Hi! I'm not sure if this is the correct channel for this, but I'll post it anyway. I have an idea for a game, but I want to refine it before looking for people to help me make it.
As said in the title, the idea is to create a roguelike card-builder game. The game is separated into 3 parts:
- Boat management (space management)
- Map navigation
- Fight
Boat management (space management)
In a lot of card-builder game, it is easier to gain cards that it is to lose them. In this game, the problem is to fit all the cards you want. Each card covers an area (1x1, 1x2, 2x2, ...), but the space you are allowed is limited. Therefore, you will have to choose which card you want to keep. The cards on the boat will be the only ones available in fights. The other ones will put in a "excess" pile where you will be able to sell them for resources.
Map navigation
Once your organize your cards, you are ready to choose your foes. On each world, the player is offered the choice of 3 islands. Each island has it's own difficulty, but the player only knows the difficulty level (Easy, Normal and Hard). The player can choose to enter the islands in any order they want (even skip one if they feel like it). Each island is composed of a series of fights and shops (see Slay the Spire's map). If the island is too difficult, you can, at any time, run away from it. However, you will lose some things (card, money, health). At the end of the island, the player gets new cards, depending on the island's difficutly (e.g.: 1 for Easy; 2 for Normal; 3 for Hard).
Once the player feels ready, they can challenge the boss. It is a harder fight (or island; I don't know yet). Upon winning, they go to the next world? Depending on the length of a run (all 3 islands), I will have to see if the game is multiple worlds.
Fight
On each turn, the game presents 8 cards. The player can do 3 things with a card: block, play or nothing. Doing nothing does nothing, but blocking the card (one per round) allows to keep this card for the next turn. The rest gets shuffled and new cards are drawn. To play cards, you select which card you want to play and the order. The game will simply play the cards in this order.
Since you don't have the ability to target foes directly, most of the fights will be 1 vs 1. However, some fights might have against multiple foes. Of course, the additional foes will only be supporting the main one (the one you are targetting). It would be unfair to have two strong foes while you can't even target. To make those fights easier, there will be cards that hit multiple targets.
The game doesn't prevent you from playing all of your cards at once. BUT, each card has a sleep counter. When the card is played, the slot will "sleep" for X turns. A sleep slot decreases the power of the card.
Card ideas
Yes, the game might be complex. However, I feel like this complexity can offer some interesting combos that affect all aspects of the game in a way. There will be cards that will be solely oriented towards a certain aspect. Most likely, those cards will be "beginner" cards, due to their lack of complexity (e.g.: deal 6 damage; give 3 seats). However, more complex cards should tend to affect multiple aspects (deal 3 for each space taken; deal 3 per difficulty; add 1 seat per difficulty).
Conclusion
Personally, I believe the idea could work. Of course, I know it still requires work, but from someone better than I for design. I just wanted to refine the idea before looking for people to help me make this idea come true. I prefer to realize that the idea is flawed now than half way into making.
Thank you for the feedback,
- WarperSan