Homestuck TCG (Set 1: ARTISTS NEEDED | PESTERCHUM MEMOS AT 9 EST)

[The Recreator]

Liking the look of the basic game mechanics so far. Seems like Yu-Gi-Oh meets the Pokémon TCG.

I think I have a few ideas for streamlining the game and the ruleset (for instance, the method by which minions choose an attack target) to make it more understandable for a first-time player - is the version of the rules that you have posted the most up-to-date?

I'd also like to suggest that God Tiering a player might require a significant investment of cards in play, rather than having an event card on-hand. Perhaps Quest Beds need to be in play as well? You could also consider moving God Tier cards to the main deck rather than the extra deck to add another element of luck and force players to reconsider using the cards in the first place. The most powerful cards in Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon tend to require some form of on-field cost payment, ranging from sacrificing a card on the field (and spending that turn's monster summon) to having 5 of a specific type of card on-hand and a Polymerization spell card to put them all together.

And while I'm brainstorming, have you considered putting the players in control of the other player's minions, e.g. choose which character to attack? This would allow players to more actively subvert the other player's progress and make playing high-value cards more risky.

[Foerumokaz]

Hey guys, the memo is up right now! You should probably hop in if you can!

As for Dirk, I think I'll use a variation of Sucre's effects.

Recreator, the Rule Manual definitely isn't up to date. I may have to change it soon. As for God-Tiering, I think it's fine the way it is, because there is already a cost in doing it. In Yugioh (for a fact) the best monsters don't even take up any more set-up. Rescue Rabbit into Laggia with no prior field? God tiers take more than that. As for players choosing minion attacks, it wouldn't work. That would make the minion basically another character you control, which is not what I want it to be. I want the minions to be their own entity by themselves.

[HonestLiar]

Sorry if I didn't show up lately. Stuff kept me busy . Today I finally found some spare time to finish this.
Here's Aradia God Tier, hope you like it!

http://princepscorvi.deviantart.com/...WAKE-301929195

EDIT: Too bad. Guess I'll go for 'He's already here'.

[Foerumokaz]

Honest, I'm sorry, but I kind of want to have a different artis do each god tier; y'know, to have a different art style for each one? Anything else is up for grabs though! =D

[Foerumokaz]

As always, the Homestuck_TCG memo is up on Pesterchum! Also, in the event that I am unable to create the memo, Systemic_Hysteria (gradientOverlay on Pesterchum) is to be considered the highest ranking authority of the porject, so any questions should go to him.

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[DJ_Sucre]

So I was brainstorming some equipment, and thought "Hey! maybe Dave could be tweaked so that he gets better when he has equipment!" and then I thought of a "Broken Caledscratch" that would give the character a little more grit, but if it is equipped on Dave, he can exchange it for the completed "Caledscratch" Which could be an epic equip and make Dave super awesome.
Just a thought.

[Systemic_Hysteria]

So I was brainstorming some equipment, and thought "Hey! maybe Dave could be tweaked so that he gets better when he has equipment!"

I was actually thinking about something along those lines. But for the updated Dave, I decided the the whole "Kill your alternate reality self and get got tiger." Plus I already gave Jake a bonus for being equip with cards.

[Foerumokaz]

Sorry I missed most of today's memo, but Mondays have generally been bad for me, but I make up for because LOOK! A NEW remade CARD!

Tavros Nitram:

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He has fire in his hands because of his sick fires, yo.

I really like the idea of the Broken Caledscratch -> Caledscratch with Dave, I feel like it would give people a reason to use him, and Systemic, it is slightly different from Jake, as Dave is requiring a specific equip while Jake just needs any equips.

Also, Systemic, I haven't been able to really get in touch (or don't really know how to get in touch) with Wonky Krystol, so I'm relying on you to check up on her drawings ever so often.

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[Systemic_Hysteria]

I dont like the idea of needing a specific card on him. Maybe if the effect is on the Equip. Just dont put it on Dave.

[DJ_Sucre]

Right. Anyone can use the Broken Caledscratch, but if you equip it on Dave, it becomes the regular Caledscratch. And that would be the effect on the Equip.
I'm just trying to think of things that will make Dave actually usable, because right now he's a little... Lame.
I do like the whole "kill another Dave, Get tiger" aspect, but I feel like that would be less motivation to put him in your deck. Because You'd just be giving your opponent (if they play with Dave as well) that many more chances to get their God Tiers on the table. I'm not saying get rid of that effect, because it is an awesome effect, but having some other cards to incentivize people to play Dave in the first place would be nice. (And I hope my ships aren't showing, but Dave/Jade seems like a good combo, because Jade's matesprit effect would let you search your deck for the equips that would buff Dave the most.)
Looking at the Kids, I only really like Rose and Jake, Because Rose gives you card advantage for setting up combos and whatnot, and Jake can have that Machine gun effect if you stack him with equipment. The rest of the Kids are all really kind of ho-hum. I'd only use John for God Tier, Jane for her Counter immunity, and I haven't even considered the rest.
Obviously there will be balance issues in the alpha launch of a new game, so I think we can deal with a lot of these concerns after we've tested the game out for a bit.

