[WIP] NCards: A Role Playing Trading Card Game (RPTCG)

Let me introduce you to Ncards (tentative name), a mix of trading card and role playing game.
Now you can become the master of Ncards winning the World Tournament, for that you must collect all the cards in existence, travel to different worlds and face all kinds of adversity and of course, use your intelligence to build the best deck suitable for every situation.

Some Screenshots

Above the stone box


In a Checkpoint zone


Cards in hand, ready to be summoned


Summoning a monster


Three monsters piercing the defense of a Defender


A Kamikaze exploding


The river is finally flowing


Fleeing from a Hellfish

Gameplay videos
(Apologies for the low quality, my computer can't handle so much)

(Short match in Tournament Mode)

(Exploring the first level in Adventure Mode)
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Link to Android App. (You must become a beta tester first).
Link to Windows desktop installer.

The tutorial will be uploaded soon, so be patient.

Any feedback is welcome​

 

Spoiler: Tutorial

1. Cards and monsters types
There are different kind of cards, each one have a specific color that indicate his type:

Red: Equip Card
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These cards spawn a equipment that can be put on a monster in order to increase his stats, eg: swords increase attack, shields increase defense.

Blue: Spell Card
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This kind of card only can be use by Sorcerer monsters (), they grant new abilities to them depending of the specific spell, eg: offensive and healing spells.

Yellow: Monster Card
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The essential type of card, necessary to win a battle. They come in different type of monsters, every one have different purposes and abilities, his monster type is indicated in the upper left corner of the card:

Scavengers

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The most important type of monster, the are necessary to collect energy, energy is used to summon more cards, if you don't have energy you can't obviously invoke cards to defend yourself and consequently loose the battle. The amount of energy required to invoke a specific card is indicated inside a coin with a number like this:

Attacker
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Their purpose is offensive, attack the opponent player a his monsters.

Defender

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Their purpose is to defend you and your monsters, an opponent monster will attack first to your defense, so while you have defenders in the battle field all your other monsters are safe.

Kamikaze

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Their motto is, "protect my friends at expenses of my own life". They only have one single use, once the arrive to the battle field they will 'explode' damaging his enemies and killing himself in the process, usually they deal more damage and cost less energy in comparison to Attackers.

Healer

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All monster have an amount of health, if it reach 0 it will die and leave from the battle field. This type of monsters will ensure that all his friends are in good health and optimal condition, however a Healer cannot heal himself, but can heal other Healer partners.

Mages

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They are completely useless by their own, you need to equip them with Spells, so they can cast the power contained in them. Is not necessary to equip all Mages in field with Spells, they can learn new spells from their Mage mates and rarely, from opponent Mages. A spell will need to be recharged after every use depending on the spell card cost, a Mage will take care of doing it.

2. The Elements
Exist 5 "known" elements, each have his weakness and strength eg: plant is strong against stone, but is weak against fire.

circle of elements​

All monsters have affinity to an element that conform or protect him, and may or may not have an elemental attack eg: water or fire projectiles.

The damage taken by a monster is calculated using his elemental affinity, if the attack has no element, the damage is applied normally, if the attack has the same element, then the damage is reduced, if the monster has strength against that element, then the damage is reduced even more, the opposite happens against the elemental weakness.

3. Parts of a Card
Let's explain the elements that compose a card, so it will be easy to understand his attributes. A card have 2 different views: a mini view and an expanded view.

The mini view is the most used and is presented during gameplay or deck management, it has limited but the most important amount of information. We will use this card as example.

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Type: Indicate the type of monster, in this case a Defender.
Element: Indicate the element affinity of the monster, in this case is Water, it means that is weak against Thunder.
Price: Amount of energy needed to invoke this card in the battlefield. Remember that the Scavengers are responsible for collecting more energy, so is advised to invoke all the Scavengers possible in battlefield first.
Picture: Show the monster, equipment or spell appearance.
Extra information section: In case the card is a equipment or spell, this section will only display the card name but his complete information can be viewed in the expanded view.
If the card is a monster it will show the following data:

Main: Main monster attribute, this field depends on the monster type, for Attackers and Kamikazes it will show the amount of attack, for Healers the amount of health that cures, for Mages it shows his magic power, for Scavengers it shows the amount of energy that collect per turn. In this case we have a Defender, so it doesn't have main attribute.
Defense: Indicates the monster protection and resistance against attacks, usually Defenders have more defense stats than other kind of monsters. Let's explain how a monster defends himself:

Let's use the previous card as example, it have 40 DEF, his opponent monster have 30 ATK, when the defense is superior to the attack the monster will enter in protection mode, if is inferior, he will enter to defense mode.

In protection mode the damage taken may be 0 or 1 and his protection will decrease until is pierced, in this state the monster will automatically enter to defense mode, in this state the defense will be lowered in half, for this example 20 DEF, dealing then, 10 points of damage (30 ATK – 20 DEF), that points are reduced from his life, in this case 20 HP, to 10 HP.

