Initial Concepts

Spectacle Card Game Initial concepts:

This is a boiled down version of my initial concepts for the game. Your ideas have probably already gone in a different direction, which is great. Feel free to take any parts you find useful, and discard what you don't!

Initial concepts

• Core Concept:
  • Limited deck size (10-15 cards), balance draft and deck building
  • Inverted power scaling
  • Start with strong cards, then strategically weaken the deck
• Game Economy:
  • Cards are the main currency for purchases and progression.
  • Dungeon crawling to acquire cards; higher value cards found deeper.
  • Buy a permanent version of the draft cards, for consistent deck composition
  • No card dropping during dungeon crawl; balance card acquisition with what you choose to bring in. Can only pick up cards you have room for
  • bring strong cards and sacrifice deck space, for smaller rewards.
• Multiplayer and Replayability:
  • PvE Dungeon:
    • Need to achieve a certain score to progress to deeper levels.
    • Crawl the dungeon until your deck is full, and fight your way back out to cash out.
    • bigger risks drafting inside for faster progression,
  • PVPVE Daily Dungeons:
    • paired with other players, and draft cards as you dungeon crawl
    • reverse draft into the other player's deck, weaken/ tank deck value.
  • PVP Direct Battles:
    • Limited ranked battles per day, so you want to maximize score in each battle for the leaderboard/rewards.
    • Free Play mode where you can continue after daily limits to play without rewards and mess around with combos
  • Try to keep your opponent alive long enough to pull off the cool combos, and stop them from running theirs, while trying to stay alive yourself.
• Mechanics
  • Health Pools:
    • Actual Health:
    • Stumble Count: Tracks failures to complete card combos.
    • Spotlight: Tracks if player is attempting enough combos to be interesting
  • Cards:
    • Initiator (+ attack, - score )
    • Flourish (- attack, + score)
    • Riposte (defend health and remove blockers)
    • Finisher (exit combo, secure score)
  • Combo Mechanics
    • Every card type has its own effect and can be played on it's own, but they can be chained in this order:
      • Initiator -->
      • Any number/combination of Flourish and Ripostes -->
      • Finisher
    • Failure to complete a combo results in a stumble, affecting the Stumble Count and forfeiting the score increase.
    • thematically think audience is getting frustrated with repeated failed build-ups
    • Cheer bonus, crowd loves big combos that achieve nothing
  • Blockers
    • Flourishes might add a blocker to the opponent, which causes a stumble
    • Blockers could be typed and end a combo if the player tries to play a flourish of that type.
    • Trip hazards, smokescreens, etc
    • Initiators might start with one block removal so you can start safely
    • ripostes are used to clear more mid combo.
  • Spotlight:
    • With this system you could just run a bunch of initiator cards
    • strongest way to lower their health
    • avoid stumbles entirely by never starting a combo you can fail.
    • gauge called spotlight, which you need to keep filled by attempting combos. If you run none at all, you are considered boring and nobody wants to watch you, so you lose the "audience vote" when the spotlight gauge drops to 0.
    • should not mandate constant combos, just punish ignoring them entirely.
  • Victory Conditions:
    • Reduce opponent's health to zero.
    • Cause the opponent to stumble multiple times.
    • Hit Max Spotlight
    • Must win to secure points and increase score, so it's a balancing act of power vs style
• Thematic Elements:
  • Visually distinguish between high-value, weak cards (flashy like throwing cards) and low-value, strong cards (simplistic like punch).
  • Factions as expansions/ card sets
    • High society gamblers: wealthy with a taste for the extravagant.
    • Scarface-style gambling dens: focus on intimidation/ chance.
    • Gamer power fantasy faction: flashy in-game items with no real-life value.
    • Trap based set with hidden blockers
    • A strength set based on high power, but increased stumble chance.

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Challenges and Considerations

• Balancing Power and Economy:
  • Will be difficult to balance in such a way that brute force is possible but not rewarding, to allow for self scaling difficulty but encourage "risk/reward" playstyle.
  • High potential for overpowered dominant strategy. Balancing/ card pool required for strategic diversity.
  • Need to scale enemy power with user style.
  • Playtesting required to fine-tune card values and effects, difficult in one month.
  • Potential for complex card interactions which may cause unexpected effects.
• Complexity for New Players:
  • Combination of deck building with Drafting, while balancing power vs score may be difficult to grasp for new players.
  • Strong tutorial required in storyline.
  • Systems and card effects should be clearly indicated.
  • Scoring Should not be too complex. It should be possible to calculate the effects of a combo on the fly, assuming no hidden blockers.
• Narrative Integration:
  • Need to find areas to include storytelling/lore
  • tooltips on cards
  • conversations outside of battle