[Java] Project Card Tactics (1v1 Single/Multiplayer)

[Ashedragon]

(which consists of me and... me, and sometimes if I can convince him, me)

Hello!
Project Card Tactics is a game I started making based on a random generator's randomness. The topic it gave me was Card Based FPS. I didn't make it an fps, but it definitely has some shooting in it... I guess!

It's essentially a card based tactical strategy game a la Fire Emblem/Advance Wars + Hearthstone/Scrolls. More focused on the tactical element than the cards in most areas. I have been working on this for about a month and a half now, and I've made some decent progress, I'd say. My intention for now is to have some multiplayer in and some cards before alpha, and I'll study how people play the game, the moves they make, and I'll use that gathered data to try to create an AI system. This is my first made from scratch game, so that's not something I've practiced much. I do intend to sell it, although not for very much. First game and such, and I'm not sure people would really be interested. Maybe $2 at most. Other than that I don't have many plans for the alpha and beta stages, so here's to things happening!


Gameplay

• Player gets a deck of 20-60 random cards depending on the units they selected
  
• They each have a general that is played automatically at the start of the game
  
• The goal in normal mode is to defeat the opponent's general before he kills yours
  
• General dying is defeat
  
• Players earn gold for winning (a little for losing, but obviously not as much) battles, and they can use those to unlock more units that they can select to show up during a match
  
• I play to have multiple modes and some customization options for multiplayer matches, so there's some diversity
  
• Each general has his/her own unique ability that makes him/her different in play
  
• Units also have abilities that change how you would use them
  
• There are three categories of units as of right now: Land, Air, and Sea. Land units are strong against Air units, Air strong against Sea, and Sea is strong against Land.
  
• Each general also has an affinity with these elements, and as such you are more likely to get cards of that affinity than you would be to get other cards (e.g. Sea general would be more likely to get Sea units, etc)
  

Screenshots
Yeah, I have some of these things.

Spoiler

And this is an old mockup from before the very beginning stages
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1049...Mockup.png
* All the graphics are placeholder, as I need a pixel artist desperately (though I wouldn't be able to pay unless I either got hired by anyone I sent applications to, or after I started selling it), so if you're willing to lend a hand I'd be more than happy to have you! Really!

So that's it in a nutshell, I can't really think of anything else to add. Hoping to release an alpha demo of multiplayer this month or next month!

Thanks and Salutations

[puggsoy]

This looks pretty interesting. If executed properly, this could turn out to be quite awesome. Good luck with it!

Just curious, what's this being made with? Is it pure coding and if so, which language?

[Ashedragon]

This looks pretty interesting. If executed properly, this could turn out to be quite awesome. Good luck with it!

Just curious, what's this being made with? Is it pure coding and if so, which language?

Thanks! It's being made in Java with the slick2d game library.

[Ashedragon]

Small update,
Units glow green when you have them selected:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5yqkiz7hj8oog1....22.41.png

And also, fairly early options menu!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dn1leya1fivebq....21.05.png

There was also a lot of under the hood optimization, but obviously I can't show a screenshot for that, because it wouldn't make much sense, hah.

I do have an inquiry for anyone interested:
Right now the system works like this--you play towers down so you can deploy units. You can deploy towers anywhere, so technically you can deploy units anywhere. I haven't been able to think of a restriction on tower placement as of yet, so maybe someone else has an idea for me! I was thinking about just restricting towers to the bottom half of the screen, but I'm not sure that would be enough. All suggestions and opinions are welcomed!

Thanks,
Us.

[puggsoy]

I'm not exactly clear on the gameplay, but perhaps you could restrict towers to being built within a certain range from your units? Kind of like how in Advance Wars, your units can only see a certain distance (if Fog of War is on), you could have a similar distance specifying how close a tower must be placed to any of your units.

That way, you can only place towers if you have a unit nearby. Depending on the gameplay, you might also want to say that your tower can't be built too close to any enemy unit and/or tower. And of course, to build your first tower you'll need to designate a small area where it can be built (if there are no units at the start).

[Ashedragon]

I'm not exactly clear on the gameplay, but [...]

That sounds like an interesting idea. Have the units and the towers mutually dependent on one another.

The gameplay works like this: Each player has a general. The general is automatically placed by the system as soon as the match begins. Towers the player places have a range they set when they are placed. So if you want to deploy more units afterwards, you have to have at least one tower down, and you can only place units within a certain range of those towers. Some towers are distinctly better than others by having a farther range, but those towers come with disadvantages like less defense or HP--so they can be destroyed easier. You can win in one of two ways in the normal mode: 1) kill the enemy's general, or 2) destroy all of the enemy's towers.

That's the simple way to describe it, as things get a lot more complicated with unit abilities, tactics cards (which are essentially spells), equippable cards, resource management and recovery, tile buffs and debuffs depending on where the unit is on the map, type advantages and disadvantages, ability to cross certain tiles other units can't, etc.

