4 Random Mini-Projects from the Past (and a Surge of Unexpected Nostalgic Gratitude)

What a rough year. So little free time, so much stress about finances, and so much hinging on my success in this coding certification. Luckily, the course is going good for the most part (I seem to learn by osmosis—even on days I don't pay attention I seem to soak in the knowledge and remember it later), we have WIC, and I just started a D&D group with my wife, my brother, and his wife. A weekly group! I couldn't be happier. Having something like that to look forward to each Wednesday night is a real buzz. Maybe I'll summarize their adventures on the blog every few weeks. It could be a fun thing to showcase, since I'm going to be doing a lot of worldbuilding for it.

Anyway, today I want to just dig up a few old projects from my past to showcase them for you. I found them while looking through old tablet boxes at my parents' house, and I gotta tell ya, those blasts from the past feel real nice. Honestly, one of the things that just keeps me going in life is seeing all the stuff I came up with as a kid. It gives me hope of having continual creativity in years to come.

Battle card 2.0: Wild Archon

I just had the urge to resume working on these now that I have a lull in responsibilities. Hopefully I'll be able to use this motivations to get back into Knight Guy. I liked the way this Battle Card turned out.

Behind WarCraft III: An Interview with Campaign Designer David Fried

As a fanatic of WarCraft III since the game came out when I was in eighth grade, I was honored to have had the awesome chance to speak with an actual developer of the game, David Fried. David came in contact with me through my WarCraft III Easter Egg videos (which can be found here), and graciously answered my questions about his experience as a campaign designer and writer.

Battle Card 2.0: Archangel

This one was pretty fun. I'm basically doing one of each army type, so I chose the Archangel as the one from the Good army. I liked angels a lot when I was a kid, and even had two separate Archangel cards in my deck, along with a pet phoenix. This one combines the abilities of the two. I think this card may have a bit too much yellow on it, but oh well.

Battle Card 2.0: Black Magus

Hurray for graphic art! I got the idea to remake a few of my old Battle Cards, and while at it I decided to experiment with a new art style: overlaying textures over each color. I think this one turned out pretty well, and I'm excited to make four or five more to present to you!

The old version of the card looked a lot more like a Black Mage from the Final Fantasy series, so I added my own twist to his look. I also took some liberty in making the description a lot more interesting.

Battle Cards Spotlight 3a: Gameplay I

Part 3a: Gameplay

I'm not sure if my friends and I ever came up with a standardized way of playing Battle Cards. In fact, to my memory I can only remember playing about ten full games total. There were some mechanics that we never were able to completely iron out before the Age of Battle Cards came to an end, but I'll do my best to remember for the purposes of this post.

Battle Cards Spotlight 2: Design

Part 2: Design

The attributes of our cards evolved over time, just like any project that adds on to itself. But we were able to basically divide the types of cards we manufactured into some simple categories that stuck. Each card contained one of these symbols in the upper-right corner, signifying its element or function:

Battle Cards Spotlight 1: History

I found my old Battle Card deck, so I finally get to make some project spotlights and explain what they're all about! Let's start at the beginning...

Part I: The History of Battle Cards

Epic Chess

Happy Holidays, everyone!

I've worked on Epic Chess earlier last month, and had a bit of fun with it, but like all "great" projects, I've gotten bored with its downsides. However, I still think it's a great concept and easy to get back into any time I want.

A selection of Epic Chess cards.

Below is a list of what each card does. If you want, you can make your own simple cards. They obviously don't need awesome pictures on them like mine do. They can just be little tabs of paper with the word of the attack on one side. I'm also thinking that it'd be nice to have tiny rubber bands or rings of some kind, to record which pieces have buffs that last more than one turn such as Slow, Petard, etc.

Each card has an ability, but it also needs to have a spectrum of which pieces you can target (K=King, R=Rook, etc) on which side (B=Enemy bishop, K=Any knight, P=Your own pawns only). Many if not all also need a determiner of when you can use the card. For example, can I play a card and then make my move? Or does my playing the card use up my turn? These are things I still need to figure out.

