my new favourite thought experiment is trying to reduce existing gamess down to being playable with a standard deck of cards. I've been thinking about netrunner a lot recently.
@@tcgacademia of course. If you squont a bit, VPs in a euro and life in mtg are not that different (but still different enough i like one and not the other in general)
1- Behind the first layer of fantasy, TCGs are mathematical games/ exercises. 2- small numbers are very concrete ways of comparing and evaluating things, key aspects of building decks and playing games. Small numbers are understandable by even small kids and that is one of the reasons companies say TCGs are a good hooby for them. side note: curious how japanese games opt for using bigger numbers on most their games. 3- The video did well in showing how the math behind life and damaging life totals makes multiple deck types possible. That balance is fulcral to everygame.
9 months later but I would assume the reason Japanese games use bigger numbers is because of their currency system. They are more used to using bigger numbers would be my guess.
@@goncaloferreira6429 well from what I can gather the reason Japanese TCG usually use how are increment of 1,000 is because Duel masters popularized the trend. The only reason why I could think it’s effective is because Numbers in four digits ( In Games like Vanguard Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon ) but having the increments only be in 1000 helps keeps maths to a minimum avoiding Yugioh calculation problems
kinda late but if I can vouch for the 1000 of japanese game, I think there are two other reason: 1. on flavor, bigger number feels stronger, 10.000 powered dragon sounds cooler and stronger than 10 power dragon, considering lot of japanese tcgs are 6+ as in intended for kids, and nowadays 1000 incremental should be pretty easy for kids that already on tcg target market 2. big number helps to recognizing/memorize cards better, for example 6 costed 5/6 on mtg, there's chance that you misremembered which number is cost, which one is power, and which one is toughness, but 5 cost 6000 in duel master is pretty clear which one is cost, which one is power. This is small thing but I think it is neat
I've once thought about a TCG where, aside from choosing what cards you're allowed to play akin to Hearthstone's classes or Vanguard's clans, you also choose how to win. The idea being that you can use more powerful cards, but maybe you'll have to deal 30 damage to win where using weaker cards means you only need to deal 20. I think it still has potential (especially the alt win-cons such as having a certain amount of cards in hand, or at the end of each turn subtracting the total health of your opponent's creatures on board from the total health of your own creatures to get an equal amount of points, and winning once you get a certain amount of points), but I realized that it's pretty hard to balance when an extra 10 life really doesn't matter if you're not playing aggro lol
Yeah, the balancing sounds tricky, but it does sound like a neat idea. One Piece TCG has varying life totals depending on your starting character, and the starting characters can come with individual win cons as well. On the other hand, Gate Ruler had some really dramatic differences in starter characters, and I don't think it worked quite as well there. Definitely a design risk, but I think it could definitely be worth it!
I think that card games, at their core, are resource management games. Players are trying to incrementally increase their own resources during gameplay, in order to reduce their opponent’s resources to zero. This can be a hard victory condition (reducing life points to zero), or a soft victory condition (having no cards in hand and board against a full board*). Maybe this is too reductionist to be useful, but it segways into my next point. (*In some games/environments, this might not be a soft victory condition: maybe the player has a chance to draw a particular card that can turn the game around.) Card games tend to be very binary games. For example: either a player has a card on the field, or they don’t have that card in the field. The end result is that oftentimes cards are either ubiquitous or unplayable. This is an important observation, because with foresight a designer can avoid walking themself into a corner. Say, if you design a card that temporarily removes an opponent’s card, but it costs the same resources as a card that permanently removes the same card (in every situation), then there’s no reason to use the first card. Gradation offer more design knobs for designers to turn, but makes games more complicated. If players had a starting life total of 1, the game would be too swingy. Conversely, if they had a life total of 200 and received damage in increments of 2, 5 and 7, it would become cumbersome to keep track of and calculate different tactics (unless it’s a video game, and the computer does the math for you). Striking the right balance is key.
Balance is definitely key, and one of the most interesting parts of tcg design, since they have to balance a bunch of different game play elements (and do it in a way humans can track without computer aids). Design knobs are really what most of these elements are, and the amount of them and the shape they take are important to determine how complex the game is, and how much design space it has. It's a fairly narrow target, so it's always interesting to see how a new game tries to hit that range.
Do you count a game where players are accruing victory points as a life system? I know you count something like netrunner and keyforge as life systems. But in those games, you need a certain amount of victory points to win. What if it's more like a euro game, where the game ends either after a certain amount of round or when a condition is met, and who ever has the most wins?
