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Fengol
03-09-2009, 11:06 AM
I'm going to promote my new card game. This'll be interesting as I can explore rather different blogs and websites I've already found relating to board games and board game design. Before I can do anything though, I need to get a hold of Value and ask permission for to use their IP.

I'm also investigating the costs to get a printing shop to professionally print my cards. I definitely want to have a couple of sets at rAge.

What I really need is a good writer to help me polish up the rules...

Homepage
http://mailowl.co.za/l4dcardgame/

Downloads
Cards (http://mailowl.co.za/Downloads/l4dcards.pdf)
Rules (http://mailowl.co.za/Downloads/l4dcardrules.pdf)

Links
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=972355
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/447528

Dev Diary
03/09/2009 - Emailed Gabe Newell, Managing Director of Valve Software
11/09/2009 - No response from Value, continuing with project
17/09/2009 - Started revamping cards thanks to new graphics card
18/09/2009 - Created homepage for game, still need to upload all sorts of stuff
18/09/2009 - Emailed Board Game Designers Forum asking for review
22/09/2009 - Created a thread (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=972355) on Steam in the L4D forum about the game
22/09/2009 - Started work on new card layout (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showpost.php?p=236238&postcount=15)
25/09/2009 - Received great idea (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11377604&postcount=22) for placeholder cards for players and decks
26/09/2009 - Went to get cards printed on 300 mg card. Found mis-alignment between card front and backs. Have to recreate card sheets.
30/09/2009 - Created a thread (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/447528) on BoardGameGeek about the game (although I realise it's probably too late for the competition

vii
03-09-2009, 11:30 AM
Maybe adding some good flavour text to the cards would make 'em just that tad bit more awesome...

Fengol
03-09-2009, 11:34 AM
Maybe adding some good flavour text to the cards would make 'em just that tad bit more awesome...

Most of them have flavour text, but I'm definitely open to more if you post them here

Nandrew
03-09-2009, 12:59 PM
This is going to be quite an interesting exercise, considering that you'll probably be heading through several different channels when compared to a standard videogame.

I hope that your exploration of these websites proves fruitful!

Fengol
03-09-2009, 03:04 PM
I am a bundle of nerves, I've just emailed Gabe Newell, Managing Director of Valve Software, a copy of my game and asked permission to use their material and to publicize it.

Nandrew
03-09-2009, 03:20 PM
Awesome! Mentioned this on Gtalk already, but give us the e-mail correspondence when you're done, so that others can learn from it. ;)

vii
06-09-2009, 08:05 PM
I am a bundle of nerves, I've just emailed Gabe Newell, Managing Director of Valve Software, a copy of my game and asked permission to use their material and to publicize it.

Heard anything yet? I'm on the edge of my seat to hear a reply?

Fengol
07-09-2009, 12:16 PM
nope, not a sausage. Although I get disapproving stares from Dislekcia, I feel I'm doing the right thing. I'll wait until the end of the week before making some decision on how to proceed.

dislekcia
07-09-2009, 01:14 PM
nope, not a sausage. Although I get disapproving stares from Dislekcia, I feel I'm doing the right thing. I'll wait until the end of the week before making some decision on how to proceed.

I think you should just keep working on the game and keep lobbing it at random people, send it to Valve (see if you can find a L4D team head - or there's always Robin Walker) and ask for feedback and crits, don't just say "Yo, can I do this?". Rather go "Hey, I've done this and want to make it more awesome please!"

dammit
13-09-2009, 03:43 PM
nope, not a sausage. Although I get disapproving stares from Dislekcia, I feel I'm doing the right thing. I'll wait until the end of the week before making some decision on how to proceed.

...So what have you decided?

Fengol
18-09-2009, 02:34 PM
Blew the dust off my blog and created a project page for my game as a central point to link to from the steam forums and boardgame design websites http://mailowl.co.za/2009/09/18/l4d-card-game-uploaded/

Still no reply from Gabe at Valve Software so I'm going to try emailing some others. Also need post a couple of forums.

