Idea: Card Universe v1.2

Note From Author: I am an absolute beginner at making/designing games and know the bare minimum about coding. This is mostly a passion project/proof of concept. If you have some feedback or suggestions, That would be appreciated. If you would like to steal this idea for your own, that would also be appreciated.
EDIT: Note From Author 2: If you're wondering if I'm going to just dive into this project day one, let me assure you that I know how to be realistic. This is pretty much my magnum opus I put here for posterity and feedback. I am willing to watch the tutorials and follow along and I'll probably make my start with a simple-ish turn based 2D pixel-art RPG. If you have any feedback or want to chat about this game in general, I would appreciate it.

Overview
Card Universe is a video game that features a mix of 3d Platforming, roguelike, and Open-World Action RPG elements. The story is that the player is a human from the real world that discovered a magical artifact called a Binder that enables them to send their consciousness into a place called The Universe of Imagination, where humanity's thoughts and feelings create cards which can materialize into tangible objects and forces, with humanity's evil thoughts and feelings becoming dangerous things like monsters and hazards. As an Avatar, the player can gather cards and use them or store them in their Binder for later use. The main goal of the game is to gather cards, level up, survive, and do whatever they want.

Controls
Space: Jump/aerial action/climb

WASD: Movement

Q: Run

E: Interact

F: Sneak

Mouse: Camera

Shift: Lock-on/camera hold, focus

Esc.: Binder

1-0: Hand

Mouse 1: Hand 1

Mouse 2: Hand 2

Progression
The primary additive factor that determines the effectiveness of most of the player's actions is their Level. All damage dealing and damage reducing/stopping cards scale off of the level in some way. Everyone starts at level 1 and more levels are gained through the accumulation of Points.

The Avatar has two counts of points, the Lifetime Point Count (LPC) and the Fluid Point Count (FPC). The LPC is the total amount of points the player has gathered throughout their current campaign and passing thresholds in amounts cause the player to Level-Up. The FPC is the current number of points the Avatar has accumulated and can be spent by interacting with NPCs for cards and other services. Points can be accumulated by killing monsters, selling cards, or finding treasures.

Leveling up not only increases the overall effectiveness of an Avatar's actions, but it also increases the Avatar's meters and grants Stat Points (STs). The Avatar has three meters, the Hit Meter (HM) which regulates how much damage the Avatar can take and is regenerated by healing cards, the Action Meter (AM) which regulates how long the Avatar can exert itself and is regenerated over time or instantly with certain cards, and the Special Meter (SM) which regulates how many cards can be set on the Hand at one time with more powerful cards having a greater SM cost.

Every Level-Up grants the Avatar 10 STs which can be spent in one of five stats which add 1% to their corresponding statistics.

Power increases the HM and the damage done by cards.

Energy increases the AM and ads to the effectiveness of cards that block damage.


Wisdom ads to the SM and ads to the effectiveness of cards that reduce damage.

Instinct ads to the effectiveness of cards that bestow harmful effects on foes and increases effects that strengthen the Avatar.

Spirit ads to the effectiveness of cards that bestow beneficial effects on the user and decreases effects that weaken or hinder the Avatar.

Cards
Like the name of the game suggests, the main purpose of the game is the accumulation and use of cards.

All cards are stored in the Hand for immediate use or in the Binder for later use.

The Binder has pages that store cards in a 3x3 section on both sides of the page and a limit of ten pages. Each card has a limited number of uses and once used up must be found again in the game world.

Power Cards: Allows the player different actions and abilities. Come in various subcategories.

Ability Power Cards: Can be used instantaneously, lose uses for each successful active use. (Ex. swinging a sword, walking on a wall temporarily, launching a fireball)
Tactical Power Cards: Creates an independent object that can assist the player or harm them if used improperly. Used when damaged. (Ex. bait to attract monsters, a springboard-like area, a bubble that entraps anything inside it and can be used as a platform)
Conditional Power Cards: Used automatically once certain conditions are met. (Example, neutralizing a killing blow, doing a burst of damage if a foe is at low health, exploding if hit by a fire attack)
Boon Power Cards: Grant passive effects or bonuses to the player and can change their primary abilities/capabilities but may make the player more or less resistant to certain things. Effects can stack. Used when Avatar is damaged. (Reducing damage [Armor], hovering at a fixed height while in midair, allowing free movement while underwater)

Resource Cards: Cards that can be stacked. Used for a wide variety of purposes.
Material Resource Cards: Used to craft other cards or to cause events in the game world without using Power Cards. (Wood, ore, and stone of various types.)
Consumable Resource Cards: Used to restore Meters and/or grant temporary boosts to Avatar. (Food, potions)

Location Cards: Cards that are gained upon the discovery of a new location. Can be used to fast travel to said location from a different location. Possess information about the corresponding location such as available cards, monsters/NPCs in inhabitation, and miscellaneous information about the nature of the location. Can be used while in the binder and are not placed in the hand.

