defeat that warrior (e.g. has an advantage over) more easily, bringing me back into the game, but not automatically, since I still need to win that combat…

What to do next? A checklist:
• Finish making revisions on the rules and let someone (native English) proof read it.
• Finalise the Demo decks and put them online
• Start working on the Website
• Finalise the Demo rules sheet
• Begin work on the final cards for the first set
• Determine the size of the first set
• Supervise the creation of the card templates.
• Start working on pictures from the movies to include
• create a big list of names from the movies, plus possible card names
• Combine the Final templates with the rulebook and finalise it
• Investigate into a stand alone application for online play…
• Play, play and play the game.

So first on my list: Finish the Demo decks and put it online.

Expect to see a big post coming up this week about the Demo decks!

Time.. is not on my hands.

I have this little nagging feeling that I took more Hay on my pitchfork than I can carry… Wuxia Pian is coming along great; I am very busy with filling in temporal templates for the 3 demo decks to try out. The names and numbers are all ready, the template for the Combat cards is ready, and it is all a matter of filling the numbers and making some PDF´s to put up for download… The truth is, being a father and husband with a full time job takes away a looooot of my free time, more than I had anticipated before we chose to get a child. Most of my free time is spend with my son and wife, placing work I can do on Wuxia Pian to the free minutes in-between diaper changes and quick naps on the sofa.

I am now fully aware that this project will take a much longer time than originally planned. This is not a problem for me, but I think it will be a strain on my creativity and stamina to keep up with the game, and not get “fed-up” with it. I am thinking about getting some help from people on the net for Template design (the final graphical template) because I think that will be a big hurdle for me to cross. I can design it myself, but it will take too long I think..

I know for sure if the Wuxia Pian game is finished, the next game I will design will be of a much smaller scale.

So, where are we at?

The cost matrix for all 5 different warrior types is finished, and I think I am far enough to be able to make a list of things still to do, without being too long to read, haha:

Creating good names for combat cards, not so corny like they are in the demo decks
Finish the demo decks and place it online for download.
Create the “final” rulebook with lore and card anatomy for download.
Get started on the final templates or ask for help to do it.
Determine the final size of the set and distribution.
Get all the Wuxia Pian films I can get my hands on for pictures.
Play test more and more.
Make plug in for Lackey.
Make free to play downloads (print and play) available.
Play the game!

Maybe I should indeed include more people to help.. this list will take forever to finish, and I am afraid interests might have gone off to another direction..

In Sickness and Health

Well, to be very short: I am sick. I am coughing up my lungs, have random headaches every few hours, have snot coming out of places I didn’t even know snot could come out, and feeling feverish as well. That means its just me lying on the sofa, a little reading, a little zapping and a lot of sleep and nothing else.. well.. nothing…

“Luckily” I started feeling sick Sunday afternoon, which means I did some serious play testing with Vicente this weekend before the snot bomb hit me..

Play testing results:

First: the good:

The rules are solid and fun. Play was very fast but still we both needed to think over our moves. The best part was that even though some hands and cards were not so “good” game-play wise, knowing that the next warrior would have a fresh, clean shot at winning a VP (victory point) was good enough to continue play each time.
I bet you all know that feeling when playing a Magic, WOW or any other CCG: Knowing you are losing from the first of second turn onwards. Vicente and I never had this feeling while play testing, simply because we both had FIVE opportunities to win.
Even though the cards were very vanilla, they played out nicely and no rule questions came up during play testing. Also there were no Timing issues and loops detected. Hurray!

The not so good:
This is probably due to lack of game text on cards, but when each players has their maximum # of cards in their combat zone (Sustain number), game play got very slow. It was very hard to turn a defensive combat zone into an offensive one, for example. The card flow on the table was too slow. This needs to change (see point A). Since most of the cards were played in the first few turns (thus filling up the combat zone very fast), it was a bit slow afterwards to see any real change in both our combat zones.

Card options in hand was a little too low, but this was easily corrected by increasing a players hand size to 7 (+2 cards extra).

The card flow was ok, but we both felt a little increase wouldn’t hurt. This needs to change as well (see point B).