There's a lot of flexibility, but I think the core thing is that it needs to be able to increment up or down over the course of the game. I can't think of any tcgs with scoring systems like euro games, but instinctively I think it could work, although it may be more difficult to balance than more straightforward, traditional scoring systems.
I wonder if a tcg without distinct life totals built around mill could be fun... probably some kind of spy theme to tie in the information control aspects
In primary/middle school I was designign and producing (as in: producing single copies of decks for usage with friends, with all the art obviously being stolen copyrighted artwork as AI art did not exist circa 2008) a TCG-inspirde game (with understanding it will nver be a TCG, but rather something to just play with friends). It was super fun for kids that age who had no board gaming/card gaming experience apart from 1-2 actual games played very infrequently and without much depth. Obviously, it was garbage if compared to actual good games, still, was very fun to play a few times a year and then spend the rest of the time designing new cards. Mechanically it was not an MTG clone - it was a Duel Masters clone (which obviously is an MTG clone but I diagress). Mana system? Stolen, 5 Cards as player health? Stolen. Interestingly, I had 3 stats per unit (called sth like ranged, melee, defence), and 3 zones for cards to go to - they would start on backline with no ability to attack (like summoning sickness, and some would ommit this step aka haste in MTG), then they would HAVE TO leave this zone in my version of the end step. Also, draw was at the end, surprising bit of accidental proper game design. Then, a card that left the back line zone, would enter the ranged zone and would be able to attack using its ranged value at any opponents it pleased. Many cards had that value at 0. Then, at the endd of any future turn it MAY switch to the melee zone, which allowed using melee attack statistic and onyl allowed attacking enemy melee line - unless enemy had nothing in that line. That was the only interesting/innovative bit of desing in that game, everything else was stolen from somewhere (and most things from really dumb childish places). IDK how I came up with one legitimately cool idea (of course, most likely already been done 1000 times, thing is, I didnt see it done and especailly hadnt at the time). My theory is it just evolved with all of us changing the rules lal the time randomly and just keeping stuff that felt fun, and it just emerged rnadomly, cause I was not smart enough to make this on my own lol.
Middle school is a golden age for game design. The refinement may not be there, but there's a ton of raw creativity. Funny enough, I also created a card game with range as a stat, although your system honestly sounds much better. Some games only need one really good, unique idea, and the rest can get away with being copies of another game.
@@dago6410 It was how many lines ahead you could attack, but I'm not sure the game ever settled on a defined set of rules. I think I had more fun designing cards than actually settling on a rules, most of the games I was actually designing at that point were more tabletop war games, either bootleg warhammer with bionicles, or fire emblem with fancy chess figures. I only really started diving into to full card game designs when I discovered yugioh card maker.net and Magic set editor.
I've actually tried designing a game exactly like that! It kind of works, but I'm not sure how many sets of it I could design before something completely breaks the game.
Hello, been watching your video again and on this topic, the recently announced Vividz TCG by broccoli (same creator ad Z/X) that the winning condition system doesn't really follow life system, instead they try to clear objectives/mission, and from the beta decks it somehow works. Would love if you at least take a look, is it still following life system principles? I think it's quite fresh
I've seen mentioned of the game and looked over the basic rules - I am interested. Like you mentioned, the mission system does seem like it has the potential to be really interesting. I'd say it does look like a life system, as it's a way of measuring incremental progress towards victory, a bit like agendas in netrunner. Most tcgs are pretty set in simple life systems (points or shields), so it'll be interesting to see how well this game does, and whether it kicks of a trend of more complex life systems in games.
First of All; Thank you for educating people on not only gameplay wise, but design wise helps everyone alot. On Another note, I went and found your blogspot for Wixoss, HOWEVER! I could not find any social media. If by any chance you have some type of social media where Players can follow that'd be much appreciated.
@@tcgacademia Depends on your taste. if you tend to comment on various topics, share thoughts could go with twitter and if you wish to announce or promote stuff, could go with the facebook, discord, tiktok, instagram, etc.
my new favourite thought experiment is trying to reduce existing gamess down to being playable with a standard deck of cards. I've been thinking about netrunner a lot recently.
I haven't gone too deep into it, but it's definitely a thought that's crossed my mind as well. It's interesting to think about!
"in MTG you do not start with 20 life; you start with 1 life and 19 resource points" ~Sean Plott, I think
If you squint a bit, life, resources, and card economy are all different resource systems.
@@tcgacademia of course. If you squont a bit, VPs in a euro and life in mtg are not that different (but still different enough i like one and not the other in general)
1- Behind the first layer of fantasy, TCGs are mathematical games/ exercises.
2- small numbers are very concrete ways of comparing and evaluating things, key aspects of building decks and playing games. Small numbers are understandable by even small kids and that is one of the reasons companies say TCGs are a good hooby for them. side note: curious how japanese games opt for using bigger numbers on most their games.