Spoke to Minuteman Press last night about printing some decks of cards; going to see them on saturday.

Fengol
22-09-2009, 01:38 PM
Created a thread on the Steam forum for my card game http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=972355 although I'm nervous because of the poor reception Dammit got for her game.

Fengol
22-09-2009, 05:36 PM
Your thoughts would be much appreciated on comments from the Steam forum


Kinda reminds me of MtG.In fact your cards have almost identical backgrounds as my Alpha and Beta MtG cards.
Rules are quite easy to understand.
This is a game anyone can learn to play in about 15 minutes.
Good job!!!
If this goes retail let me know.


yeah, looks a lot like mtg


I'll admit I used Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com/) to create my cards and so it WILL look like Magic: The Gathering. Should I create completely unqiue cards or stick to a familiar layout?

dislekcia
22-09-2009, 05:42 PM
I'd play with the format of the cards a little, see what you can come up with.

Being based on a shooter, I'd immediately think of messing with HUD elements. Making the graphics on the card take up the most of the space and having "overlays" that show you what to do or how to play the game that look similar to the way tutorial info is shown in L4D. Those messages on the black popups and surrounding halos on "objects".

You'd probably need to create a bunch of icons and then use those consistently for people to understand and form links with the game. What about using crosshairs for monster health? 3 crosshairs = 3 health and weapon damage is just +crosshair? That sort of thing.

Fengol
22-09-2009, 09:29 PM
Old Witch card
http://mailowl.co.za/Downloads/oldwitch.jpg

New Witch card
http://mailowl.co.za/Downloads/newwitch.png

Trying to move away from the M:TG look, I value your opinions

Nandrew
22-09-2009, 09:56 PM
I like it! What I would basically recommend is slapping just a thin border around the whole thing, but the information conveyance seems to be quite solid.

Fengol
22-09-2009, 10:14 PM
Ever since I previously posted about changing the layout I've been thinking about the border. Is it necessary? What does it provide? Wouldn't the cards have a more contemporary/modern feel if they didn't have a border?

Why do you suggest adding a border?

SkinkLizzard
22-09-2009, 10:33 PM
I would say a border tends to unify everything and help show it as a single entity
rather than slightly disjointed, not really necessary seeing as they'll be printed so the edge of the cards kinda serve the same purpose.

dammit
22-09-2009, 10:39 PM
Because a card is essentially an image, a border often acts as a frame, which can work well, though is not necessary. Up to you. Either way, I really like the new designs :D

dislekcia
22-09-2009, 11:28 PM
I like the new layout!

All I'd suggest is upping the text size on the rules text a little and moving the focus of the image up a little to accommodate that, so the witch would be higher up the card with more space for the text.

I've been thinking about borders too. To me the best reason for borders seems to be the way they give cards a similar appearance, meaning they're harder to see when you accidentally glimpse their undersides. But TBH, I don't think that's a big deal with the way this game works, so experiment with and without borders and see which looks best. A black border with a white stroke around the image and some "extra" splats might make the card stand out a little more, but then again, the new design feels nice and different without the borders.

Decisions, decisions ;)

Nandrew
22-09-2009, 11:32 PM
Feel free to go without a border if you feel like it. I can only mention the ways in which I'd find it useful.

Borders provide a useful frame so that the image doesn't just "bleed out" of the sides, yeah. But they're also "at a glance" framers which can have several uses.

In the most stark use of borders, such as with classic MTG cards, they work as containers and organisers of information. This is in the same way that one would construct a Windows application with forms, panels and similar grouping techniques to lend meaning to space and promote consistency (which is pretty valuable in card games).