[puggsoy]

Ah, I see. So the general is also a unit who can attack, but shouldn't be killed, similar to the king in chess?

If the game starts with a general, then what you could do is say that the first tower can be built within the range of the general (which can maybe be larger than regular units). However, you say one of the win conditions is if you destroy all of the enemies' towers. It's not a bad idea, but I see a couple of problems with it.

Problems

1) If the game starts with no towers, both sides have effectively already lost. Obviously, it's possible to work around this code-wise, but it just seems illogical that a player loses if they have no towers, since they didn't start with any in the first place.

2) This means that building towers will also be a way of increasing your "health". People might see them more as a way to stay alive, rather than a way to build an army. This could effectively cause a player to spend their time focusing on building towers, rather than on deploying units and attacking the opponent. The more towers you have, the harder it is for the opponent to beat you, right?

3) Most people will focus on destroying towers, since they're just stationary objects and don't directly damage units. So destroying towers seems like a safer and simpler plan of action than going for the general. Chances are also that towers will be spread out somewhat and not really defended much, as opposed to the general who will probably be surrounded by units in a corner of the map.
This kind of makes killing the general a rare plan of action, while it seems like it should be the only one. Again relating to chess, even if you kill all the other pieces, you still need to get the king in checkmate.

Of course, this is just thinking out loud, and the way the game plays could make all of those points invalid. Halfway through writing that I also realised that it's actually similar to Advance Wars in the sense that, you win by either capturing the enemy HQ or destroying all enemy units. So I guess that if the game mechanics fix the above problems, then you can ignore them

[Ashedragon]

Ah, I see. So the general is also a unit who can attack, but shouldn't be killed [...]

1) Well, the way the game handles the logic only occurs when a tower in specific is killed. So no one would automatically get a gameover right off the bat, hahah. That'd be crazy!

2) True! But the heavy downside is if you're not defended at all and just place towers everywhere, the enemy could easily summon a bunch of units, charge you, and kill you--because you have no protection whatsoever. And Tower units cannot be placed within range of each other, so you couldn't simply barricade yourself off.

3) Well, the reason in specific that I have it so you die if you lose all of your towers is so a) they actually have importance in terms of resource management, because you only get as many resource points back as you have towers on the field (up to a point depending on many factors), and b) so people don't simply place towers haphazardly--to make them think strategically about where to place towers since they cannot move at all, and they cannot be commanded. They're like resource depots. If you lose your means to gain resources, then you have no way to deploy units. Which means you've essentially lost. However, this only causes gameover when the player has no resources left at all, instead of just whenever it dies. Because if you still have resources, you still have a chance.

I love your thinking aloud, it helps a ton, really! And I am very grateful for any and all help I receive!

[Ashedragon]

Another minor update!

* Units can be made to attack at a minimum range.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ud43xrtllnbjjz....38.05.png

* Fixed a minor bug with attack and movement range

* Added in a system so animations can be played quickly and easily!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/70ptmt5v35g16k....40.29.png
One shot KO like a pro!

* And the card graphic has been expanded a bit more, the nameplate being moved to the very top for easy distinguishing units in your hand instead of having to just stare at numbers. It hasn't been implemented in the screenshots above, but it'll be a fairly quick process.

* I also got rid of the wait command entirely. There was no point to it, there was no benefit. Defending was just, in general, the better option. Either that or just simply not doing anything instead of taking the extra time to make all of your units wait.

And that's all I can remember,
Later days!

[Ashedragon]

Not much here, just finally was able to get a gif for you guys!



Seeya!

[Ashedragon]

This is more for me than anything, but it'll definitely be helpful for modders who're testing their own cards and the like!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wprsyv3mmbh3zy....35.19.png
* You can enable and disable the colors at will

Green: commands you put in
Red: Errors
Yellow: help messages (very few of these, actually)
Blue: Info/Response messages

Though, your Modding save will not be usable in multiplayer with other clients who don't also have modding mode enabled and also share your cards, so that's the thing with that!

Later days!

[daemoth]

Love the concept! Tactical and Card based game are the best You might want to check out Poxnora as the rule seem similar iirc. It might give you some ideas.

[Ashedragon]

Love the concept! Tactical and Card based game are the best :P You might want to check out Poxnora as the rule seem similar iirc. It might give you some ideas.

Thanks, hahah. And I'll look into that, thanks for the suggestion.

[Ashedragon]

Got a good load menu goin' here. This is what you see as you boot the game, and where you pick your save to load into! And it's a gif!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1049...adMenu.gif

Catch you again!

[Ashedragon]

And finally--the (near) finished products! Bar the moving saves and the two arrow buttons doing... anything!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1049...BarLel.gif
I also may have found a few spriters, so look forward to some graphical updates soon!

Until then,
Cya!