Ok, so it turned out that my last exam was on September 1st, which ended being about a week later than expected. Anyway, that's done now and I'm back home in London, and ready to resume progress on the game and story. So today let's introduce you to the game.
Since everyone here has played Yugioh, I'll try and explain it using Yugioh terminology. Games are played with 2 players, but you can play a tag battle with 4 (more on that later). Each player controls 1 monster at a time, and if you win a battle against your opponent's monster, you get a point. First to three points wins the game. You can evolve your monsters over time and 'augment' the stats of your monsters, allowing you to keep them on the field as long as possible and try and snowball your monster into an unbeatable evolved form.
The game rules are quite long - it's not necessary to read if you just plan on following the story, but if you want to help create a few cards when I'm ready (I will show an example of a card soon, but not today) then you will of course need to know the rules. You can also have a look through them just to give some feedback if you're not too sure about one of the rules.
How to win
- Win 3 battles
- Your opponent has no cards left to summon
The card zones
- Hero Card Zone
- Summon Zone
- Augment Zone
- Evolution Points (EVP) Zone
- Deck
- Graveyard
- Hand
Cards
Each card is a ‘monster card’ - an Auganism. I'll refer to them as cards from now on. A card has between 1 and 4 Evolution Stages (cards are summoned at Stage 1). Cards can be used for three things while in the hand; they can be summoned to an empty Summon Zone, they can be converted to EVP in the EVP Zone; or they can augment a summoned monster and placed in the Augment Zone.
- Attack Power; the amount of damage this card does to the opponent’s Health when it battles.
- Health; the amount of damage the card can take from battles.
- EVP; Evolution Points - the amount of EVP this card gives towards Evolution while in the EVP zone.
- Sword; how much extra damage this card gives to your summoned monster while in the Augment Zone.
- Shield; how much damage this card can mitigate while in the Augment Zone.
All cards have these five attributes. Some cards have effects that activate at specific times, or that are activated by the player. Also, most cards can evolve. If they can, then each Evolution Stage denoted on the card has the following attributes:
- Attack Power;
- Health;
- EVR; Evolution Points Required – the amount of EVP you need in your EVP zone to evolve into this Stage from the Stage below.
Hero cards
Hero cards are a special type of card that does not follow the format of the rest of the cards in the game. A Hero card represents the strategy of the deck, is always active and grants bonus effects throughout the duel to the player. Most Hero cards have a passive effect and an activatable effect, which has a cooldown of X turns. Each player only has 1 Hero card active, and cannot change this Hero throughout the duel. The Hero card chosen by each player is revealed just before the duel starts, so nothing stops both players from using the same hero card.
The turn
Before the duel starts, both players draw 2 cards each and their Hero cards are revealed. Then each turn in the duel, including the first turn, proceeds as follows.
- Draw Phase
- Summon Phase
- EVP Phase
- Evolution Phase
- Augment Phase
- Declare Phase
- Response Phase
- Battle Phase
- End Phase
- Draw Phase:
Draw 1 card from your deck. This is not optional. If you have 0 cards in your hand at the start of turn, draw 2 cards instead. Always draw until you have no cards left in your deck. There is no penalty for having nothing to draw.
- Summon Phase:
If your summon zone is empty, summon a monster in your hand. This is not optional. If you do not have a monster to summon, you lose the duel.
- EVP Phase:
Optional. You can place 1 card in your hand in your EVP zone. Your EVP score is the sum of the EVP values of all the cards in your EVP zone.
- Evolution Phase:
Optional. If your current EVP score is equal or greater than the EVR of the next stage of your currently summoned monster, you can send all cards in your EVP zone to the correct Graveyard and evolve your card. Its Attack Power and Health become the values listed on the stage you evolved to. Cards in the augmentation zone stay put.
It also possible to skip an evolution stage if you have sufficient EVP. But you incur a 1 EVR penalty for 1-stage skips and a 2 EVR penalty for 2-stage skips. To skip an Evolution Stage, add up the total EVR needed to evolve to each Evolution Stage above your current Stage, stopping at the Stage you want. Then, add the appropriate EVR penalty. For example, if you have a Stage 1 card face-up whose Stage 2 EVR is 2, and Stage 3 EVR is 3, then the total EVR required to skip from Stage 1 to Stage 3 is (2 for Stage 2, 3 for Stage 3 and 1 for the penalty) = 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 EVR.
- Augment Phase:
Optional. You can place 1 card in your hand in your Augment Zone. The next time you battle, the card will increase your summoned card’s stats.
- Declare Phase:
Optional, unless you have no cards remaining in your Deck (you must declare battle in that case). Decide if you are going to battle your opponent’s card this turn. If their Summon Zone is empty, you cannot battle.
- Response Phase:
Only occurs if you decided to attack. Your opponent can place 1 card from their hand into the Augment Zone now, before the battle occurs, should they so choose.
- Battle Phase:
Only occurs if you decided to attack. Calculate the damage that will be inflicted from both parties by adding their current Attack Power with the sum of all Sword values in their Augment Zones and with any additional effects. Then calculate the amount of total Shield available to both parties, and then finally Health available.
The turn player attacks first. Subtract the opponent’s Shield by the total Attack Power calculated. If the Attack Power is greater than the Shield, then any remaining damage is inflicted to the opponent’s Health. If the opponent’s Health is brought down to 0, then the turn player wins the battle, and there is no counterattack. If the opponents Health is more than 0, the card’s Health is set to the new value (keep a note of it), and then the opponent counterattacks. Damage is calculated in the same way and the card’s Health is remembered. If the card’s Health drops to 0, the opponent wins the battle. Otherwise, the battle has ended and both cards remain on the field.
When a battle is won, two things happen. First, you won a battle. If this is your third battle that you’ve won, you win the game. If it’s not the case, then place the losing card in the EVP Zone of the winner. That card’s EVP will be counted towards evolution (feel free to place it face-down to remind yourself that the card does not belong to you).
To conclude this phase, all cards in both player’s Augmentation Zones are sent to the Graveyard.
- End Phase:
The turn player’s turn comes to an end and the opponent will become the next turn player.
Tag battles
Tag Team battles can be played with 4 players too. Essentially, it is two separate games going on at the same time with a couple of changes. First of all, you need to win 5 battles between you to win the match. Also, when a battle is won, instead of the losing card going to the winner’s EVP Zone, it is added to the winner’s partner’s hand.
So yeah, that's how you play. I think everything is mentioned and clear, but I'll clear up anything if not. There are some baseline for card stats (a general minimum and maximum) and cards are balanced so that if they are good at one thing then they suffer elsewhere, or have no weaknesses but then no real strengths either. But I'll post these baselines later when I'm ready to start asking for cards.
The design layout of the card itself is not ready yet, although I think I've designed one today which I'm particularly happy with so that will hopefully be ready to show pretty soon.
I think that's about it for this update. Just want to say thanks again to all of you, like even if you don't read or play what I'm creating, being able to have a place to put updates and ideas is really important for my motivation.