Even if you don't go full-on with putting different information into its own boxes, a single overall border that's colour-coded to the card type can work wonders. If you have several cards shown on the table, and most of them have (for example) red borders, you'll be able to tell that there's a heavy enemy presence before you even read the cards. Again, this is what complex card-based games tend to do: if a player in Arkham Horror wants to look through their weapons list, they hunt for that colour within their collection. Spells are a different colour, and so are allies and skills. A player in MTG can look at the cards that their opponent has in play and -- on a macro scale -- see what colours they tend towards using.

When a card is put down on the table, the border is noticed first: long before the image, the writing, or even the name of the card that's been put in big bold lettering. When people play Uno, the border colour comes out stronger than the numbers. In card games where "suits" and numbers hold equal importance, people naturally tend to organise by suit when the cards are in their hands (even in games like Mahjong and Rummy, it's easier for people to move cards into suits before looking for sets or runs).

Card games which don't use borders generally remove them for a good reason. Classic playing cards are a good example of this. Generally, players need two pieces of simple information from their cards: number and suit. Both are placed in the top-left corner(s) of playing cards so that when held in the hand (typical fan-style), this information is easily visible. A border is counter-intuitive in this case, so it's scrapped.

Based on the play style and amount of information needed from any given L4D card, I think a colour-coded border could be really helpful. It's up to you to decide: if you don't feel that it will help, then so be it, but it certainly won't detract from the experience. ;)

Karuji
22-09-2009, 11:33 PM
I like the shift in art but form my minor art nerd side I would say that a boarder is a must. Also taking a minute to edit the image and take out little pixelation would be awesome. Otherwise can't wait to see this at rAge.

dislekcia
23-09-2009, 03:14 AM
Feel free to go without a border if you feel like it. I can only mention the ways in which I'd find it useful.

Borders provide a useful frame so that the image doesn't just "bleed out" of the sides, yeah. But they're also "at a glance" framers which can have several uses.

..snip..

Based on the play style and amount of information needed from any given L4D card, I think a colour-coded border could be really helpful. It's up to you to decide: if you don't feel that it will help, then so be it, but it certainly won't detract from the experience. ;)

Ah, but something I just realised is that L4D DOES have borders. In the game itself. The borders it puts around objects when you examine them.

I think all the good mental grouping and at-a-glance stuff you've mentioned (and they're definately damn fine points to consider when making a card game) can be conveyed by using the same trick and outlining the shapes and silhouettes of objects ON the cards themselves. That way, players would see a silhouette of a witch with a red "selection border" around her on the card and instantly know what it was. Or they'd see a blue silhouette around a gun or a molly. Boom, instant recognition while keeping with the game's established aesthetic AND doing something a little different with a card game.

Something like this:
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/6143/newwitchglow.png

P.S. Also, try skewing the header text a little and adding an exclamation mark. As though someone were "shouting" it. That'll add to the feel of the enemy cards a lot, have their headers be slightly haphazard with a voice-com edge ;)

P.P.S. I'm wondering if zombies shouldn't have a different icon for their damage: Like a claw or something. That would either free up the gun icon for their health (mapping between damage the player does - using the gun icon - and zombie health) or a melted zombie face thing to indicate their health. Just a thought.

Fengol
23-09-2009, 06:56 AM
I knew that if I threw the problem at the right minds I'd get a defining comment on usability :) Thank you so much.

@Dislekcia, how did you highlight the which in the card?

There are some cl_glow_infected_x and cl_glow_survivor_x commands which I'll play around with tonight and see if I can't get some nice effects.

Personally, I'd like to stay away from borders around the cards to give a more FPS feel to the cards. The different glowing colours is an awesome idea for easy recognition and I'm still playing around with the icons and wording because I'd still like to have some flavour text.

BTW, does anyone know how to get the font used into the detail of the game? Not the L4D font which I already have but the font used to display information like "Bill is healing you" etc.

dislekcia
23-09-2009, 11:47 AM
@Dislekcia, how did you highlight the which in the card?

Photoshop, polygonal lasso, lots of clicking, copy, paste to new layer, outer glow, added some noise, changed blend, made it a bit bigger.