Guardian Cards: NPCs that seek to assist the player with their own sets of stats and meters. Always deployed while in hand and using card may activate special abilities. (A horse that can be ridden, a satellite that fires a laser to locked on targets, monsters that have been captured and pacified)

Artifact Cards: Cards that grant beneficial effects in or outside the binder. (Picking up two cards at once, an extra life, unlimited stamina.)

Curse Cards: Cards that cannot be removed from the hand once acquired but can be destroyed at certain points of interest or by certain cards. (Halving all meters, doubling incoming damage, making cards damaging the user upon use)

Ritual Cards: Cards that cause widespread effects once certain conditions are fulfilled. (Summoning a special boss monster, altering the properties of a location, creating an area where NPCs gather)

Attributes
Most cards and forces that can be interacted with have at least one elemental attribute. They are as follows: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, and Darkness. All monsters are part of a family or hybrid of families that are vulnerable or resistant to certain attributes.

Mammal: Fire x1.5 Water x1.5 Earth x.5 Air x.5

Bird: Earth x1.5 Water x1.5 Air x.5 Fire x.5

Fish: Air x1.5 Earth x1.5 Water x.5 Fire x.5

Reptile: Darkness x1.5 Water x1 5 Fire x.5 Light x.5

Insect: Light x1.5 Earth x1.5 Air x.5 Water x.5

Fluid: Fire x1.5 Earth x1.5 Water x.5 Air x.5

Solid: Air x1.5 Fire x1.5 Earth x.5
Water x.5

Mech: Light x1.5 Air x1 5 Water x.5 Earth x.5

Phantom: Water x1.5 Light x1.5 Darkness x.5 Air x.5

Fairy: Darkness x1.5 Earth x1.5 Light x.5 Air x.5

Demon: Light x1.5 Air x1.5 Darkness x.5 Earth x.5

Plant: Fire x1.5 Darkness x1.5 Light x.5 Earth x.5

All avatars start with neutral resistance but certain cards can raise or lower resistances.

Traits
Every card, NPC, monster, or location possesses traits that act as specialized modifiers for interactions between each other. A few examples include:

Fire Elemental: Fire attacks and hazards heal instead of damage but take double damage from water attacks and hazards.

Lightweight: Get flung extra far by forces that can move it.

Etherial: Only take damage from cards with a supernatural-type trait.

Danger: Direct contact damages.

Regen: Heal over time.

Intense heat: Unless characters possess certain traits they take damage over time.

Fickle: With certain stimulus, may ally with foes or attack allies.

Iron: Conducts and attracts electricity, does extra damage to Fairy, Demon, and Phantom monsters.

On the flavor text of certain cards is a list of materials that an Avatar can take to a particular Point Of Interest in order to craft a copy of that card. However, all but a few materials are non-specified and any material that falls into the category of the non-specified material such as ore, wood, or leather, can be used in its creation. When used to create a card, the traits of the material are added to that card, like increased damage to certain foes, more uses, or an extra elemental attribute.

Player Experience
At the start of a campaign, the Avatar begins at a random Location Card with an Easy difficulty. Cards can be obtained by gathering them as items out in the open. Locations also play host to a wide assortment of Points of Interest that can offer services or repeatable tasks to obtain a specific card. When players gather cards, they either automatically equipt them to the Hand and can exchange them or rearrange them when opening the binder. The player can walk at a leisurely pace or toggle between sneaking and running while expending the SM. By jumping on most surfaces, they can freely climb vertically or horizontally relative to the gravity of the point in the location by expending stamina. It is also possible to quickly evade danger by double-tapping a directional input to dodge.
More locations can be discovered by finding hidden portals within locations. All locations are randomly generated from a number of templates.

There a number of Action cards with a high number of uses and low meter use that are ideal for self-defense for prolonged confrontations that function as weapons and are ideally placed in the first slot of the hand. Similarly, their cards that are ideal for stopping damage provided they are deployed fast enough or at the right angle and which can fail if the damage itself is either too powerful or has properties the card is vulnerable to.

Ideally, active use cards such as Action, Tactical, and Consumable types are placed closer to the hand inputs which are closest to the movement input. Cards that do not normally require input such as Conditional, Boon, and Guardian types are placed further down the line of buttons.

There are ways to inflict Critical Hits (double damage) to a foe while in combat, such as attacking their weak point (ex. head), their blind spot (ex. back) or while they are unaware of the Avatar's presence.

Locations have a host of monsters which can be killed for Cards and Points, hazards, and treasures.

Certain terrains and POIs may require Cards to enable the Avatar to complete/traverse. Within each Location are hidden Portals that lead to new Locations.

