CCG Idea I'm Thinking About

I've been pondering on a CCG idea lately. I've always loved making my own card games. I did it on index cards when I was a broke teenager and couldn't afford the real thing. I sort of want to do that same thing, but in a digital sense. I'm learning the ropes with C# and whatnot, but I don't have plans on getting anywhere graphically. That left me in a pickle so I decided to see what kind of free art was out there. Apparently, there's a lot of public domain art from the Golden Age of comics.
That gave me an idea. An open source, F2P CCG/TCG with artwork from the Golden Age of comics all public domain and credited. That solves the art problem, gives me a theme for the game, and gives these talented artists an extra nod for their forgotten work.
These are just a couple of idea for Heroes I was working on today. I'm thinking you have 3 "decks" a 10-card coin deck with pennies, a 20 card troop/action/gadget ("Main") deck, 5 card hero deck that is always visible, and a main hero. Each turn you draw one coin and can either draw a second coin or pay for one of three visible/random cards from the main deck. Troops have low costs, but heroes and villains are always 10 cents and above. At any time during the appropriate phase you can pay to summon any of your five heroes. I think this set up will reduce some of the "randomness" or "luck factor" as well as the likelihood of starving for resources or even non-resources.

Spoiler: Rough Draft Card Ideas

 

Just for clarification is this a CCG or a deck builder? Both are good game types, it's just not obvious from your description.

The drafting mechanic will work for both types of game.

 

Eh, I'm actually thinking of a little of both. I'm thinking maybe you enter with a pre-constructed deck and a resource deck. You can draw from the resource deck for free, but to draw a card from your main deck you have to pay the cost of the card to add it to your hand. Once destroyed (except for heroes) it returns to the deck.
As for resources, I was thinking instead of just playing coins each turn constantly, sort of finding a mix between that and a more traditional resource style where they replenish each turn. Maybe a spot on the field for coin cards. When you tap a coin to pay for a card you can leave it there or send it back to the coin deck with "+1" so 1 resource would become 2. This might help speed things up along the way and make it easier to pay for big cards with time. If there are only five slots for coins on the field and each coin starts at 1 cent it means that no hero or villain can be played until some of the coins are at least upgraded to 2 cents.
Again, just brainstorming at the moment. Nothing concrete.

 

Are you sure these images are public domain? Copyright lasts incredibly long, like 70 years or 30 years after the death of the artist or something crazy like that. If there's a source validating that the copyright has expired, this is quite exciting.

PS - It's not enough to give credit to the artists - you still can't use the IP without permission unless the copyright expired. And no, giving the game away for free (even open source) doesn't fix that. Without permission, you're playing the 'I hope no one notices game', which is fine, unless you actually gain traction. Otherwise, people would make products with WoW, LoL, and DC comic art, and just say, 'It's free!'

Gigi

 

I'm going by this at the moment.
"


Copyrighted before 1923
Books copyrighted in the US before 1923 are now in the public domain; their copyrights have expired and it is legal to copy such works.

Copyrighted 1923-1963
Books initially copyrighted in the US from 1923 through 1963 are still protected by copyright law if the initial copyright was renewed. The initial copyright term was 28 years and the renewal was 67 more years (formerly only 47 years). For example, a book initially copyrighted in 1923, and renewed, will pass into the public domain in 2019 (i.e., 1923+28+67+1).

1. To search for copyright renewals of books originally copyrighted 1923-1963, search the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database. If you don't find a renewal here, then the work is now probably in the public domain. Also check Copyright renewal records at Rutgers.
2. To search for copyright renewals of books originally copyrighted 1951 to date, consult the Library of Congress Copyright Database. This copyright database records every US work copyrighted from 1978 to date. It includes copyright renewals as well as initial copyrights. Works initially copyrighted in 1951 were due for renewal in 1978. So if a work was initially copyrighted 1951-1963, but a renewal is not recorded in this database, then the work is probably in the public domain.
   Copyrighted 1964-1977
   All books initially copyrighted in the US from 1964 through 1977 have had their copyrights automatically renewed (by law) and the copyrights are still in force. The initial copyright term was 28 years; the renewal was for 67 more years. So a book initially copyrighted in 1964 will pass into the public domain in 1964 + 28 + 67 + 1= 2060.

 

Excellent research! My take away - look for cool art pre-1923!
Gigi

PS - To create nice rounded edges on your cards, download Inkscape - it's vector art (like Illustrator), for free.

 

I'll definitely redo the cards later. Just need to throw together some quick basics so I can start working on the set-up in Unity.
Pre-1923 art is definitely the easiest way to go, but much of that is in black and white. Still digging through archives. Loads of material. Have found a couple of pre-1923 comics I definitely want to include. Maybe even a few things from some pulp fiction.

 

On a side note, what would you think of an ultra-rare card of this well-known hero:

 

I'd have to see some table layouts to get my head around this. Which of the actual card games do you see it as similar to? The coin mechanic reminds me a little of Dominion, the idea is to upgrade your coins faster then your opponent. Its also a little like the traditional lands in Magic. The drafting mechanic works well in Legendary. Am I on the right track or totally off base?

Be very cautious with using currently worshiped religious figures. Using Zeus or Thor in a game is one thing, nobody worships these deities anymore. Using Jesus or Mohammad could create all sorts of controversy. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying be aware of what you are doing and what you are walking in to.

 

I'm not really sure what to compare it to, but mostly because it's still changing a lot in my head and when I think it too closely resembles another game I start changing more. I just checked out Dominion and I sort of liked the idea of a shared deck for drafting. Caused me to consider the idea of a shared deck of troops. Therefore, each player has 5 heroes only they can summon when they have the coins, a personal coin deck of ten cards, a personal action/equipment deck with ten cards, and then both players have a troop deck with ten troops of their choosing. HOWEVER, when they play each other the two decks are combined to create a single pool of 20 troops. Then, I was thinking, simultaneous turns with a bidding mechanic. Say there's a powerful card visible to purchase this turn.Only the villain player can use it because of moral cost, but the hero player doesn't want him to have that card because he knows the power of it. When you choose to buy a card you place a sort of blind bid that is equal to the card's cost at minimum. Simultaneous turns(or maybe just simultaneous "buy phases") means the highest of the two bidders will get the card and the other an unpleasant surprise. A person may also place a high bid thinking the opponent will try to outbid them only to realize they had no interest, but it still costs. Sort of like an additional psychological/strategic edge "is he going to bid for the same card or not" kind of thing.

Another thing the shared troop pool might help is the imbalance between new and vet players with many more cards. High power neutral troops that Heroes or Villains can summon could be taken advantage of by either player, even if it was the vet who went through all of the trouble of getting the digital card. LoL.

As for Jesus, that was more of a joke. Just found it interesting to find an old comic book series about the Bible.

 

From memory Dune had a mechanic where you could bid on cards to prevent your opponents drafting them. I don't believe the game ever got very big, but it might be worth taking a look.

The moral cost idea sound cool. I love asymmetric play. Netrunner is a good example of asymmetry.

 

If ever there was a valid excuse to use Comic Sans...