Note: When the defense of a monster is pierced, it may enter to faint status (a kind of ailment status that will be explained later).
Tip: While more hits take a monster in protection mode, faster it will pierce, so is recommended to attack in combo with various monsters to the same objective.

Defense explanation.​

Continuing with the parts of a card:
Life: Indicates the maximum amount of health that the monster can have, when it reach 0, the monster will leave for good.
Distance: The battlefield is made up of tiles, a monster can be placed in one of them and a tile can only contain a monster. The distance indicates how many tiles far can this monster interact with others, eg:
An attacker with distance of 2 will reach all the enemies with 2 tiles afar, a healer can heal allies with 2 tiles afar and so on. Defenders doesn't have distance because they don't interact by they own, they only are waiting to be attacked.

The expanded view will show the complete information of the card. It usually triggers by long tapping on the card.

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In the left side, the card attributes:

First his type, in this case an Attacker, then his element affinity, in this case Stone, followed by his price and picture of the monster, equipment or spell. In the middle we have his name. In this case the card is a monster, below is displayed his stats information:

Attack, Defense/Protection, Health or Life, Distance, all this explained previously. Below the Distance we have Hits, this indicates how many blows are delivered to a single enemy in a row, remember that more hits increases the chances of piercing a protection. Next we have Combo, this indicate how many different enemies will target per attack at the same time, in this case this monster will target only 1 opponent, combo also applies to healers: how many allies cure per turn.

And last, the Elemental Power is the element of the attack, in this case is Thunder, that means this monsters is useful for damaging water opponents.
The box at the right side describes the monster and for equipment and spells, it indicates what it does or what attributes increase.

4. The Shop

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There are 2 types of shops, the White market, this shop will be the main source of cards to purchase, its stock will depend on on your game progress, and the Black market, here you can trade, sell, buy or to auction cards from other players online.

Every time you finish a battle you will be rewarded with cash, the amount earned depends on the difficulty and if you win or lose the match.

For a card to become available in the shop you must unlock it first, all monsters have a set probability to be unlocked, every time you kill one, his unlock probability will get a percentage increase eg: from 0% to 2%, then another kill, 4%. While greater the percentage, greater the chances to unlock it and become available in the shop, eventually any monster's unlock rate will reach 100%, making it impossible not to unlock it at that rate.

Spell cards and equipment can be unlocked finding his respective treasure chest in dungeons on Adventure mode.

A card in the shop have represented his price at the bottom in yellow numbers and may have a discount tag in red, that discount can change at anytime so don't miss those opportunities.

 

That was all for the first part of the tutorial, soon i'll post the next part.

 

Spoiler: Tutorial Part 2

5. Deck management
You must build your decks to overcome your next adversity. The deck management screen has 2 panes.

The left side contains your reserved cards, these are cards that you just bought from the shop or are removed from the deck, and the right side are the cards that your deck have currently, you just can drag them around the 2 panes to organize your deck. This video explains it better:

deck management​

You can have at most 60 cards and only 3 instances of the same card in your deck, the sum of all the cards price will be reflected in your Heart's total life, in battle, if this goes to 0 you automatically will lose.

There is a extra pane, the adventure pane, this is used when you are in adventure mode. The top slot is the monster that will be summoned in the front of the field, the middle slot is the monster for the left and the last one is the monster for the right, each have 3 sub-slots, the slots can contains equipment and spells for that monster.

Is recommended to put a Defender in the front and monsters with large Distance attributes in the left and right for a major advantage in adventure mode.
Note: To remove a card in a slot in adventure pane just hold tap on it and the slot will free.

6. Game modes

There are currently 2 different types of game modes to play.

Tournament mode: In this mode you will face opponents in a tournament style, if you win you will advance into the next level until reach the final match.

Every player has a Heart, the amount of health will depend on the deck's power.

To damage the Heart of the opponent, you must destroy the opponent's monsters or attack it directly, in order to attack it directly you must be near the opponent side where is his Heart located, this can be achieved using the Step button, it cost 6 energy every time is used.

This video shows how the opponent Heart is damaged by destroying monsters and then attacking it directly.

heart damage​

The player who destroy the opposite Heart win the match, you win cash for finishing a match, extra cash for beating an opponent for first time and more bonus cash depending in how well you play the match.

Adventure mode: In this mode you will travel to different worlds, you must go through dungeons, solve puzzles and kill anything than stand on your way. You will win once you reach the boss and beat him.

There are Energy checkpoints scattered around the map, if you collect 5 of them you can restore your status (deck changes, monsters and heart health, number of cards, etc) once you reach a checkpoint. Checkpoints are also in specific points in the dungeon, you can use them to save your current location in the dungeon if you need to leave the game. Note that you game progress will be automatically saved so you don't have to activate a Checkpoint every time.
Note: Once you have your first fight you can organize your deck in Deck Management, but its changes will not be reflected until you restore your status in a checkpoint.