Nandrew
23-09-2009, 12:10 PM
Oooh, a lovely idea that draws inspiration from the game itself! Bonus!

dislekcia
25-09-2009, 09:36 PM
Really like the dashboard card from the Steam forum, except you should totally call it a HUD ;)

dislekcia
26-09-2009, 02:44 AM
Y'know, after the card redesign and everyone playtesting at rAge, you really should simply box up a set of nicely printed cards and DHL that through to the head of the L4D team at Valve.

Attach a note that says "Thanks for being awesome. Here's my tribute to L4D, I'll be picking up L4D2 on release day!"

Fengol
30-09-2009, 09:27 AM
Dev diary updated on first page. I don't know why I didn't do it sooner, but I created a new thread on BoardGameGeek. I also received a great idea (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11377604&postcount=22) from Armydillo978 on the Steam forum for a placeholder/placemat for the player to put their items. Here's an example from the game Tannhausers (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/249487)

Telur
03-10-2009, 10:47 PM
Played a bit at rAge meet tonight and had awesome fun.

^5 Fengol

Kharrak
03-10-2009, 11:07 PM
Played some games, rather enjoyed it. Though, I've got an extensive list of things I'd like to try with it through, so I'm gonna cook up my own alternative, if you don't mind :p

Fengol
04-10-2009, 06:56 AM
I'll be at trAge on Sunday if you're interested in chatting about it. I would love to hear people's suggestions

Nandrew
04-10-2009, 08:11 AM
L4D CARD GAME!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Kharrak
04-10-2009, 10:12 AM
My prospects of attending today are rather dim, I'm afraid, but there's a chance.

Also... my ideas are pretty much turning into a whole revamp of the game :s
(though, I admit, a revamp I prefer. If other people prefer it? Well... I'll have to see about that :P)

Fengol
05-10-2009, 03:40 PM
So a special thank you to everyone who played and helped explain the rules to others who played the card game over the weekend at rAge. I owe you all a huge debt of gratitude*

I did receive some suggestions and advice about the huge difficulty and some clarity on certain rules (I'm especially unhappy with the witch effect) but is there anything else anyone wants to add?

How about the length of the game? Is it long enough, do you want new or different scenarios (i.e. new cards)?

I am continuing to work on a new card layout, which you can start to expect at the end of October. In the meantime I have assignments and exams to prepare for.

*Please note that debts of gratitude are non-refundable, cannot be transfered or exchanged for cash and do expire

Nandrew
06-10-2009, 02:22 PM
Right off the bat: no more new cards if at all possible. You've got a tight experience going, and I believe it's a greater show of skilled design if you can adjust what you have as opposed to addressing the problem by adding "new stuff".

Let's see, how about these two suggestions?

(1) I received this idea from one of the people I was playing with, and I don't know if it got to you at all: but perhaps the sniper rifle should be adjusted. What about giving it a +3 to damage, but making it impossible to shoot your own monsters with it (since a sniper rifle would logically be ideal for "long range")? Right now, I find ALL of the weapons to be pretty well-balanced EXCEPT the uzi, which is pretty much trumped by a sniper. Buffing the uzi to +2 and making the sniper change suggested may do a better job of making both weapons equally useful, meaning that players actually have to THINK about the two weapons instead of instantly dropping one for the other. Make sense at all?

(2) I feel that the final confrontation could do with a tweak or two. Particularly, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of players intentionally putting themselves on low health to decrease the hordes: would this realistically translate to a REAL session of L4D? I haven't played the game, but it just seems that this would be a "wrong" idea. Moreover, the final horde is entirely unaffected by difficulty, which seems strange since it's the most pivotal part of the game. How about this: on final assault, deal x number of monsters to each player every round based strictly on difficulty. So on easy, deal 1 monster per player per round (regardless of health), and on expert, deal 4 monsters per player per round.



