Proposal: Sandscape
Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:42
We thought (i think it was independent, dunno who was really first with this idea) that it would be very good thing to have something to rapid playtesting new unofficial cards and ideas. We will be testing. Most of the work that will be done is playtesting really. We may make "whole plays" or "single battles" only, with deck limited to a given cost. We assume no cheating prevention will be needed while testing.
I think there would be needed an app other than full-blown graphic client, keeped always up to date, that once build will have no bigger need for maintaining it (like updating the decks with dozens of card in an external client would).
I see two major fields of playtesting: developing cards and checking balancing across factions. Testing should be fast: no extra app to run, all things in single window, whole process as quick and clear as possible.
I think there would be needed following features:
extremely light "card table" app:
* no rules coded
* no places on table hard-coded (cards are floating free, or lets say they are aligned to 5 or 10 pix grid)
* player can move any card in any place
* "hidden area" that opponents can conceal cards that are in his hand
* common area (just a stripe coloured) for battles and whatnot
* simple chat
* battle info
* possible action set of: send chat message, moving cards in XY direction, move on top, move to bottom, mark/unmark card, draw card from deck, shuffle deck with cards on it, turn card face up/down
* identified with a number
* lurkers allowed to watch (?)
*additional, extra features - influence points (that just would be a row of checkboxes on each side), some extra lamps (phase indicator/switcher, "hold on, I'll play event now" button. Also things like game reports would be cool to have half-automated.
Mock-up included.
simple deck editor:
* light, quick
* let you save your decks between plays (we may limit this to 2 or 4 decks per account)
* discarded cards should be removed by default
* let you test all cards proposed for game
Now the questions follow:
Do you think it would be needed?
Do you think its the shape we would need?
Do you think its worth the work?
Any other suggestions?
I think there would be needed an app other than full-blown graphic client, keeped always up to date, that once build will have no bigger need for maintaining it (like updating the decks with dozens of card in an external client would).
I see two major fields of playtesting: developing cards and checking balancing across factions. Testing should be fast: no extra app to run, all things in single window, whole process as quick and clear as possible.
I think there would be needed following features:
extremely light "card table" app:
* no rules coded
* no places on table hard-coded (cards are floating free, or lets say they are aligned to 5 or 10 pix grid)
* player can move any card in any place
* "hidden area" that opponents can conceal cards that are in his hand
* common area (just a stripe coloured) for battles and whatnot
* simple chat
* battle info
* possible action set of: send chat message, moving cards in XY direction, move on top, move to bottom, mark/unmark card, draw card from deck, shuffle deck with cards on it, turn card face up/down
* identified with a number
* lurkers allowed to watch (?)
*additional, extra features - influence points (that just would be a row of checkboxes on each side), some extra lamps (phase indicator/switcher, "hold on, I'll play event now" button. Also things like game reports would be cool to have half-automated.
Mock-up included.
simple deck editor:
* light, quick
* let you save your decks between plays (we may limit this to 2 or 4 decks per account)
* discarded cards should be removed by default
* let you test all cards proposed for game
Now the questions follow:
Do you think it would be needed?
Do you think its the shape we would need?
Do you think its worth the work?
Any other suggestions?