[The Recreator]

If you don't mind, I've gone ahead and redone the layout of the game mat to make it a little easier to understand the relationships between each card. Some of the design decisions may be based on outdated rules, but I'd be happy to go back in and redo it.

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I've left the background transparent so that anyone can take this into Photoshop and add a more artistic design behind it - perhaps a custom background for each player? I also did this in vector, so I can rescale it to whatever size is appropriate.

Layout Changes

• The character zones are numbered to correspond to the minion attack selection die rolls (with the recommendation that you remove the coin-flip to decide which character in a matesprit relationship is attacked, since given that a player rolls 3 or 4, there's already a 50% chance that the player will roll one number or the other).
• The captchalogue items are now in a column with whatever character they would be equipped to.
• The minion area ("Battlefield", perhaps?) takes up the entire top row on its own.
• The kernelsprite is now in line with the player's game space - might have to change that, since as I'm re-reading the rules, the Prototyping mechanic seems to more closely represent the prototyping towers on Prospit and Derse than the player's sprite.
• The "Deck" and "Discard" areas are now labeled as such.

[Systemic_Hysteria]

Aw man. You did this right as I was about to make some changes to it :/


Edit: Nevermind. I like it. I was going to implement a different equip system. But I think we should just do it like Yugiohs. The slots can go to any character.

Edit2: Ok. Here is what Foerum and I decided on. We are going to give each character 2 equipment slots. Ill leave it up to you as to how you would like to lay out the field with that set-up, but we need to make sure its apparent that the equips are specific to the characters.

[knightshift]

hey there, if you're still looking for artists, i'd be happy to contribute if you think my style would be suitable! you can find my stuff on my tumbr or dA, whichever you prefer.

[Systemic_Hysteria]

Oh man. I love your style. And Ill say, welcome to the team
Take a look at this spreadsheet and let me know which characters you would like to work on so I can reserve them for you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...UUVdxNVE#gid=0

Also, make sure to join us for the daily 9PM Pesterchum memo, Its in 15 minutes, so dont be late. :b

[DJ_Sucre]

Question: For equipment, mainly weapons, will they be restricted to characters with the same style of attack?
Like, MagicKind users can use the Wwhite Science Wwand or The Thorns of Oglogoth (assuming those will actually exist in the game at some point), but a LongKind user can't? or is it just whatever?
Also, what is the progress on equipment? the OP says you have 2 completed, but what are they?

[Foerumokaz]

Each equip will have a set of 1-2 weaponkinds, and only characters that match at least one of those weaponkinds will be able to use it. For example, the Magic Cue Ball will have a magickind, so only characters like Sollux, Aradia, or John GT can use it. Characters like Gamzee have jokerkind; this means that he can use any equip. Some equips will have jokerkind as well; that means that any character will be able to use them.

Also, we have the Magic Cue Ball and Dave's Shades finished.

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[DJ_Sucre]

Here's a thought for some TimeTables.
500 Grist
Close/Magic
+5 DEF
Sacrifice TimeTables: Shuffle your discard pile back into your deck, then put Timetables in the discard pile.
OR
Sacrifice TimeTables: Look at the top 5 cards of your deck, put one in your hand and the rest on the bottom of your deck in any order.

[Zok72]

Hi. I'm kinda new here, but I think this looks pretty awesome and I would love to help. I am an avid card-gamer and I am interested in the game-making process.

Okay, now that I'm done introducing myself, on to my commentary. I think we really need to see some minions. The size and strength of the minions (relative to the characters) will probably define the pacing of the game and there seems to be a distinct lack of minion cards. As the game plays now, without the "he is already here" card the players have to kill a minion every round which seems near impossible when looking at the black king you posted and almost completely precludes attacking each other. Maybe you should cut down the size of the minion deck to something like 9+boss for each player or increase deck size to compensate for the length of the game. To keep the feel I think I personally would run 80 card decks with 20 minions and the boss. This gives approximately 3 turns per minion with 20 "free" turns with which you can attack your opponent, strategically not attack the enemy in order to get grist, or flip coins badly and get low/non-damaging attacks.
It also looks to me like there are also some balancing issues with the cards. Sollux and gamzee seem too weak and nepeta seems too strong (at least pitting them head to head with napkin math, clearly playtesting is necessary to say any of this conclusively). Furthermore, epic equipment need to be carefully monitored, because having near-instant access to very powerfull cards could be gamebreaking.

