TBS/CCG Game Brief

Here's a game brief I knocked up for my first project in TGB. Might be ambitious for a first project, but there's no timeframe here and if I could knock up a good prototype I should be able to drum up interest from other developers. Feedback is more than welcome! Any offers for help too...:)

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The player first creates a deck of cards from a card pool. These cards represent your in-game assets such as buildings, units and equipment. Each game is a battle against another player (human or computer) to control the map (split up into territories) and/or destroy the other player.

Game play is turn based, where each turn the player can deploy cards, move cards, take cards back into their hand or engage in combat with the other player. Cards are dealt randomly from your deck into your hand each turn, while single cards can be dealt blind into your hand for a nominal amount of resources.

Each card has a deployment cost to place it on the map. Depending on the type of card, it can then be freely moved around the map. Some cards yield resources per turn, while some cost resources per turn. Resources can in some circumstances be stolen from the other player. The more resources you have, the more options you have for controlling the map.

If opposing cards are in the same territory at the end of a players turn, combat is initiated. Combat between two players takes place in real-time. Each card has an action bar which fills up at a speed depending on their various attributes. When the bar is filled, they can choose from a list of actions (such as attack, use an item, defend etc). The combat system is similar to the system found in the Final Fantasy series of games, the difference is that combat does not pause when a character initiates an action, leading to a fast, frantic combat system. If a character is 'killed', he is removed from the deck and may not be deployed until the next game. Combat is ended either when one side is completely destroyed or when one of the players signals a retreat.

Character cards can level up by earning experience from combat or completing 'tasks' that are randomly set during game play. These tasks may also yield extra bonus's such as extra cards to add to the card pool. Outside of the game, players can purchase and trade cards to add to their card pool.

Card Types

The are 4 main types of cards in available to a player: -

- Location - place in territory on the map.
- Character - can be dealt onto a territory you control, or any adjacent territory.
- Item - deal onto a character or location
- Event cards - can be dealt onto any card, specific to the event

Location cards have 3 different attributes: -

- Deployment cost
- Resource yield/bonus - how many resources it produces per turn.
- Unique Attributes - unique advantages and disadvantages specific to the location. These have an affect on cards placed at that location.

There are two types of character cards, combat and non-combat. Character cards have 4 basic attributes: -

- Deployment cost - how many resources it takes to deploy or maintain
- Loyalty - how loyal the character is to your cause.
- Skill Level - Basic Skill Level, this increases with experience earned.
- Unique Attributes - unique advantages and disadvantages specific to the character. These have an affect on cards placed at that location.

Combat character cards will also have these attributes: -

- Toughness - how tough they are represented via two numbers (such as 6/50). The first is a measure of their toughness, the second is their life, represented in hit points.
- Ability - the ability the character has to use his equipment and cause damage.

There are four different types of item card; weapons, armor, equipment and vehicles. Each card has the following two attributes.

- Deployment cost - how many resources it takes to deploy or maintain
- Unique Attributes - unique advantages and disadvantages specific to the item.

Weapons also have these attribute: -

- Damage - damage caused by weapon. Expressed as a minimum/maximum value.

Armor also has this attribute: -

- Strength - how tough the armour is.

Vehicle cards will also have a toughness rating, similar to the character attribute.

There are two different Event card types, territory events and combat events, these can only be deployed in the corresponding section of the game. Event Cards have 2 basic attributes.

- Deployment cost - how many resources it takes to deploy
- Event description - what happens when the card is deployed

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More coming soon, working on combat mechanics at the moment and an early prototype in torque.