My current project

This post is also available on my Patreon

Hey! Welcome to my first devlog post thing!

Back in April I decided to put my main project (which is a platformer game that I am making since November 2019) on hold and try something else. Something smaller in scale and in different genre.

So I opened my concepts folder (which was just a folder with some old files) and found my old sketch for a card game that I made in June 2020. I also had a text file with some ideas on how this game should work.

This was the quick concept that I made in Aseprite

After that I quickly made the first prototype to test the base game mechanics and to test if it’s actually fun to play:

Emojis!

Since April this side project (that doesn’t have a name yet) became my main one for now and I made a lot of progress in 1.5 months.

How the game looks right now

So what is this game about?

This game is a rogue-like, where the player goes from room to room and manipulates the field of hidden cards. The core mechanic is that every turn you need to reveal cards first to do something with them later.

Player turn is always consists of the “Reveal” phase first, where you have to reveal a certain number of cards (that number increases the further you go), and then the “Action” phase, where you can start to do some actions with cards (take the item, attack the enemy, use a consumable, etc.).

Phases UI

After the player finished it’s turn, the “Enemy” turn begins, where every revealed card on the field does something in order (e.g. if the card is the enemy it will attack the player).

Mechanics

One of the very essential mechanics for this game is “Timers”. Almost every card has a timer attached to it, and every turn this timer slowly goes down. When the timer reaches zero the card is removed from the field.

Timer on the card

So the player often has to choose what to do, because the number of actions is limited. Should I take this item before it disappears? Should I attack the enemy instead? Choices, choices.

Here’s an example: there is an enemy called “Loot goblin”. When he attacks you he steals a little bit of money. But he also have a timer, and if the timer runs out the goblin will disappear (with your money). So you have to kill him fast enough to get your money back.

What’s in the game right now

• All card types (Enemy, Object, Loot, Heal, Trap & Item)
• Player stats (strength, dexterity, etc.) and resistances
• Multiple classes (right now the only difference between them is starting stats)
• Status effects (8 of them, such as bleeding, poison, burn, confusion, etc.)
• Different currencies (money, scrap, repair hammers and keys)
• Gradually increasing difficulty (the further you go the harder the game)
• Trader rooms, where you can buy items
• Item cards have different rarity (common, rare, epic and legendary) and random bonuses (depending on rarity)
• Rooms have different layouts
• Cards on the field can affect each other
• Weapons have different styles (e.g. broad sword can attack a row of three cards)

Some planned things

• More cards of each type (more enemies, traps, items, etc.)
• Tutorial, main menu, options, death screen with score and all that stuff
• 30+ weapons with unique stats and styles (right now there is like 8 weapons total)
• Different areas with unique enemies for each one (adds variety to the game)
• Perks and abilities system (different classes will have different perks)
• Mini-games between the rooms (e.g. fishing)
• Blacksmith rooms (for upgrading your gear with scrap)
• Bosses
• Almost every enemy should have a unique mechanic (so they differ not only by different health and damage numbers)
• Sound effects and music (probable 8bit stuff)

Just ideas if I get that far

- Make a separate “Log” window, where the player can see all the actions that’s happening on the field.

Some problems and questions that I have with the game right now

• Leveling up is boring (that’s where the perk system will come in)
• Sometimes it’s really hard to understand what’s happening (needs more clear and obvious UI, additional animations)
• Right now there is no end goal and the game is just infinite until your character dies (different areas and bosses can fix this)
• Balancing (sometimes the games is too easy, mostly because there is not that many cards in the game)
• Sometimes the game just feels not fun (but that’s probably because I played it like a million times already)

So far I really enjoy the process and it goes really smooth, mostly because since I started making games back in November 2019 I became more experienced and can make stuff faster and more efficient.

This game doesn’t have a release date, publisher, funding or any of that. I just like to make games and hope to bring some fun for you guys.

Thank you for reading!

P. S. I guess I really love putting stuff in parentheses when I’m writing, there is so many of them!