Each Location has a limited number of available cards that only recover once said Cards are used or destroyed.

Most Locations contain Zones populated by NPCs. There are various types of NPCs each with their own likes and dislikes and depending on their disposition to the Avatar they may trade Cards and Points with them, give them information about the Location, offer a service such as healing, quests, or mini-games, or if they have a negative opinion of the Avatar, they may increase the price of or even deny services or randomly do something like steal a card or inflict an ailment.

Each Location has at least one powerful Boss Monster that drops many rare cards and plentiful Points upon defeat. Some Boss Monsters stay in a fixed point, others may migrate throughout the Location, and others appear under certain conditions or times.

All cards possess a ten-star rarity system which is a representation of their spawn rate within each location and the number of points they sell for at vendors. Monsters also have a similar star system which is a representation of how difficult they are to dispatch or how much they can threaten the Avatar.

If the Avatar dies, they lose all cards in their binder and their Level and point count are reset. However, there are certain POIs in locations that can respawn the player a limited number of times once discovered.

Multiplayer
The game features a Player to Player room system where Avatars can utilize their own Location cards to create an interconnected game world. The room creator can select from a number of rules that can alter the primary rules of the game and govern the interactions between Avatars. Players have the option to keep a Card Box which they can transfer cards without the risk of loss. One's Point count and Level do not change upon death while in multiplayer mode and the room creator can choose to scale the levels either equally or based on certain circumstances within each mode.

Hardcore: Avatar can attack each other to claim random cards dropped on death.

Territories: Avatars can form teams to capture Location Cards which can serve as respawn points that allow the controllers to keep cards. Monsters can be tamed and used by teams.

Deathmatch: Last one standing wins a random card dropped from each Avatar.

Desert Island: All Avatars start with nothing.

Spectator: Players can watch Avatars and trade Cards or wager them on certain outcomes.

 

Sounds like HxH Greed Island.
If you have no idea how to code and it's your first game, it's a pretty huge endeavor.
Either assemble a team or learn the basics first. I know I know, what does that have to do with my game? Well... everything. I have met too many devs that never coded and have no idea what they want or how hard it is to implement what they want. What you want to implement is essentially 3-5 games into one.

Considering your project, start off with the card elements first and see if you can at least get filler art. Then the RPG elements and then the simple movements. Do Multiplayer last, since you probably will not implement it at all with Unity's awful multiplayer support.

Additionally, based on what you wrote and if you're doing it all solo, this would roughly take 3 years to accomplish. A terrible starting project.
Cut back on the content or assemble a team. Assume +1 member = -6 months unless they have experience.

 

Sorry, probably should have specified that this is pretty much a concept for my magnum opus to be started either after years of experience or finding a team. I know how to set realistic limits, I just put it here for posterity and feedback.

Realistically, I'd probably start with a small scale Turn-Based RPG that's like a mixture of elements Slay the Spire, Sorcery Saga, Adventure Quest, Card Hunter, and Mario and Luigi (RIP Alpha Dream and thanks for all the memories)': Maybe with a little Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger for good measure. I'm really good at math and algebra so I figured a Turn-based RPG would be the best area to get my start on. I'd be willing to stream tutorials on my phone while following along on my Laptop and do the hard work one step at a time.

If you'd like to give some advice about my training or would just like to chat about my idea, be my guest.

 

I made a game for Ludum Dare last year in Unreal which combined a first person shooter with an arena card game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/deck-cutters-hearth-of-the-cards



I tried to make sure that as many of the card game mechanics influenced the first person shooter gameplay as possible. For example, the number of cards left in the player's deck also act as the player's hitpoints; the player can throw their monster cards across the stage.

Have a think thematically about why you need to base the game around cards. If the player is entering a world created by human thoughts and emotions, then perhaps the objects in the game don't need to be further abstracted as cards in this other world. They can just be the objects. By this I mean that the player could actually own an orbital space laser rather than just the card of one. I'm not trying to dissuade you from the idea of using cards, but I don't yet clearly see the difference between the player having a deck of cards as opposed to the player having an inventory of items, such as in Minecraft.

I'd also give the advice of maybe not starting off game development by making an RPG! There's a lot of menus and subsystems and games logic that you have to follow with them, and it might be much easier to make a working game where there is minimal menus and UI to worry about.

It's cool to read through your ideas, keep at it!

 

I mostly had the idea of using a card system to distinguish it from Minecraft and its many clones. Plus there's a lot more than objects that just happen to be cards, such as athletic feats and magic spell-like phenomena that would normally be "Active Skills" in a similar game. Plus some cards wouldn't just have one singular use, like a sword swing that would turn into a thrust after the input is held and released after a while, or a sniper rifle-like card that would bring up the scope if the input was held and only fire if a second input was done while the first input is held in.