Gadget2006 on 26/1/2008 at 05:50

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Dear friends,

I've been lurking around here for a while and I always liked and enjoyed the unique setting used in the Thief series games. For a while my friends and I were developing a card game that was kind of based on the Magic:The Gathering CCG (some of you may recognize this popular collectible card game) but didn't have the collectible aspect to it - like, there was only one (but huge) deck of different fantasy-themed cards (creatures, spells, and whatnot), each player had 20 hit points, and he tried to use the creatures, spells, etc. to reduce his opponent's HP to zero, thus defeating him and winning the game. That's the basic premise. The card game came to be called "Gauntlet", for no apparent reason really.

Due to my serious affection towards the Thief Universe I took some time figuring out how the Thief setting could be adapted for a card game like this, and at the same time an idea was born to make a computer game in Flash that would play such a card game with people.

Currently, after some serious work that took me over half a year (which included learning Flash CS3 and getting used to the new ActionScript model), I ended up coding a completely working model of a card game like this, completely with a pretty decent AI, and support for different types of cards. Currently, this is what I have:

- A working Flash CS3 card game engine that would play a Gauntlet-style card game against a player.
- Working AI.
- Support for graphical card artwork and sounds.
- Support for different card types, with possibility of adding new cards relatively easily.

Currently, however, I have a few problems with this project:

- I really need someone who would think up some decent Thief-related cards for it. I mean, I have to come clean - it's been a while since I played Thief, and I mostly forgot the names of different creatures and the legends behind them, except for maybe some legendary names like Garrett (of course ;)), Constantine, Karras, etc. Currently the game has Thief-related cards (with names like "Ratman", "City Guard Initiate", etc., but I feel like they have wrong descriptions, or maybe are attributed in the wrong way - for instance, Ratman is currently identified as a Pagan creature, which I think is right, but I'm not 100% sure).
- I really need someone who could submit artwork for cards there, if anyone is willing to do this. Of course, full credit will be given. A problem here is: current version of the game uses, for the sake of testing, some of the card artwork from a Microprose Shandalar game (MTG). This is, of course, copyrighted material and I'll have to replace it. In addition, the card graphics itself is non-existent - I simply don't have any Thief-related artwork that could be used as pictures of creatures, items, spells, etc.
- I really need someone who could submit sounds for the game. Once again, currently the game uses Shandalar MTG sounds, which have nothing to do with the Thief universe (doesn't *sound* like Thief) and which are copyrighted material. Any proposals here are very welcome.
- I'm not sure if the Thief font (or a similar looking font) is available anywhere in the TTF form - if it's available somewhere and if it's OK to use it, it'd be wonderful.

If someone would like to join up with me in an effort to create a Thief Universe card game like this (I take all the coding to myself, and I generally need help with the setting information, with thinking up cards and their texts, and the artwork/sounds), I'd greatly appreciate your help. Of course, in that case I'll come up with a decent, detailed explanation of the rules of the card game, and will provide the compiled version on the current engine of the Flash card game itself to the people who would like to participate in the project, and will readily discuss the details with everyone who chooses to participate.

The game, once it's ready, is to be released publicly and for free for everyone in the Thief community to enjoy. :)

Please post your opinions and suggestions here. If you'd like to participate, please let me know how I can contact you and where I should send the game itself.

Gadget2006 on 26/1/2008 at 06:42

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Thanks for the info, I'll definitely check it out - looks awesome.

Zillameth on 26/1/2008 at 17:53

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So, you have a working prototype? You know, this actually makes the whole thing sound plausible.

I'm not sure if I can help you, though. I can't draw nor create sound FX. I used to play MTG as a kid, but not very much. However, if you need a tester, I'd gladly try to help.

As for cards, I think public discussion here, on TTLG, would be best. As much as I would like to participate, there are many fans who are simply more competent. If you could outline the core game mechanic, and all types of cards currently supported, it would give us a clue as to what kind of material you need at this moment.

One thing I'm somewhat worried about, is whether the making of an independent Flash game that refers to Thief is legal. The Dark Mod guys, for example, decided to avoid any direct references.

Gadget2006 on 27/1/2008 at 06:10

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Awesome! Yeah, it's been a while since I checked out the community - I completely missed these pages before. Sounds like a perfect beginning for creating Thief-themed pretty much anything.


