Hi there everyone! Glad to be finally posting something in the design forum! I've put together a card game that I'd like to make into a game, preferably for Flash-enabled browsers. I'm just starting the design phase and I've fleshed out a treatment to both get myself some solid ideas down and to get some interest in the game so as to attract potential volunteers to help me make this. I'd like some general feedback for this first version of the treatment. I'm going to be revising it a number of times before I present to any potential volunteers, so this is by no means a final design. Take a look and tell me what you think! [smile] Booty! Design Treatment, Version 1.0 August 7, 2004 ©2004 Tyler Roehmholdt Introduction Placeholder Basic Game Concept Booty! is a pirate themed card game that puts the famous pirates of history head to head against one another in a battle to obtain the most pieces of eight. Players can select from a wide variety of pirates to play and play against, ranging from Francis Drake to Anne Bonny and a wide selection in-between, each with their own biography and interesting facts to help you decide in which pirate best suites your playing mood. In addition to the basic game play, Booty! provides a random assortment of fun pirate facts and figures in written and visual form. These will not only serve as transition screens between rounds, but will serve to educate the player about pirates in a fun and enjoyable way. Look and Feel Booty! is a 2D cartoon card game, with characters and environments taken from the historical era when pirates ruled the seven seas. Voiceovers and music with a pirate flare will provide additional environmental and entertainment value to the game. Rules of the Game The cards are shuffled and each player dealt seven cards from the top. Each player is given the same amount of booty; twenty-one pieces of eight would do nicely here. If you want the game to last longer, there will be an option to increase the amount of coins. At the start of a player's turn, they draw a card from the pile, and then have the option of attacking their opponent. An attack on the other player is signified by a number card; the higher the number card, the more damage it'll do. The defending player has the option of playing a card in defense. If the defender manages to match or beat the attackers card, then the defender suffers no loss. If not, then the difference between the defender's card and the attackers card is taken out of the defender's booty pile and placed in the attackers booty pile. Aces don't count as number cards. First one to lose all their booty is the loser of the round. Lets take an example. Both Angus the Terrible and Bartholomew the Horrible each start off with twenty-one pieces of eight. Angus plays a seven card, and Bartholomew meets this with a five card. Seven minus five is two, and so two pieces of eight are taken out of Bartholomew's booty pile and added to Angus's booty. At the end of the round, Angus has twenty-three pieces of eight and Bartholomew has nineteen pieces of eight. A defender doesn't have to play a card in defense. If so, then the attacker gets a number of coins equal to the value of the attacking card. If Bartholomew plays a three card, and Angus chooses not to defend, then Angus loses three pieces of eight, and Bartholomew gains three coins to his booty. Likewise, a player can choose not to attack on their turn; but if so, then that pirate is a lily-livered coward, and has to pay one coin from his booty pile to the corsairs. Face cards, jokers and aces are special. The queen and jack can be targeted at yourself, or at your opponent. A jack means the targeted player draws two more cards from the pile. A queen means that the targeted player has to discard a card from his or her hand. Playing a king represents a change in advantage; you swap cards with your opponent. An ace represents voodoo magic; you discard your hand and draw a new hand consisting of the same number of cards you had before, from the pile. A joker is the most rare and powerful of cards, but because of its power, it can only be played on the turn immediately after your opponent plays a face card. A joker swaps the targeted player’s booty with his or her own booty pile. Target Audience This game is designed for both kids and adults, from 8 years onward, male and female alike. With a theme of pirates, the game should appeal to all different types of players, regardless of age or gender. Platforms and Technology Booty! will be implemented using Web-standard tools and languages, like Macromedia Flash, &#106avascript, etc., and will be played through any reasonably current Web browser with the appropriate plug-ins.

Good stuff Acoustica!

Some questions:
What is the min/max number of players? Is it 1 vs 1? Will the player have a computer opponent or play against other humans?

Quote:Original post by Anna
Good stuff Acoustica!

Some questions:
What is the min/max number of players? Is it 1 vs 1? Will the player have a computer opponent or play against other humans?

Thanks! I'm still deciding just how I could implement multiplayer, because at this point it's a player versus computer setup. Perhaps if I get a network programmer to help me out, I can actually set up a server and do online multiplayer with rankings and such. [smile]

Quote:Original post by Acoustica

Quote:Original post by Anna
Good stuff Acoustica!

Some questions:
What is the min/max number of players? Is it 1 vs 1? Will the player have a computer opponent or play against other humans?

Thanks! I'm still deciding just how I could implement multiplayer, because at this point it's a player versus computer setup. Perhaps if I get a network programmer to help me out, I can actually set up a server and do online multiplayer with rankings and such. [smile]

Cool... even if you don't let people play over the internet, maybe you could still have an option for two player mode so two people using the same computer can play against each other.

If you could have around 4 players in an online match, it might add a level of strategy that would make the game more exciting. (Hmmm, who to attack???) However you'd have to prevent things like people ganging up on a player... maybe team play? The educational part may not work so well in multiplayer mode, but it'll definitely be great in single player.

I've been drinking too much Pepsi and playing too much Gunbound, which is probably influencing my posts. [wink]

Quote:Original post by Anna
Cool... even if you don't let people play over the internet, maybe you could still have an option for two player mode so two people using the same computer can play against each other.

I'm pretty sure the game will have single and multiplayer mode, in fact I'd want it to have that option so you don't have to end up battling AI the entire time. Plus when the game is put together and in beta, it will need to be tested by as many people as possible, so multiplayer is that much more viable. [smile]

Quote:If you could have around 4 players in an online match, it might add a level of strategy that would make the game more exciting. (Hmmm, who to attack???) However you'd have to prevent things like people ganging up on a player... maybe team play? The educational part may not work so well in multiplayer mode, but it'll definitely be great in single player.

As it stands now (after some great chatting last night), the game will have a great network coder working on it with me, so we *should* be able to put out a networked version where you can go against friends and such. We're going to focus on the single-player and head-to-head first though. You bring up some good points and sparked a few ideas, which I'll add to my ever-growing list of design doc preliminary notes. [smile]

Quote:I've been drinking too much Pepsi and playing too much Gunbound, which is probably influencing my posts. [wink]

Thanks for the great feedback! v1.1 is being worked on and we've already made some pretty significant changes which will be addressed in the new design doc, so look for new content in the next two days! [smile]

Quote:Original post by pan narrans
You do realize that your game is only 25% complete don't you? You have missed a vital point. Most card decks have 4 suits, or as I like to call them: pirates, robots, ninjas and zombies [grin]

EDIT: Tis still good though [smile]

Oh well, we're taking out the suits and we're creating two (maybe three) different types of cards as follows:

1)Ship - The attackers/defenders of the game with X/Y stats, where X is the attack/defend number and the Y is the gold value if you defeat that ship.
2)Event - Cards that you play either during or before your offensive/defensive moves that effect the gameplay for one round.
3)Relic - Cards that effect your ship cards, whether the X or Y factor.

This way we aren't restricted to a 52 card deck, plus it allows for future expansion. [smile] More to come tomorrow when Design Treatment v1.1 is released for feedback. [smile]