3- The video did well in showing how the math behind life and damaging life totals makes multiple deck types possible. That balance is fulcral to everygame.
9 months later but I would assume the reason Japanese games use bigger numbers is because of their currency system. They are more used to using bigger numbers would be my guess.
@@MaxMax-zc4or good catch. very interesting. small detail makes all the diference.
@@goncaloferreira6429 well from what I can gather the reason Japanese TCG usually use how are increment of 1,000 is because Duel masters popularized the trend.
The only reason why I could think it’s effective is because Numbers in four digits ( In Games like Vanguard Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon ) but having the increments only be in 1000 helps keeps maths to a minimum avoiding Yugioh calculation problems
kinda late but if I can vouch for the 1000 of japanese game, I think there are two other reason:
1. on flavor, bigger number feels stronger, 10.000 powered dragon sounds cooler and stronger than 10 power dragon, considering lot of japanese tcgs are 6+ as in intended for kids, and nowadays 1000 incremental should be pretty easy for kids that already on tcg target market
2. big number helps to recognizing/memorize cards better, for example 6 costed 5/6 on mtg, there's chance that you misremembered which number is cost, which one is power, and which one is toughness, but 5 cost 6000 in duel master is pretty clear which one is cost, which one is power. This is small thing but I think it is neat
@@comettcg8830 thanks for the contribution.
I've once thought about a TCG where, aside from choosing what cards you're allowed to play akin to Hearthstone's classes or Vanguard's clans, you also choose how to win. The idea being that you can use more powerful cards, but maybe you'll have to deal 30 damage to win where using weaker cards means you only need to deal 20. I think it still has potential (especially the alt win-cons such as having a certain amount of cards in hand, or at the end of each turn subtracting the total health of your opponent's creatures on board from the total health of your own creatures to get an equal amount of points, and winning once you get a certain amount of points), but I realized that it's pretty hard to balance when an extra 10 life really doesn't matter if you're not playing aggro lol
Yeah, the balancing sounds tricky, but it does sound like a neat idea. One Piece TCG has varying life totals depending on your starting character, and the starting characters can come with individual win cons as well. On the other hand, Gate Ruler had some really dramatic differences in starter characters, and I don't think it worked quite as well there. Definitely a design risk, but I think it could definitely be worth it!
You can also make the good cards give life to the opponent.
I think that card games, at their core, are resource management games. Players are trying to incrementally increase their own resources during gameplay, in order to reduce their opponent’s resources to zero. This can be a hard victory condition (reducing life points to zero), or a soft victory condition (having no cards in hand and board against a full board*). Maybe this is too reductionist to be useful, but it segways into my next point. (*In some games/environments, this might not be a soft victory condition: maybe the player has a chance to draw a particular card that can turn the game around.)
Card games tend to be very binary games. For example: either a player has a card on the field, or they don’t have that card in the field. The end result is that oftentimes cards are either ubiquitous or unplayable. This is an important observation, because with foresight a designer can avoid walking themself into a corner. Say, if you design a card that temporarily removes an opponent’s card, but it costs the same resources as a card that permanently removes the same card (in every situation), then there’s no reason to use the first card.
Gradation offer more design knobs for designers to turn, but makes games more complicated. If players had a starting life total of 1, the game would be too swingy. Conversely, if they had a life total of 200 and received damage in increments of 2, 5 and 7, it would become cumbersome to keep track of and calculate different tactics (unless it’s a video game, and the computer does the math for you). Striking the right balance is key.
Balance is definitely key, and one of the most interesting parts of tcg design, since they have to balance a bunch of different game play elements (and do it in a way humans can track without computer aids). Design knobs are really what most of these elements are, and the amount of them and the shape they take are important to determine how complex the game is, and how much design space it has. It's a fairly narrow target, so it's always interesting to see how a new game tries to hit that range.
Awesome videos. Binging this whole series rn
very enjoyable and great vid, saw your wixoss vid in recommended and been enjoying all the vids
Do you count a game where players are accruing victory points as a life system? I know you count something like netrunner and keyforge as life systems. But in those games, you need a certain amount of victory points to win. What if it's more like a euro game, where the game ends either after a certain amount of round or when a condition is met, and who ever has the most wins?
There's a lot of flexibility, but I think the core thing is that it needs to be able to increment up or down over the course of the game. I can't think of any tcgs with scoring systems like euro games, but instinctively I think it could work, although it may be more difficult to balance than more straightforward, traditional scoring systems.
Great video! I really am interested to see what your final conclusion will be.