Sorry if this feedback seems garbled or rushed, I fully admit that I'm in need of rest. Overnight bus trips don't really permit sleep. Hopefully it'll be useful anyway. :P

Chippit
06-10-2009, 02:59 PM
(2) I feel that the final confrontation could do with a tweak or two. Particularly, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of players intentionally putting themselves on low health to decrease the hordes: would this realistically translate to a REAL session of L4D? I haven't played the game, but it just seems that this would be a "wrong" idea. Moreover, the final horde is entirely unaffected by difficulty, which seems strange since it's the most pivotal part of the game. How about this: on final assault, deal x number of monsters to each player every round based strictly on difficulty. So on easy, deal 1 monster per player per round (regardless of health), and on expert, deal 4 monsters per player per round.

I was thinking about this problem (well, the health issue in particular) myself. In the real game, the main reason you wouldn't want to be on low life is that it makes you significantly slower. The card game has no analogue to that downside, so being on low health isn't really a bad thing, especially if you have a medkit on you. I think finding some way to work this into the game (like perhaps allowing 'speedy' players to evade hits from one enemy in front of them) would make people think twice about allowing themselves to be on low health for the finale.

Fengol
06-10-2009, 03:57 PM
Just a quick FYI, I've had since 18 September 2009:

501 views of the L4D card game homepage
378 downloads of the cards
183 downloads of the rules

to date.

I'm a happy panda!

cairnswm
06-10-2009, 09:17 PM
I didn't get a chance to play the full game, but what I did play was very exciting.

Quick question - is there any point in being alive at the end of the game? as opposed to being dead?

Make the players with most life choose what they will do first. Therefore they are more likely to survive - players on low life are slower and therefore more likely to die as they cannot react fast enough.

dammit
06-10-2009, 09:24 PM
I really really enjoyed this. Its a seriously addictive game. The one thing that I think needs altering is the time factor. When zombies are running at you, you don't have a whole bunch of time to sit around deciding which to kill and which not to kill and often we spent quite a while planning our various moves per round. Perhaps a timer is needed? Adds to the tension I think. Also, I do agree with cairnswm about the order of the players.

dislekcia
06-10-2009, 10:41 PM
I don't think the order of players matters in the slightest. It's a co-operative game, you're trying to beat it together, not each other. Order is pretty irrelevant in that context. This is also relevant to the time point that some people have raised. I like the idea of giving people an optional time limit that they can enforce if they want, but I don't think codifying it into the rules would be a great idea. The tension comes from the unflipped cards that you KNOW you're going to have to deal with next round, that and the group strategising about how to deal with that bloody tank...

I'm not sure how to handle the farming low health to get an "easy" finale thing. It might be an idea to give players extra monsters according to their difficulty. Another interesting thought could be to deal unflipped cards according to people's health as well. Sure, you could get more monsters that way, but you could also get things that help you deal with monsters better, so it would be rewarding to have more health going into a finale.

Fengol
11-10-2009, 06:07 PM
While doing some Googling, I found a mention of my Left 4 Dead card game on an Italian website http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgaming.ngi.it%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft% 3D500963&sl=it&tl=en&history_state0=it|en|Per%2520provarlo%2520scaricat e%2520Lackey%2520

Nandrew
12-10-2009, 01:34 PM
Hehe, the Google translations seem to be losing some context. :P

Very nice, though.

dor
17-02-2010, 07:16 PM
This looks great! Can't wait to play it.
Have you thought about adding new components from L4D2 (melee weapons, new items and special infected)?

Fengol
18-02-2010, 11:57 AM
Since I haven't been rich enough to buy L4D2 I haven't had a chance to play it and learn the new items, monsters and scenarios.

From what I do know of the new stuff though, I think it would disturb the balance of the current card game so I think L4D2 would need a new game with different mechanics (especially for the Scavenge mode which seems fun).

dislekcia
18-02-2010, 12:21 PM
Since I haven't been rich enough to buy L4D2 I haven't had a chance to play it and learn the new items, monsters and scenarios.

