Digital Card Game Design
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A quick tour through card game design. From systems design to visuals and implementation. Held at A MAZE, Berlin in 2016. Audio from the presentation can be found here: https://voicerepublic.com/talks/doing-the-hindu-shuffle
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Digital Card Game Design
- 1. Doing the Hindu shuffle A tour through digital card game design
- 4. Overview System Cards Decks Visuals Tech
- 6. What kind of game? • Card as central play element • Cards are • Token (playing piece) • Action • Interface • Exception-based design
- 7. Simple but Deep • Easy to grasp • Simple rules for card use • Minimise non-card actions • Add complexity through card rules • Cards interact with one another
- 9. Player Actions • What can players do? • Play Cards • Actions caused by cards • Draw cards, select targets… • Other actions? • Attack with creatures, end turn…
- 10. Card Effects • Cause one time effects • Cause enduring effects • Remain in play • Have a position • Can be a resource • Can react and change
- 12. Resource Development • Change of resources during play • Shapes tension • Affects deck building • Affects balancing of cards
- 13. Time • Turn-based vs. Realtime • Consider complexity of board
- 15. How much Random? • Randomness can be an equaliser • Randomness in cards • Randomness in decks
- 16. Card Design
- 17. Card Design • Figure out your card aspects • Cost • Type • Rules • Consider the power curve
- 18. Core Cards • Simple basic cards on which to build • Allow you to play the game • Help pin down the core power curve
- 19. Keywords • Help with card interactions • With other cards • With other playing pieces • Players, status effects… • Keywords can help with interaction
- 20. Deck Design
- 21. Deck Building • Requires different skills than playing • Understanding randomness • Seeing connections between cards • Research (homework) • Provides meaningful influence on game • Opportunity to be creative
- 22. Decision Paralysis • Large Sets make things difficult • Knowledge of available cards • Knowledge of the meta game • Acquiring the appropriate cards
- 23. Deck-Size • Depends on design • Target play duration • Desired predictability • Set Size • And on complexity of cards
- 24. Visual Design
- 25. The Board • Visual metaphor of “table top” • Everything relevant needs to be visible • Complexity depends on • Amount of cards • Complexity of cards
- 26. Cards as Interface • Cards are action indicators • Minimise non-card elements • Make those you have clearly visible
- 27. Card Layout • Strong visual hierarchy • Important things visible first • Edges & Corners for overlapping • The image on the card is important
- 29. Simple Visuals • Make your animations feel physical • Cards need a lot of artwork • Find a style that works in volume
- 30. Card Text • Quickly readable • Easy to be misunderstood • Use keywords to shorten your text • Provide way to look up keywords
- 32. Technical Design
- 33. Card Objects • Ideally somewhere easily to balance • But complex card effects & interactions • Our solution: • We used scriptableObjects and a lot of custom editor scripts • In hindsight would probably do differently and use either a scripting language or a FSM system
- 35. Command Pattern • Command Handler • Cards generate a set of commands • Based on game state • Commands are then executed