Reposing. This needs to go. We both were doing our utmost best to at least be able to Repose (read: gain 1 Chi) each turn. This makes no fun and I think it is best to change the drawing rule as well (see point C.)

Lastly, gameplay was alittle too long, with us going to more than an hour for each game. Easy fix: increase damage output or decrease life on warriors. (i´ll choice the first, see point D.).

The Bad:
None. There was nothing pointing out to a serious problem with the game and after a few minor changes (see points below) I think the game is ready to be filled in with real cards.
The changes:

First of all, to battle the problem with a filled up combat zone not changing so much, Vicente came up with an idea:

Remove the combat zone (cards played gets discarded at the end of turn) and introduce a new card type: fighting styles.

Normally, a player with Liú gets to play cards until they lose Liú or they choose not to play more cards. This quickly ended up in a filled up combat zone and warriors with very little Chi and cards in hand. Fighting Style cards could change that.

Fighting style cards simply increase card flow and makes you keep Liú no matter what cards you play (even if playing Liú (X) cards).

Example:
Praying Mantis Style:

Gain 3 Chi
3 cards, 5 Chi
Convert 2.

You would put your Fighting Style cards just as combat card into your combat deck. Fighting style cards are free to play and using the example above, would do the following:
Your warrior gains 3 chi for using the Praying Mantis style.
He may play any 3 combat cards from hand, up to a maximum of 5 chi cost combined, OR he may play it for free to convert 2.

What does it do? It helps players creating their combat deck (deck building) and it helps you get rid of all those cards that make you lose Liú.
It still allows you to play combat cards without having a fighting style card.

When we used these fighting Style cards, we both pretty much kept our warrior filled up with cards and Chi, but it also came with a few downsides:

It really felt again like a “I play cards”, “you play cards” game again, where both players just went for a full scale assault, and only played defensively when they had no choice.
Second, it also needed again the use of Initiative. To figure out whose turn it was to begin playing combat cards. I really hated that: now you attack, next turn I attack.
Third, it created a bad feeling when not drawing combat style cards. They felt they had too much an edge over not playing with them. Meaning that hand screw could come right back into play here, with not drawing any combat styles for a few turns.

So I decided, even though that I like the concept, and maybe a future expansion could see them introduced, to delete and not use combat style cards for now.

The changes that were implementes were:

A. Create more cards that lets (or makes) you discard cards from a combat zone, or place them face down. This has to be a lot more so that combat is a bit more dynamic and changes pretty much each turn. This is a change that needs to go through in card design.

B. Also a card design change, to create more cards with the Convert game text and cards that let you gain Chi, take face-down cards back into hand etc.

C. Removing the Repose rule and changing the Ready and convert step into the draw and Convert step: “”Starting with the player who has Liú, each player may convert (1) , meaning that they may take one of their combat cards from their Chi pool into their hand OR gain (1) Chi””.

This way, I will let the player decide what is the best way to play the game. Increasing their hand, or increasing their Chi each turn. This also simplifies the Action step a lot (deleting repose)

D. Increased damage dealt by cards. With shield cards going to a maximum of +1, and damage cards going to a maximum of +2, more damage will be dealt, hopefully decreasing playing time.

After these rule changes, I will make up two sample decks to print out and play, so I can get some opinions from players all over the world.

Expect them at the end of the week, or at the latest Monday morning.. Depending on how well I continue to feel.. ugh…

Birthday

Today is the birthday of my wife, on old years day. she turned a beautiful 33, and we had a great cake yesterday..hmmm.. icecake ..

I bought here a Nixon D60 digital camara for her birthday, because I know she likes to take pictures, and we now have a very good reason to take a lot of them (my son: paul).

Happy birhtday sweetie, may the sun keep shining on your face!

I also treaded myself to a little treat, I bought another starterpack from the corunea rcg.. can´t wait to get started on the game..but today is party time.

Tonight we´ll have the traditional dinner with my mother in law, and after that we wil celebrate the new year in a friends home.. hopefully we all can stay awake until its 00.00 hours.. I know paul won´t make it, haha..

Some new years resolutions? hmmm.. continue working on Wuxia Pian, keep blogging and keep my family as lovable as it is right now.. o, year, and never again sink money into obvious money making card games (looking at you Sony online enterscamment!)