I also have some general design questions, the biggest one being what is your intended deck composition? (IE how many of which type of card do you expect to be in a deck?) Does half and half characters and equipment sound right or are you thinking there should be more of one and less of the other? (I'm thinking of magic's 20/20/20 rule here, IE tell beginners to add 20 land, 20 creatures, and 20 spells for a blanced deck). How will minion sizes be distributed? Will they be mostly big (200 hp 4-10 attacks to kill depending on attack strength), mostly small (50 hp, 1-3 attacks to kill), mostly in the middle (100 hp), or very spread out? For example, a deck with mostly 50 hp imps in it will lead to a much shorter game than a deck with mostly big monsters (like the black king you posted). I am in favor of a wide spread so that monster size can be incorperated into dec-building strategy (decks with good god tiers will drag out the game with bigger monsters, agressive decks will want imps for a rushed victory).

Lastly, I have a card suggestion. "Doomed Timeline", event card, 1500-2000 grist (not really sure exactly where to price this but i'm comparing it mostly to quest bed), force your opponent to discard from play one character who shares a name with another character in play, and all equipment attached to that character. You do not get grist for defeating that character. Prototype effect: attacks agains character which share a name with another character in play inflict +20 , image idea: trollian window with alot of dave timelines terminating with pictures of dead daves.

[FowlJ]

The balance of cards versus minions has been talked about - the rule book in the OP is still outdated, I believe, but decreasing minions deck size and increasing player deck size was generally agreed upon, so I think that's what is happening. (Though I keep on missing the design memos, so I'm probably the least qualified to say anything...)

[DJ_Sucre]

Yea, the rules book is a little outdated, and I'm pretty sure we're at least planning on increasing the size of the main deck.

In regards to the minions thing, Just a quick perusal of the characters for this set, it looks like the average damage dealt is about 25-30. So if you have 3 matespritships each dealing 25-30 per turn, I think having minions in the midrange HP would be good. Not making them too much like cannon fodder, but also not making it so your opponent can gank the minions off of you every time. And then there are cards like Aradia who can lock down one of your opponents matespritships, Karkat's Matesprit effect letting both characters act, and various other things, I'm sure it wouldn't be too tough with say, a 30-40 (total) card minion deck.

As for card balance, I had no idea that beginners in MTG built their decks 20/20/20. That seems like a really good way to get mana screwed unless half of your deck is ramp or something. Back on topic, I was thinking something along the lines of 24 characters/ 20 events/ 16 equips, that way you get a fair variety of characters and events, assuming you have 4 copies of each in your deck, while not being too bogged down with equipment that you can't use. Maybe even 28/16/16...

But then again, this is just my personal preference. I can't really speak for the design team on this one, but this is most likely how I'd be playing.

Equipment Idea:
Regisword
500 Grist
Close/Short
Every time the character this item is attached to kills a character/minion on a counter-attack, that character gains +10 Grit and heals 30 HP (stackable)
I make the effect that powerful ('cause if it happens once then the likelihood of it happening again goes up!) because I don't know how often it will be that someone is killed by a counter-attack.

[Foerumokaz]

Hey guys! It's been quite a while since anyone has posted, so I think I'm going to quickly bump this thread up.

I think today, I'll start to work on some minions. If you guys could join tonight's Pesterchum Memo (Homestuck_TCG), we could probably hash out quite a few tonight! Trust me, it'll be fun! And if you have a free hour at 9:00 EST, why not?

Sucre, your effects are pretty cool/unique, and I definitely see some of them coming into the TCG.

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[DJ_Sucre]

I'd participate in the memos more, but I work until 10 pm most nights (i'm posting this at about 8 for reference)

[Foerumokaz]

Sucre, I don't think you'd be able to be in many of the weekday memos. Your 10:00 is my 12:00, and by that time I really need to be asleep. School is almost out for summer however, so in a few weeks we should all be fine.

[DJ_Sucre]

Yea, Sleep is kind of important.

I'll edit this post when I think of a new equipment or something.

Equipment
Green Sun Streetsweeper (or any of Jade's automatic rifles)
1000 Grist
Magic/Ranged
+20 DMG
Equipped character may make a second attack at -40 Damage (including the bonus granted by this equipment)

Pshoooes
500 Grist
+5 DEF
You may spend 200 grist to cancel all damage dealt to and by equipped character this turn.

Queen's Ring
Epic Equipment (aka I don't know what to put for a cost)
If any of the prototypings affect minions, they also effect equipped character.
Character gains attack: Red Miles: All characters and minions take 30 damage.

[Systemic_Hysteria]

Sorry that I have been unable to join the past few memos. Ive been out traveling the US. Namely driving from Michigan to Florida and back. Ill be able to resume the memos tomorrow. (today?)