IDEA 410 Capstone Spring 2023

I’m a designer from China. I have liked to play all kinds of games since childhood, especially card games, which is one of my favorite games.    I have played many card games, such as offline and online Slayer of The Three Kingdoms, Pokemon card game, Yu-Gi-Oh, Werewolf, Hearthstone, Harry Potter, etc., and even playing Poker and games with various rules based on playing cards.    The most common is Texas Hold ‘Em. When I enjoy these games, I sometimes feel that the games are too expensive, some take too long, some rules are so many and complicated that I lose interest after a while. So I came up with the idea of designing my own card game.

Based on my own experience, I design card games based on the following principles: offline card games, simple rules, and short game rounds. And in order to increase the interest of players, I also referred to the Texas Hold ’em game, which is not knowing the end of the game, the effect of psychological games, and developed a set of rules. In order to attract the player’s attention, keep the player focused on the game and save money, I used a simple and clear form for the graphics on each card. The theme of this card game is the sword and shield competition. The cards are divided into two types, attack and defense. There are different numbers in the upper left corner of the cards. Players need to use these numbers to compete for victory according to the rules, which are included in the game. The detailed rules are in the included instructions. Originally, the pattern on each card, I wanted to be consistent, but when I saw a sentence: “The world will not exist the same texture of leaves.” I decided that the graphics on each card would be slightly changed. Thus, a set of bright colors, simple drawings, simple rules, and easy to play card games was born. 

My goal is to design a portable card game so that people can play with their family or friends at any time to enhance their social interaction. Because I love to play games, and card games are one of my favorite games. In my vision, my card game can be played by two players or many players. It starts with everyone randomly drawing the same number of cards each turn, with one of them as the attacker and the others as the defender. The game of attack and defense is not a direct advance and defense, but to guess the respective attack and defense power, you think your power is high to continue, or think your power is low and surrender, the punishment will change accordingly. Not complicated, not like a Pokemon Card game, more like a poker game. In addition to increase entertainment, the main purpose is to stimulate competitive, seriously play cards.

• My goal is to design a portable card game so that people can play with their family or friends at any time to enhance their social interaction. Because I love to play games, and card games are one of my favorite games.

• Play while traveling or partying

I need to describe the most important point of this game, that is, the psychological game, which is the need to judge the opponent’s hand, even the actions and facial expressions, and finally make a choice and win. This mental thinking is part of the essence of the game.

Why do I require these when I design cards? You can check out these card games: Pokemon Card Game, Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game, Avalon Card Game, Werewolf Card Game, Monopoly Card Game, Legends of the Three Kingdoms. Some of these cards have complicated rules, some have dazzling patterns, some require a large number of cards, some require 5 or more people, and some last a very long time. I don’t think these really fit into the easy, portable, anytime play.

I went to Game Stop and looked at a bunch of cards. Finally, I consulted Poker, UNO and other similar card games to design the rules and patterns of my card game.

UNO

Poker

Game Stop

Some inspiration patterns：

Backstory：

Sword is the strongest attack weapon, shield is the best defense weapon. Who is the strongest? Sword or Shield?

This is some of the cards that I showed at open studios, and you can see there are 6 color cards, 8 cards in each color, I think the total number of cards is 48, plus 8 black cards.

NOTE: I didn’t think about the color of the card. I chose it at random. Obviously some colors do not fit, so in the next work, I will carefully select the color of the card.

In order to increase the variety of gameplay, I changed the colors and rules of some cards from the original basis.

This is a game played by each other. The upper left corner of each card is marked with A and D respectively, with A representing attack and D representing defense. The cards are colored with a uniform white back. So, when the game starts, separate the attack cards and the defense cards to form two piles. Each player draws two cards from each of the two decks, for a total of four cards. Then combine them with the number in the top left corner. For example, if you draw 4 cards that are 2 attack cards (A2 and A3) and 2 defense cards (D1 and D2), this indicates that your attack power is A2+A3=A5, and your defense power is D1+D2=D3.

The next step is to play each other (See the number of the card to determine who will attack first), neither player knows what the other’s cards are, if you think your attack is high, then you can choose to attack the other, if you think your attack power is low, you can choose to abandon the attack (just a suggestion, the specific decision is up to you). When attacking, the opposing team can only use the defense card to defend, each other to compete value (A? vs. D?), the highest value wins. After the winner, we discard our cards and start the drawing again for the next round of the game (next turn, attack, and defense switch). Each player has 3 drops of blood (black card), when losing a handful, will be deducted one blood, all blood deduction, representing the game completely over.

Note: When attacking, the defense can have three options, the first option is to play the game directly, if the attacker loses and then loses 2 bloods, the defender loses and loses 1 blood. Another option is to engage in a “reconciliation” where, if the attacker agrees, both sides abandon the round and neither side sheds blood. The last option is when the two sides show their cards (attacker show A cards, defender show D cards) and the defender finds that the defense is not as strong as the other side’s attack, they can choose to counterattack, that is, the defense attacks, if successful, the offense deducts 2 bloods, the defense does not deduct blood, if the counterattack fails, the offense deducts no blood, the defense deducts 3 bloods.

It’s also worth noting that there are 8 white cards. In the top left corner, A? /D?  or D? /A? they will be randomly divided evenly between two piles of cards, that is, each pile of cards has 4 white cards, when the card is drawn, it will increase the marked attack value and defense value.

This is the battle screen. Each side draws 4 cards, 2 attack cards, 2 defense cards, and then you have a total of 4 cards. Like this, we have attack cards are A2 and A6, defend cards are D1 and D3. If you are on the attack side and you see that your attack cards are A2 and A6, then your attack power is A8，After the two sides successfully battle, we can see that the cards of the defending side are A1, A3, D2 and D4 respectively. Since it is the defending side, when others attack, the defensive cards are used to play, that is, D2+D4=D6. So, 8 is greater than 6, the defense loses and takes 1 drop of blood.

That’s the first option, and we have the second and third options, but I won’t show them all because of time.