Hello all, I've been trying to work on my card game called Summoner, but I keep running into a wall - the resource system for summoning creatures.
I've asked for help with this before, and I thought I had it solved, but it wasn't to be. Any comments or ideas will be much appreciated.
The BasicsPlayers in the game have two kinds of cards: creatures and spells.
- Spells don't cost anything to play except the cards they are printed on.
- Creatures are meant to be the focus of the game. They have Attack scores and Health scores and combat works similar to the WoW TCG where damage is simultaneous and permanent.
The problem is that there are 3 different levels of creatures, and I want level I to be the most common in decks, followed by level II, and only have a few level III's. If level I's are the grunts, then level II's are the elites, and level III's are the commanders. The ideal ratio for me is something like:
Level I: 12 per deck (stats about 3/3 plus an effect)
Level II: 6 per deck (stats about 5/5 plus an effect)
Level III: 3 per deck (stats about 7/7 plus an effect)
Spells: 20 per deck
First AttemptI thought I had discovered a good mechanic by having players spend energy points they accumulated each turn to summon once each turn.
- Level I creatures were free and so you could play one each turn while saving up energy.
- Level II creatures cost 2 energy, and level III creatures cost 3 energy.
The big flaw with this mechanic was that it put level II and level III creatures in direct competition for spending energy. The more level II's you had the fewer level III's you could play effectively and vice versa. But at least it encouraged a large number of level I's and some number of higher levels.
Second AttemptNext I came up with a system that just put creatures of all levels in competition for spending energy on, but allowed players the option to rest to regain energy faster.
- Players would start with 3 energy and regain 1 energy at the start of each turn.
- Creatures would cost energy equal to their level, either 1, 2 or 3.
- Players could rest instead of summoning to regain 1 additional energy on their turn.
But the problem with this system is that players are meant to play spell cards, too. It will probably be more efficient to just play spells and level III's while resting every other turn. Removing the resting mechanic would make it impossible to play many cards in a game that lasts around 10 turns.
Alternatives?I'm looking for ideas for a system that doesn't involve playing resource cards, and that encourages playing mostly level I creatures but also some higher levels together with spells.
Is the problem that I keep trying to create cyclical resource systems rather than ramping ones?
Should spells be put on the same resource system as creatures?
Maybe some sort of time delay mechanic like suspend in Magic could work?
I'm really running empty on this and it's driving me crazy!