Anyone want to join me in making a Thief Universe-inspired Flash card game? - by Gadget2006
Gadget2006 on 1/5/2009 at 06:34
Quote Posted by jtr7
Have you considered the classic Thief game fonts, although what you have is very legible, just not evocative of Thief.
Sure thing, I'd love to use that - is it available in the .ttf form anywhere on the web?
Gadget2006 on 3/5/2009 at 03:50
I sent the beta to three people who have contacted me by PM, but I've got no response yet as to whether it was received or not. Please contact me and tell me whether you received the game.
Stath MIA on 4/5/2009 at 01:46
Hey, I sent you a PM confirming that I got it.
For the community: My initial thoughts are that it is really nice looking, if not very Thiefish (yet;)). I noticed that it displayed poorly in Firefox, I don't know how many of you Taffers use it, but this is more of an annoyance than an actual problem. I'll check back in a day or two after having thoroughly tested out the game.
Gadget2006 on 4/5/2009 at 03:42
OK, nice to know you got it.
Well, you're kinda not supposed to play it in the browser... :P It's meant to be played in a standalone Flash Player 10, which you can enlarge as much as you want (even go full-screen if you want). The default resolution is definitely unreadable and you'll have to enlarge - it was meant to be that way and I don't think it's likely to change, given the large number of small elements that need to appear on the screen.
Speaking of un-Thiefish: yeah, it isn't very Thiefish yet - that's where you guys come in. ;)
NathanGPLC on 4/5/2009 at 13:49
Having played the beta a bit, I like it! The game provides some interesting strategic questions; still getting a feel for some of the rules, but it seems fairly intuitive.
I think the easiest way to 'thief it up' would be changing the names of some of those core cards; here are some suggestions (no hard feelings if you come up with better ones!):
Destroy--> "Keeper Intervention"
Altra Terra--> "Prophecies" or "It Is Written"
Ethereal Backfire--> "Doublecross"
Ethereal Travel--> "Loyal to the Cause"
Fallen Defenses--> "Musta Been Rats"
Enfeeblement--> "Drunken Stupor" or "Drunk as Benny"
Counterspell--> "Glyph of Reflection"
Ultimate Counterspell--> "Greater Glyph of Reflection"
Stability--> "The Inevitable"
Also, some ideas for new Thiefish cards:
"Vine Arrow"--Effect--Effected creature cannot be blocked by walls.
"Invisibility Potion"--Effect--Effected creature can only be blocked by walls.
"Keeper Scribe"--Creature 2/1--Cannot be effected by spells or effects.
"Keeper Enforcer"--Creature 3/3--Keeper Enforcer's controller may play more than one Effect on Keeper Enforcer simultaneously.
"The Scribarium"--Permanent--At the end of your turn, draw up to a total hand size of 8 cards instead of 7; then choose and discard a card.
"Walltop Archer"--Permanent--Whenever you block an attack with a wall, Walltop Archer deals 1 damage to your opponent.
Just some ideas! Hope it helps.
NathanGPLC on 4/5/2009 at 15:34
Upon thinking about it further, I believe another good change would be to lessen the amount of 'magic' involved and focus more on physical attacks, shady dealings, and thematically appropriate accidents. So, for example:
Acid Ball-->"Burrick Belch"
Fireball--> "Frogbeast Egg"
Lightning--> "Electrical Short"
Ray of Disintigration--> "Dagger in the Back"
Wall of Fire--> "Wall Turrets"
Wall of Air--> "Fog in the Streets"
Wall of Water--> "Broken Steampipes"
Wall of Wood--> "Woodsie Wall"
Wall of Metal--> "Mechanical Drawbridge"
Twilight Land--> "Stolen Goods"
Winds of Change--> "Trickster's Will"
And scratch my previous suggestion to replace Counterspells with Glyphs of Reflection; call them "Glyph of Warding" and "Greater Glyph of Warding" (to imply protection from all forms of damage). Ray of Reversal could be changed to "Prime Glyph of Warding".
Additional card suggestions:
"Flashbombs"--Permanent--Tap and discard to reduce power of ALL creatures (owned by you and by your opponent) to 0 until the end of the round.
"Thieves' Highway"--Permanent--As long as Thieves' Highway is in play, walls cannot block. At the end of your turn, put a counter on Thieves' Highway; if there are three or more counters, destroy it.
"Masked Servant"--Creature 1/3--Please...kill me....
"Pagan Sympathizer"--Creature 1/1--Some City folk feel the Hammers are too harsh on the forest-dwellers.
"Jacknal Assassin"--Creature 3/2--Feeders we on manflesh!
"Pagan Shaman"--Creature 2/2--If Pagan Shaman successfully deals damage to your opponent, gain 1d3 Life.
"Woodsie-Blessed Ambusher"--Creature */*--When played, roll 1d3. 1: Woodsie-Blessed Ambusher is 1/1. 2: Woodsie-Blessed Ambusher is a 3/3. 3: Woodsie-Blessed Ambusher has Power equal to the total Toughness of opposing creatures + 1, and Toughness equal to the total Power of opposing creatures + 1.
"Mechanist Engineer"--Creature 4/2--The gear is mightier than the sword.