2:50 Just noticed this and rotfled
I definitely have a questionable sense of humor, so I'm glad at least one other person appreciated it!
I wonder if a tcg without distinct life totals built around mill could be fun... probably some kind of spy theme to tie in the information control aspects
Using the deck as your life total has been used in a few games - there's definitely some interesting design space there!
Aggressive 1hp sudden death would be rich.
It would be really interesting! A LOT of cards would be unplayable, but it would be neat seeing what kind of decks players come up with for it.
@@tcgacademia true. If that format ever happened you would see rapid rage triggering decks.
In primary/middle school I was designign and producing (as in: producing single copies of decks for usage with friends, with all the art obviously being stolen copyrighted artwork as AI art did not exist circa 2008) a TCG-inspirde game (with understanding it will nver be a TCG, but rather something to just play with friends).
It was super fun for kids that age who had no board gaming/card gaming experience apart from 1-2 actual games played very infrequently and without much depth. Obviously, it was garbage if compared to actual good games, still, was very fun to play a few times a year and then spend the rest of the time designing new cards.
Mechanically it was not an MTG clone - it was a Duel Masters clone (which obviously is an MTG clone but I diagress). Mana system? Stolen, 5 Cards as player health? Stolen. Interestingly, I had 3 stats per unit (called sth like ranged, melee, defence), and 3 zones for cards to go to - they would start on backline with no ability to attack (like summoning sickness, and some would ommit this step aka haste in MTG), then they would HAVE TO leave this zone in my version of the end step. Also, draw was at the end, surprising bit of accidental proper game design. Then, a card that left the back line zone, would enter the ranged zone and would be able to attack using its ranged value at any opponents it pleased. Many cards had that value at 0. Then, at the endd of any future turn it MAY switch to the melee zone, which allowed using melee attack statistic and onyl allowed attacking enemy melee line - unless enemy had nothing in that line. That was the only interesting/innovative bit of desing in that game, everything else was stolen from somewhere (and most things from really dumb childish places). IDK how I came up with one legitimately cool idea (of course, most likely already been done 1000 times, thing is, I didnt see it done and especailly hadnt at the time). My theory is it just evolved with all of us changing the rules lal the time randomly and just keeping stuff that felt fun, and it just emerged rnadomly, cause I was not smart enough to make this on my own lol.
Middle school is a golden age for game design. The refinement may not be there, but there's a ton of raw creativity. Funny enough, I also created a card game with range as a stat, although your system honestly sounds much better. Some games only need one really good, unique idea, and the rest can get away with being copies of another game.
@@tcgacademia What was your range for
@@dago6410 It was how many lines ahead you could attack, but I'm not sure the game ever settled on a defined set of rules. I think I had more fun designing cards than actually settling on a rules, most of the games I was actually designing at that point were more tabletop war games, either bootleg warhammer with bionicles, or fire emblem with fancy chess figures. I only really started diving into to full card game designs when I discovered yugioh card maker.net and Magic set editor.
This had me imagine a game where one hit is all it takes to win but you need to build up a means of attack.
I've actually tried designing a game exactly like that! It kind of works, but I'm not sure how many sets of it I could design before something completely breaks the game.
Hello, been watching your video again and on this topic, the recently announced Vividz TCG by broccoli (same creator ad Z/X) that the winning condition system doesn't really follow life system, instead they try to clear objectives/mission, and from the beta decks it somehow works. Would love if you at least take a look, is it still following life system principles? I think it's quite fresh
I've seen mentioned of the game and looked over the basic rules - I am interested. Like you mentioned, the mission system does seem like it has the potential to be really interesting. I'd say it does look like a life system, as it's a way of measuring incremental progress towards victory, a bit like agendas in netrunner. Most tcgs are pretty set in simple life systems (points or shields), so it'll be interesting to see how well this game does, and whether it kicks of a trend of more complex life systems in games.
I've always loved making/designing games, I have ever since I was a kid and now I'm here...hi!
Hi!
2:09 This is just... no. Plz. Stop.
Scornful Egotist hits the board like a truck. A toy truck... made of marshmallows, but still!
great video
Great comment
First of All; Thank you for educating people on not only gameplay wise, but design wise helps everyone alot. On Another note, I went and found your blogspot for Wixoss, HOWEVER! I could not find any social media. If by any chance you have some type of social media where Players can follow that'd be much appreciated.
No social media (yet). It is something I should probably look into, though. Any suggestions?
@@tcgacademia Depends on your taste. if you tend to comment on various topics, share thoughts could go with twitter and if you wish to announce or promote stuff, could go with the facebook, discord, tiktok, instagram, etc.