Basic Cards - 2 of each card

• Slow - Choose an opponent's piece. The piece can only move 1 square in its respective pattern on its next move. (QBKR)
• Teleport - Move a piece to any unoccupied square on the board. A pawn moved in this way may not be promoted. (KQBKRP)
• Control - For your turn, move one of your opponent's pieces instead of yours. (KQBKRP)
• Disarm - Choose an enemy piece. It cannot attack during its next move. (This can interrupt check) (KQBKRP)
• Tactics - Use this turn to move 2 of your pieces instead of one; however, you may not attack with either. (KQBKRP)
• Stealth - One piece may move through other pieces for this turn only. You may not attack this turn. (QBRP)
• Doppelgänger - Switch an enemy piece with an equal piece of yours. (KQBKRP)
• Petard - Choose a piece. When the piece engages in battle (either attacking or being attacked) both pieces are destroyed. Kings are unaffected. (QBKRP)
• Strike - Destroy one enemy pawn, or one friendly pawn and one enemy adjacent to it. (PP+?)
• Revive - Place one of your dead pieces from the graveyard into an unoccupied square on your first row. (QBKRP)
• Loyalty - Choose a piece. If that piece is taken, place it on the square of the nearest pawn and kill the pawn instead. (QBKR)
• Haste - Move one of your pieces twice this turn. It may only attack one enemy during its two moves. (KQBKRP)

 
Unique Cards - 1 of each card

• Joust - Knight Card - On your Knight's move, destroy all pieces through which it moves. (KQBKRP) 
• Wall - Rook Card - Walls extend either vertically or horizontally from the selected Rook. No pieces can pass through the walls. They extend as pieces move out of their way, and remain until the Rook moves or dies. (R)
• Conversion - Bishop Card - Move your Bishop 1 space either horizontally or vertically, changing the color of square on which it moves diagonally. (B)
• Oppugn - King Card - When an enemy piece puts your King into check, play this card to instantly kill the piece. (QBKRP)
• Fervor - King Card - When played, allows the King to move as many spaces as there are friendly pieces in the graveyard. (K)

Those are the cards I've come up with, but that was the easy and fun part. The part I'm struggling with now, after several rounds of testing, is the most important rule: How do you obtain cards in the first place? I've come up with a tentative set-up rule, which is that each player draws five cards, but how do they obtain more? Or do they obtain more? Every attempt I've made to make this system work has failed.

Killing pieces to gain cards quickly sways the game in the favor of the player who kills more, thus making it easier to kill more and more, etc.

Drawing a card as an alternative to reviving a friendly piece when a pawn gets to the other side sounds like a good idea, but how often do you really get a pawn to the opposite side? And even then, you probably have only reached it after you've lost your queen, and reviving her is almost always a better choice than getting Haste or Stealth, which won't help you at all.

I think this game has lots of potential, but I need suggestions. If anyone wants to play a game of it with me, or have any ideas after trying it themselves, let me know. For now, enjoy this small bit of one of my rare projects!

Corridor Bit: Skills and Classes

Shown in this picture are Corridor's Skill Cards, a system never before used on The Hero games due to lack of stats, turns, organized battle systems, etc. The way they work on Corridor is based on the hero's class, another new feature. Classes, in turn, are based on stats. At the beginning of a game, players place 3 stat points in any combination in their four stat areas, Attack, Defense, Magic, and Magic Defense. Depending on their combination, a class is determined that they keep throughout the game. A player who chooses pure Magic damage with no defense is a Warlock berzerker class, while a mixture of Magic and Attack damage alone is a rogue class, either a Spellsword or Assassin. A complete balance with no real specialization, such as one point in each of Attack, Magic, and Magic Defense is an Apprentice, which is a wanderer-grouped class.

Hero classes such as Barbarians and Knights draw two "warrior" skill cards, while mage-themed classes such as Sorcerors and Wizards draw two "mage" skill cards. Hybrids, such as Rune Knights and Witchhunters, draw a "rogue" skill card and a mage or warrior one, depending on which they more closely lean towards stat-wise. A wanderer class such as a Mercenary draws two cards at random, not heeding its type.

Gameplay presents opportunities to "purchase" new skills at random from the deck, through items or through collecting enough gold. It is also currently a function of the game to trade skills from player to player, but it's one of those functions that isn't set in stone quite yet.

So far the Skill Cards have added a lot of fun aspects to the game; However, there are a lot of balances that need doing, which are important to making the game balanced, fun, not too hard or too easy. So far the issue has been the game is too easy, especially when playing three player.

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Because of so many balances that need doing, as well as having to do so much work on the game by myself, I've decided to take a hiatus for an undetermined amount of time on the game. Corridor has been fun to make and play, but there is an instinct in me seen in many a WarCraft III and Heroes of Might and Magic scenario that discourages me when I work too hard in a small amount of time and it ends up having bugs that are not readily fixable.

In other words, encouragement will be needed for me to continue on the game. My main goal was to have the game finished and balanced in a year, which should be easy to do; especially after about 90% of the game was made in a little over a month and a half. I also plan to continue putting Corridor Bits on this blog as a part of self-encouragement to excite me about finishing the game someday.

Thank you Beta gametesters:

• Jon Ward
• Dustin Clements
• Keaton Ballard
• Shandee Ballard
• Tanner Ballard