Anyone want to join me in making a Thief Universe-inspired Flash card game? - by Gadget2006
Gadget2006 on 10/5/2009 at 20:05
Quote Posted by jtr7
What do you have in mind as far as variety and how many?
Well, let's start with the basic universal texture that can be used for the majority of cards, I'll try overlaying it on top of the card with alpha channel mixing and see how that works; if that doesn't work too well we might need one of those for every card color (red, green, blue, black, blue, and colorless).
Stath MIA on 10/5/2009 at 20:28
Quote Posted by jtr7
Don't know about a aged-looking font that can be legible at that size.
My bad, I misread your comment, I thought you said t-i-t-l-e-s, when in fact you said t-i-l-e-s. But come to think of it, some good card fonts would be nice. The aged look definitely makes them cool looking.
Gadget- No rush at all about new AIs, but what do you think about a pvp mode?
Gadget2006 on 11/5/2009 at 04:15
@ Stath MIA: Sure, a PvP multiplayer mode is planned and it shouldn't be too hard to implement, though it might have to wait until the core game mechanics are fully implemented (pretty much for the remaining cards, that is). It might not be a part of the very first public release but it should come soon after.
Stath MIA on 11/5/2009 at 04:17
Can't wait! :thumb:
Gadget2006 on 11/5/2009 at 07:25
Here's a random thought that crossed my mind today as I was improving the AI: Magic Gauntlet, in essence, is a very Thiefy game in general. It requires patience and stealth, if you play aggressively and openly, send your best creatures into attack every time, you'll end up with lousy low-power/low-toughness creatures and walls very soon, with little to no opportunity to change something about your hand drastically before you get creamed by your opponent. This is very similar to the approach you need to assume in Thief to be successful. Only patient, careful people who think about what to play and what to keep, how to bluff properly in order to convince your opponent that your hand is worse than it actually it is, how to lure the opponent into effective traps involving Glyph of Backfire, Musta Been Rats, and similar cards, how to effectively make your opponent throw away his Glyphs of Destruction before using your 9/9 or another powerful attack, and other strategic things like that, will succeed in Gauntlet when playing against a good player. Magic Gauntlet is both a game of luck and a game of skill, but it becomes much more of a game of luck if you're not careful and it becomes much more of a game of skill if you know how to properly exploit both the strong and the weak sides of your current hand at each moment of the gameplay. There are many different strategies that can be assumed in Magic Gauntlet, each with a different amount of risk involved, and that will, with time, be reflected in many different AI profiles ranging from weak to strong skill levels. Hope it's going to be well worth the wait. :)
For now, here's the latest SVN changelog as of May, 11th (changes since Beta 3):
- added a new game table backdrop (the cityscape).
- made various improvements to AI strategy priorities, many things should be prioritized a lot better now.
- implemented passive permanent game mechanics.
- implemented the Walltop Archer permanent card with full AI support.
- added card pictures for Keeper Artimus, Skeletal Hammerite Haunt, Consult the Glyphs, Fire Crystal, Order of the Vine to the 'gfx-content' SVN fork.
- renamed Protective Gadgetry to Mechanist Gadgetry, Keeper Andrus to Keeper Artimus, The Maw to Trickster's Portal, per your suggestions and due to various other reasons.
- fixed some more cards showing up their old non-renamed names in various status lines.
- fixed card symbol flickering when switching cards with card pictures.
- added a new balanced attack parameter (minimum power when to try rebalancing the attack) to the AI MGSE options.
- improved the Grandmaster AI skill by increasing the balanced attack power threshold.
- [experimental] raised the number of Walltop Archers from 2 to 4 in the library, but limited max damage from Walltop Archer to 1 per turn.
Here's a card I'm currently implementing:
PAGAN SHAMAN - Permanent Creature (1+*/1+*)
Play only as a Permanent. This creature goes to your permanent zone when played and is afterwards treated as a Creature by all standards. Initially Pagan Shaman has power and toughness equal to 1. When an effect or a fast effect goes to graveyard from play, Pagan Shaman gains +1/+1.
Gadget2006 on 12/5/2009 at 03:59
A little progress report: I implemented Pagan Shaman (see above) and made some improvements to the AI (by the way, whenever I say "AI improvements", currently it means that the Newbie AI became even dumber and the Grandmaster AI became even smarter, that's intentional because in the very end they have to be the polar opposites - one being as stupid as it gets and the other as smart as it gets).
I'm currently looking forward to your help in the following respects:
1) Can you direct me to some art with each of the four crystals - Fire, Air, Water, and Earth? I'd like to implement the card art for them but I can't find any decent pictures with them. [By the way, I renamed Glyph of Stability to Earth Crystal and made it green - that completes the 'four crystals' series of cards].
2) I'm looking for suggestions about a permanent card. If you can, can you please give me some ideas on what can be a good title and a good function for a Blue (potentially Kurshok-related) permanent card? That means you'll have to come up with a name and explain what a card like that should do in your opinion. ;)
Thanks in advance!
jtr7 on 12/5/2009 at 04:40
Sorry, I've been delayed with all the Thief 4 excitement.
TDS Crystals, a jpg copy of the actual textures:
Inline Image:
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/7092/tdscrystals.jpgThe others aren't nearly so easy to get good pictures of. If The Circle is up, you could check the art pages fro official pics, like the boxart pics which include different crystals.
NathanGPLC on 12/5/2009 at 13:34
So---how do you play Pagan Shaman from your permanent area? Tap it to put it into play as a creature, and then it Goes Away? Or does it automatically attack each turn, without Going Away?
Everything looks awesome so far!