No, currently not. Generally speaking, Gauntlet mechanics is way different (and somewhat simple) from the core MTG mechanics. I'll try to come up with a document that would outline the core mechanics of Gauntlet gameplay.


Yeah, I'm also kinda worried about things like that. I would like to completely avoid, or at least reduce to the absolute minimum, the amount of material (references included) that could be considered copyrighted. That's what makes the whole thing harder, too, because even given that the creature names, factions, and whatnot can be changed so that there are no direct references, but so that the setting itself has a similar atmosphere, I'm going to need a whole set of custom-made graphics and audio content for it that would not be copyrighted by Looking Glass, Eidos, or any other company or person. That's the real problem by the way, and all I can do is code the program, not draw graphics or record sounds for it...


Yeah, I can try to outline the core mechanics. As I said, I'll try to come up with a document file explaining the core rules, but as for the basics, I can give it a try here as well - why not? Generally, the game is played by 2 players, but can also be played by 3,4,etc. players - generally makes sense to play 1vs1 or 1vs1vs1 though, everything else turned out to be just not as fun. Every player has 20 life, and the ultimate goal of the game is to reduce the opponent's life to 0 or less, in which case the last player having his life above zero is considered the winner of the game. The deck of cards consists of... well, a lot of different cards - our self-made printed deck of Gauntlet cards we made with friends just for ourselves consists of over 500 cards. In the beginning of the game, every player receives 7 cards from the deck, and then the players play these cards in turns. After every turn, every player takes as many cards from the deck as necessary so that there are exactly 7 cards in his hand again. If there are more than 7 cards in the player's hand, he discards as many cards at the end of turn as necessary so that there are exactly 7 cards in his hand again. The general types of cards used when playing are as follows:

1) A creature - used to attack the opponent, and to block the opponent attacks. A creature is summoned to the battlefield without any mana cost or anything else (however, some prerequisites may be specified for each creature). You can only summon one creature unless a creature has the "Join-up" ability, which is similar to MTG banding, in which case it can join up in the attack with another creature. Each creature, similar to MTG, has two main properties: power (called "attack" in Gauntlet) and toughness (called "defense" in Gauntlet). Attack is how much damage the creature will deal to the player or to the creature blocking it. Defense is how much damage the creature can take before the rest of the damage goes on to the player himself. Say, you attack with a 5/3 creature (attack=5,defense=3). The opponent chooses to block with a creature that is 3/4. In this case, your attack is bigger that the opp's defense by 1, so you deal 1 direct damage to the opponent. The opponent's creature's attack is equal to your creature's defense (3), so the opponent doesn't deal any damage to you. If you're familiar with MTG, you can think of it in the way that all creatures have a MTG-style Trample ability. After every creature battle all the creatures that participated go to the graveyard (in Gauntlet we call it "goes away" in case it wasn't dealt lethal damage, and "dies" if it was dealt lethal damage).

Some creatures may have a special activation cost specified at it - for instance, a creature may be a 3/5 if you don't pay any extra activation cost, but if you choose to pay two "Destroy" cards when you attack, then the creature becomes "5/5 Indestructible" (see below for an explanation of what "Indestructible" is).

2) An effect - something you can enhance your creatures with during the attack or defense. Every creature can only have one effect unless it's specified that a creature can have more than one effect at the same time, or unless a special card is used that allows a creature to wear an extra effect. Effects can either be buffing up (like, "+1/+0" or "+0/+2", which buffs up the power or defense), can be something tricky, as in "+5/-5", can be just some special ability (such as "Ethereal Backfire", in which case all damage that is dealt to the creature above its defense goes to the owner of the attacking creature instead of going to the defender - say, you attack with "6/6" and your opponent blocks with "1/1" with an Ethereal Backfire effect; in this case you deal 5 damage to yourself (6-1 = 5 damage, backfired to you). Things like that. Effects can only be declared before the player blocks (if you're attacking) or immediately with the blocking creature (if you're blocking). Say, if you attacked with a creature with no effects, you can't add up an effect after the opponent blocked. You can also declare effects on your cards only, so you can't add any effects to your opponent's creatures.