From what I do know of the new stuff though, I think it would disturb the balance of the current card game so I think L4D2 would need a new game with different mechanics (especially for the Scavenge mode which seems fun).

... Ok, I vote we start an L4D2 For Fengol Fund. I'll put in R50. A new cardgame from you? Win.

Fengol
18-02-2010, 03:06 PM
With that kind of support how could I refuse?

Kensei
18-02-2010, 11:57 PM
I am totally for it :) Do you accept PayPal?

Sunwalker
23-06-2010, 09:03 PM
Hello everyone. I discovered this card game a few month ago and I think it's an excellent idea. By playing it with my brother we found many ideas to enhance it. We created new cards with more different events, we changed existent ones (like specials) to be closer to the original game. The cards are taken from L4D 1 & 2. We didn't took every items or events of the two games but we tried to have enough card to vary situations in game. We kept the rules but I rewrite them to make them more clear and even create rules for scavenge mode.

I want to know what Fengol think about it. Do you allow us to continue and put online this version of your card game ? I don't want to take credits for all of it - just for what we did on it. You creates the game and we just add ideas in it.

All the text of the planned cards are written except the quotes (I'll have to listen to all the sound files to find the good ones). The game is still in progress so we don't know if all the cards can be useful but we are going to do some tests, especially online with Vassal (http://www.vassalengine.org)when all the cards will be ready. I'm currently taking screenshots for a few last cards but I think we could make it available by the end of this summer. My brother designed a card layout for the game so here are some pictures of the cards. What do you think about it ?

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TCJKhfDNCsI/AAAAAAAAAA0/WeZNQiQ5x0M/s400/back.pnghttp://lh3.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TCJKhokqVtI/AAAAAAAAAA4/6bZcGFJJdJc/s400/hpEN.pnghttp://lh3.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TCJKifmviLI/AAAAAAAAAA8/ngk6FDoo0nU/s400/pipeEN.pnghttp://lh4.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TCJKjGiJdNI/AAAAAAAAABA/WfYAmov55eQ/s400/smokerEN.pnghttp://lh6.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TCJKkGJD-PI/AAAAAAAAABE/l919QfpAnMg/s400/tankEN.png

Fengol
24-06-2010, 09:31 AM
Of course you're welcome to continue! My games and blog use the Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) so you are free to share and remix so long as you attribute the author and link to the license in your own work (this is for your own benefit as well if someone wants to share/extend your ideas).

I'm really glad you enjoyed my game and I hope you can make it even more enjoyable!

It would be awesome if you shared your work on the game.dev forums (http://www.nag.co.za/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9) for everyone to see when you're done.

P.S. I really love the border artwork of your cards, what did you do them in?

Sunwalker
24-06-2010, 05:06 PM
Ok, I haven't seen you used Creative Commons. So there is no problem. I thought about show you this for two months at last until I decided to register here, the origin of your game, so I'll see to post this "remix" on gamedev.net.

The border of the cards are just screenshots of the game taken in front of good textured-wall and teinted in a color to fit with the type of card. At the beginning I tried to find good points of view with ambienced-color but it didn't make it.

I'll post here soon to show the progress.

Sunwalker
22-07-2010, 01:19 PM
Here are some news about the card game. Still working on the screenshots (it takes more time than expected) and finishing the rules. I'll have to translate them from french to english before put it online. For now I post here a link to the card list if you want to see what cards there'll be in the game. The rules used to play are barely the same as Fengol's so if there are some cards which need explanations or aren't clear you can tell me here.
L4D Card List (http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7uZ4xvW-J-RMWVkMTYzMzgtMTk2YS00YzJiLWE5MDgtYzdhNjRlOTFlNzg1&sort=name&layout=list&num=50)
I also need to find quotes extract from the game to illustrate some cards like Fengol did. Because I'm french, I don't know what are these quotes in english and which one can be interesting for the cards so if you have ideas by playing games you can suggest here.