Controls:
To move your character simply drag and hold on the screen to the left or right (left and right arrow key for a keyboard/gamepad), to move heavier objects keep moving for few seconds and it will be pushed automatically, to jump swipe up (jump command in case of keyboard/gamepad), hold up to swim up and hold down to swim down faster.

In Adventure mode the first turn is decide by how you meet a opponent, if you touch a opponent in his weak spot, you start in the first turn, otherwise your opponent will start the match and you can play in the second turn. Usually a weak spot is located in the head, in short, you can start first by jumping above enemies, note that not all enemies have weak spots, like the final boss.

That's all for the second part of the tutorial.
I hope that the game will be easier to understand for everyone who have tried it already and couldn't get a idea of the mechanics.

 

Status Ailments explained

Status ailments (SA) are a state of curse, it can affect mobility and health. There are 2 types of SA, breakable and non-breakable, a breakable SA is that which can be canceled delivering a blow on the affected monster. There is no limit in the number of different SA that a monster can be affected at a time.
An SA will eventually broken in the course of time, the time depends on the monster's willpower. Here are all the known SA at the moment:

Faint
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This is the most common, can be caused by a pierced defense or with an attack of the fire element, the affected monster will render unconscious and unable to attack or defend himself. The effect can be broken hitting the monster (breakable SA).

Freeze
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This SA can be inflicted with an ice/water attack, the monster will frozen, unable to move, in this state his defense will be reduced drastically, making a future blow potentially lethal. The effect can be broken hitting the monster (breakable SA).

Paralysis
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In this state the monster will be completely immobile, can be caused with electrical attacks. Cannot be broken by normal means.

Petrification
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Is caused by stone attacks, this SA will turn a monster in stone, cannot move by himself. However this SA have and advantage for the affected monster, his defense will increase significantly making it harder to die while is helpless. Cannot be broken by normal means.

Poison
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This is the only SA that will not render a monster immobile, is caused with plant attacks and his effect consist in reducing his health every turn, the amount depends on the attacker's strength, however the poison will not kill the monster, only can reduce his life to 1HP. Cannot be broken by normal means. Also this SA will tint the monster to a pinkish/purplish tone, don't worry, he will return to his normal color once is cured.

 

New Card Design!!!
I'm working in the new better design for the cards, I decide to go for a 3D art, I think it suits good for the style of the game.
Now I'm trying to decide which of these styles to choose.

Clean


Glossy
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Also this new style hopefully will reduce the draw calls greatly.

 

Good job, looks promissing and has potential. It somehow reminds me of other games in parts. Didn't try the demos but will do in the next days.

Evoland and Legend of Zelda maybe

 

Indeed I took ideas from other games, if you are familiar with the psone you may recognise most of them. These ideas (animations, effects, music, sfx) where initially taken as boilerplate/prototyping and maybe they can change in the final release.
I don't know Evoland, and hope my game is not a copy of that, but is very very unlikely .

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/233470/

Well I didn't say its a copy, in fact it not copy of Zelda either. But it reminds mechanically how it works.

The fight with the cards looks interesting. There is a card dimesion but it also has a strategy/tactics on the battlefield dimension.

And the characters reminds of some japanese story, more or less

 

I just watched the Evoland's trailer and the game looks very different from mine. Maybe you are referring to the toon art style or just the fact that both contains RPG elements. This game is entirely turn based, the only moment when you can play in real time is when exploring dungeons and interact with the environment.

About the dimensions as you call it (I think it is a good term, I may use it), I thought it would be boring just putting the cards in the field laying on the ground, so I decide to use real characters, in that way their attacks will be subjected to gravity, resulting in effects like a projectile missing in an attack due to the target changing his position caused by a previous blow.

What Japanese story exactly? I'm curious. A friend of mine told me that they look like Mario characters.

 

Yes Evoland is straight forward, face to face battle with monsters. Yours have crads included. BTW Mario has very earth like characters, yours are strange looking, you cannot tell what it is. Yes some of them look like flowers, maybe Plants vs Zombies but anyway if this just for start its OK. No offence.

 

Well the game initially was supposed to be a kind of Plants vs Zombies clone, so I made the firsts characters like flowers and plants, then it was changing drastically to become an RPG Trading Card Game.

 

I just finished all the cards types design, sorry for the watermark, I just don't want my images to be stolen.

 

Yes, if you just use earth like characters, which are easily recognizable it would be more helpful. I am speaking about the main character, I cannot tell what it is from looking at it. Looks like you are making a game of smilies.
Yes others look like carots, leaves, flowers, and yes in the topmost picture some of them look like from some japanese cartoon.

 

Reminds me of Pokemon. I think you are onto a good idea here with the trading cards.

Personally I like the unglossy cards better. Maybe a different gloss effect might look better though, not sure.