3) A fast-play effect, which is an effect that can be played at any time. Usually something tricky, like a trap or whatever. Each creature can have one fast-play effect in addition to one normal effect. The difference between effects and FP effects is that the fast-play ones can be played at any moment, even after the player declared a block, and you can play fast-play effects both on your creatures and on your opponent's creatures. It could be something like "-0/-2" (say, you attacked with 5/5, your opponent blocked it with 5/5 as well, but you played a fast-play effect -0/-2 on your opponent's creature, thus reducing its defense by 2, and dealt 2 damage to your opponent). FP effects can also add or remove special abilities from creatures - for instance, "Ethereal Travel" negates the backfire effect.

4) A wall - a special card that cannot attack and that can be used only to block. Usually it has an attack of 0 and some defense (like, 0/1, 0/2, 0/3, 0/4....). Walls cannot have any effects or fast-play effects played on them.

5) A spell - something you can play in your attack phase *instead of* (but not in addition to) attacking with a creature. Could be something damaging (say, "Fireball 1D4", which means a direct attack that deals random damage between 1 and 4 -- the opponent has an option to block it with a creature or a wall; after he blocked if he chose to, you roll a four-sided die to determine how much damage a fireball deals). Could be a healing spell (say, "Potion of Healing 1D3", which heals 1, 2, or 3 damage at random). Could also be something else - pretty much anything. An attacking spell can be blocked by a creature or wall. Any spell, attacking spells included, can be destroyed with a special card called "Destroy".

6) "Destroy" - a special card that can counter any form of attack or spell unless the played card has an ability "Indestructible". Can come in quite handy - say, your opponent attacked with "7/7" and you can only block it with "2/2", thus receiving 5 damage. If you have a "Destroy" card, you can get rid of 7/7 without having to block it. In some custom rules invented by some of my friends, one "Destroy" card can be countered with two "Destroy" cards, and then those two "Destroy" cards can be countered with four "Destroy" cards.

7) A permanent card - a card that goes into the permanent zone of a player and stays there (it doesn't go to the graveyard at the end of turn) until destroyed by the opponent or until it has to go away due to other reasons. For instance, there can be a permanent card that, when used in the main phase (which is usually shown by "tapping", or rotating, the card, similar to MTG), increases the attack and defense of the attacking creature by 1 (so, it acts as a +1/+1 effect without actually being an effect, plus it can be reused at every turn unless the opponent destroys it). However, this permanent card has a limitation - it can only be used on creatures with 6HD or less ("HD" stands for "hit dice", it's a term borrowed from the d20 PnP games, where it's often used to signify the level of a creature, and in Gauntlet it's calculated by adding up the creature's attack and defense - so, a 3/3 creature is 3+3=6HD). Some permanent cards allow players to get rid of a card in their hand that they don't need (in which case the permanent card is destroyed together with the discarded card from hand), etc. Stuff like that.

8) A fort - a special type of a permanent card. There can be only one fort in play for each player, and a player can replace a fort with another one, but can never have two forts at the same time in his permanent zone. In order to destroy a fort, the opponent needs to use two "Destroy" cards simultaneously, which makes it quite hard to get rid of. Every fort can be used once per turn either to gain a level, or to cast a spell. Usually every fort has 9 levels specified in a rulebook - so, with every use, the fort can be used to cast a more powerful spell. If you choose to cast a spell from the fort, then the fort loses all levels (and has to start from level 0), but the spell is cast at the opponent, and this spell is not counterable (cannot be "Destroy"'ed).

There may be other subtypes of cards, but the ones above are the most important.

In my working prototype of a Gauntlet card game, the following types of cards are already supported: creatures, walls, spells, permanent cards. The following are being worked on at the moment: effects and FP effects.

The above-outlined core model can be (and was, by my friends and me :)) reused many times to create card games based on different settings. So generally, if someone could come up with good Thief-themed or at least Thief-style cards of the above-given card types, it would be awesome.

Hewer on 28/1/2008 at 19:35

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Maybe try talking to New Horizon and Springheel over at The Dark Mod to see if they would cooperate with you. They've got a whole backstory and setting all written up on their wiki. There's also audio and concept art for it. I can't speak for them of course, but I really like what they are doing and think it's a great Thiefy alternate to avoid copyright infringement. It's a great setting for fan works.