A few new cards :
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgb5sgA94I/AAAAAAAAAB4/Ij5RXLUCSUM/s400/axeEN.pnghttp://lh5.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgb6BRE_0I/AAAAAAAAAB8/aU583I6JW2E/s400/RiotzEN.pnghttp://lh6.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgb6ZPMSiI/AAAAAAAAACA/90NoD0hI9PA/s400/boomerEN.pnghttp://lh5.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgb6o0KUbI/AAAAAAAAACE/lv2IEYv5e40/s400/closeddoorEN.pnghttp://lh3.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgb65-nLeI/AAAAAAAAACI/8hBQr8on0FY/s400/fireproofzEN.pnghttp://lh6.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgeGjtn2FI/AAAAAAAAACQ/ufX6dOSSa8w/s400/hunter.pnghttp://lh6.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgeG_iieMI/AAAAAAAAACU/GMlPJHzrAig/s400/pistolEN.pnghttp://lh5.ggpht.com/_OP1PuO_mwTY/TEgo9ZIXgLI/AAAAAAAAACc/VVZT-SxS6L4/s400/gascanEN.png

I'll also talk about this new version of the card game on the boardgamegeek forums in the topic created by Fengol to have remarks and critics.

dislekcia
22-07-2010, 05:41 PM
Some of those ideas are really interesting... I'm going to need to make up another set of cards and get some people playing to see how well they work.

Have you got a group that plays with your changes? I'd love to hear how your games go: Do you always make it or do you get wiped sometimes too? What difficulty do you play it on? etc.

Sunwalker
22-07-2010, 06:06 PM
Honestly we haven't test it yet. As I said it's still a work in progress especially to finish the design of the cards. We spent many hours thinking about what items, what monsters or what situations we could use in it and we made a selection. Every weapon or item has a different functionality with its forces and weakness and the player will have to find the good combination to face as many situation as possible with the help of the other survivors/players (like in the videogame). I don't know if all of this can work together but once the game will be finished and available, tests sessions will be made and maybe changes are expected. Now, if there is already something that bother you with anything feel free to discuss about it here. I'm open to suggestion.

cairnswm
22-07-2010, 08:37 PM
You might want to consider submitting your game to this contest:

http://www.pyromythgames.com/Protospiel_Game_Design_Contest_Rules.pdf

Sunwalker
22-07-2010, 09:02 PM
This contest could be interesting if this game was fully new and not extracted from a copyrighted material as the Left 4 Dead videogame. Add to this that the game should have more than 150 cards for its first version and this contest limit them to 110. But thanks anyway.

dislekcia
22-07-2010, 09:25 PM
Honestly we haven't test it yet. As I said it's still a work in progress especially to finish the design of the cards. We spent many hours thinking about what items, what monsters or what situations we could use in it and we made a selection. Every weapon or item has a different functionality with its forces and weakness and the player will have to find the good combination to face as many situation as possible with the help of the other survivors/players (like in the videogame). I don't know if all of this can work together but once the game will be finished and available, tests sessions will be made and maybe changes are expected. Now, if there is already something that bother you with anything feel free to discuss about it here. I'm open to suggestion.

I'm going to give you the same advice I gave Fengol when he started working on this: Playtest early and playtest a lot! You don't have to make the cards look all neat, just get some cardboard, cut it up and write the rules out. Take it to some friends with all the cards temporarily made up and give it a few bashes. You'll quickly see what works and what doesn't :)

Fengol
22-07-2010, 10:41 PM
good grief, the number of sessions I played and watch played on orange cardboard with pencil scratches on them. I was almost sick of the game by the end.

I like the new mechanics you've invented (although I couldn't get the google doc for some reason to see the rest).

Sunwalker
23-07-2010, 10:37 AM
Ok, I'll try to test it as soon as possible with unfinished cards. About the google docs file, it seems the right of access were a little too... restrictive^^. I changed it if you still want to download it.