Stath MIA on 5/5/2009 at 01:59
Alright I got to play through it and found it really awesome! I'd say that it's around 99% constructed, the only real system problem I encountered was that the quit button didn't work but that's trivial. I did find a few card errors though:
You left punctuation off the wall card descriptions (an easy mistake to make and [hopefully] just as easy to remedy)
The Air Elemental card is shown as being water attribute, just swap it over to something else
City Guard Pikemen is as weak as City Dweller and weaker than City Guard Initiate, he should probably be slightly tougher
Skeletal Hammerite Haunt is displayed as “Hammerite Haunt” on the field
Most of what is left is Thiefification! To that end, here are my ideas:
Card names:
Destroy- Glyph of Destruction
Flying Fire Hammer- Throwing Fire Hammer
Wooden Beast- Tree Beast
City Guard Pikemen- City Guard: Pikeman
City Guard Watch- City Guard: Watchman
City Guard Initiate- City Guard: Initiate
City Archer- City Guard: Archer
Runic Hammerite- Hammerite Priest
Altra Terra- Consult the Glyphs
Enfeeblement- Glyph of Enfeeblement
Twilight Land- The Maw
Ethereal Travel- Door Glyph
Ultimate Counter- Glyph of Reversal
Underwater Beast- Sub-Aquatic Terror
Ratman- Rat Beast
Card texts:
Water Elemental- A force of water which arises from the sea to sink ships
Earth Elemental- A force which is born of the solid rock of the earth’s foundations
Fire Elemental- A force of fire which thrives on dealing out burning death
Servant of Karras- This poor man has been made a prisoner in his own body, he begs for his death
Lesser Zombie- The spawn of the Eye’s foul necromancy, zombies are nasty, scary minions of darkness
Zombie- The product of evil experiments and dark sorcerery, these undead are truly abominations
Holy Hammer Wielder- Hammerite Brother
Ancient Kurshok- With age comes experience, and this venerable Kurshok is very experienced
Chaos Spider- A vile creature born and raised in the Maw, fed by the blood of the Trickster’s enemies
City Archer- A skilled bowman who acts in defense of the City
Desired Cards:
Creatures-
Pagan Shaman
Pagan Villager
Pagan Hunter
Bugbeast
Mechanist Friend
Mechanist Priest
Child of Karras
Spider Bot
Burrick
Keeper
Thief
Master Thief
Effects-
Earth Crystal-Same deal as the other elemental crystals
Air Crystal- Ditto
Fast play-
Flash Bomb- Negate the activation of an offensive spell
Rope Arrow- Drop one walls toughness score to 0
Attack spells-
Throwing Fire Gear- Mechanist attack spell
Vine Snare- Pagan attack spell
Well there's some ideas feel free to use as many or as few as you wish! Also I think you should use screen shots and/or concept art for the primary card images and put the card attribute in the corner. Just some ideas, if I think of anything else I'll post it.:thumb:
Gadget2006 on 5/5/2009 at 04:54
Guys, thank you very much for those ideas! They're all wonderful ideas, I'll start to process them as soon as I get back from work today! :) I welcome any further feedback!
P.S. Thief and Master Thief are already implemented as cards (in the latest SVN version, which I'll provide after I'm done with some of the suggestions), currently they are as follows:
- Thief is a 4/1+* colorless creature (* = number of permanent cards you control) that, if deals damage to opponent, allows you to steal a random card from opponent's hand.
- Master Thief is a 5/2+* black creature with the same properties, though maybe I should make it steal permanent cards instead of the ones from the hand, what do you think?
P.P.S. City Guard: Pikeman is as weak as City Dweller by its nominal P/T (1/1), but it's banding, which makes it a very strong and helpful creature (it can band with another creature and wear e.g. Glyph of Berserk +3/-3 for another free +3 power bonus, since it can't lose any more toughness below 1).
P.P.P.S. Strange the "quit" button didn't work for you... works fine here on my end. Does it work for at least one of you guys?
Gadget2006 on 5/5/2009 at 18:40
OK guys, changes I made so far:
- added a new AI strategy where the AI will remember that a good creature card was stolen from it and change its strategy appropriately.
- greatly improved the combination play AI, now the AI will no longer erroneously prefer to play a combination with a less favorable creature (thus receiving damage) when it has a more favorable creature that yields the same damage to opponent while providing better protection (higher toughness).
- added Thief and Master Thief creature cards.
- renamed Ratman to Rat Beast, Counterspell to Glyph Of Warding, Ultimate Counter to Greater Glyph of Warding, Ray of Reversal to Glyph of Reversal, Altra Terra to Consult the Glyphs, Ethereal Travel to Door Glyph, Ethereal Backfire to Glyph of Backfire, City Guard Pikemen to City Guard: Pikeman, Wooden Beast to Tree Beast, City Guard Watch to City Guard: Watchman, Twilight Land to The Maw, Underwater Beast to Subaquatic Horror, Winds of Change to Trickster's Will, Flying Fire Hammer to Throwing Fire Hammer, Runic Hammerite to Hammerite Priest, Holy Hammer Wielder to Hammerite Brother, City Guard Initiate to City Guard: Initiate, per your suggestions.
- added flavor texts for Water Elemental, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, Servant of Karras, Lesser Zombie, Ancient Kurshok, Chaos Spider, City Archer, per your suggestions.
- changed the flavor text of the Zombie card, per your suggestions.
- changed Air Crystal to white card color, per your suggestions.
- fixed the absence of punctuation marks in Wall card descriptions (thanks for noticing that!)
- fixed Keeper Andrus, Ratman, and City Guard: Pikeman flavor texts.
- fixed the direct damage spell descriptions (changed "during main phase" to "during main attack phase").
Things I haven't gotten to (just yet):
- Changing the names for direct damage spells
- Changing the names for debuffing fast effects
I'm leaving that for tomorrow.
New cards will come next.
If you have any more ideas, I'd be very glad to hear them!
