maybe somthing that bases of dragons ?

like all sorts of dragons burning eachother down for their predatory hunger ?

A cops & robbers/bank job kind of deal.

Ever heard of the perils of design by committee?

Liosan

What about a fast-paced FPS deathmatch style game like Quake Live, Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress 2, etc.?

@Liosan: yup. been there done that.

@RustyKeyes & copapoc: Nice ideas. Thanks.

what about something like a strategy game with cards. So it plays like Age of Empires, but with cards and no computer. I'm not sure if we can pull this off though.

SMR) That idea's been buzzing in my head for a bit, and I tried to make it possible via Magic (but no dice there). The only exception is that I'd make it more encompassing; after all, what would a bunch of Sangheili think when Mr. Mumbles and Vince from ShamWow flank them and gack them?[/sarcasm]

A music based game?
More exact ideas latter on.

Edit: No, that wasn't a good idea
Maybe a game where you got a commander (Like heros in WoW tcg) that reminds of magic but the commander uses some form of counters (like loyalty on a planeswalker) that he/she/it(Maybe a genderless alien) uses to activate abilitys

I'm willing to have a go at the template when all the card and game elements have been decided - but only if the game developed is actually a good one (not just by my book, but seriously worth the time and effort of designing a template for.)

Also, I'd suggest that the game goes without too much overbearing structure. No formation like in VS, no limited permanent count like in YGO, and an half dozen card types at most.

Here is my idea for a game:

Plotline- the Game!
Make your own movie/t.v. show!

I. Types:
a. Stars – nobody, somebody, star, super star
b. Producers
c. Locations (includes movie lots)
d. T.V. channels - some channels will let you get away with more things than others, some have different effects on the game
e. Effects – deadlines, over budget, stars drug/alcohol problems, etc…
f. Commercials – humorous cards to lighten the mood (think wacky packages)
II. Types of movies/shows – sports, drama, action, etc…
III. Goals – Reach target audience, Make one gajillion dollars at the box office, etc…

I'll second the above idea and add support for plays, web shows, and other forms of media.

Insulting.
Disgusting.
Likely to slot Viacom off.

I love it.

@ Art_Freak: Yeah, a simple still fun game is what we need.

with experience designing cards for 3 different ccgs, I have to say that theme of the game is far less important then mechanics and play style.

Why not focus on mechanics first and make the first TRULY universal card game?

With a well built universal card game, suddenly anything is possible, using keywords, template tweeks, etc.

@copapoc can make a Dragons game. @RustyKeyes can make a cops and robbers game. @smr1313 can make a deathmatch game. @ATacticalWaffle can make a Age of empires game (although wasn't one of those already done?) @Menasor can make a movie studio game (although cheap-ass already made one that ROCKS!) *OCB777 can make a game that pits Urza against Elminster in a battle for magical supremacy.

The secret is in the design. how do develop a sytsem that allows Gunslingers to fight Gundams and not just be squashed?

VS INTENDED to be a universal game. But the fact that it focused on Comic books and had complicated placement and attack system made it less approachable by player average. UFS also was supposed to be a universal game, but it suffered from lack of interest at a time when a games shelf life was one set.

What we need is a fast-paced, easy, faction/team based game (ala Doomtown/L5R) that allows for each faction to have special abilities, exclusive to them, without making it too overbalanced to one team. hell even superman is weak to magic....

I think instead of throwing out ideas about style, we should be discussing mechanics ideas, and selecting project leaders (no, sadly, I'm not volunteering. I have a lot on my plat and leading people is not another I need, perhaps I can be a "design consultant" but I really don't need ANOTHER project making it hard for me to find time to watch Heroes.)

I used to have a spiral notebook with ideas for mechanics. I'll see if I still have it IF i get time.

Something truly universal would not work. Why? Because you'd have so many rules and win conditions your rulebook would be the approximate size of both Testaments AND the Qur'an! To be truly universal, everything must be accounted for.

The best we can hope for is universal in respect to a goal. A FPS-styled game can easily fit this bill; a Hollywood-based game not so much (because in effect there's only one studio running things; the MPAA).

Forgot about the props/equipment.

a universal game can be done considering that

-each sort of cards may not have "new" win conditions
-that there wil be a scale for all values
* this means a basic number of values : if one would go up another one goes down

this way we CAN have a universal game, that's wich we did wit magic anyways

-we made dragons
-we made fancards
-we made ... (*)

*: fill in wath u w

so wy can't we make a template that can hold them all ??

We *didn't* add universality to Magic; its win conditions are still primarily geared towards military means. Different styles require different win conditions (i.e. a hollywood based game would not be based on combat, as most TCGs are nowadays, and a racing game would be a "count-up", like Neopets and Heresy, other than a "countdown" as most other games possess).

To think about universality, one must also consider the methods both of play and of victory. Most games on the market are combat-oriented, countdown-tally games, like Yu-Gi-Oh!, L5R, and M:tG. A game such as Menasor suggests could not cope with such a tactic (no matter the blockbuster movies it would entail); it'd be antithetical. Likewise, games that have a "banking" win condition (Neopets, Mausoleum, and Heresy) would not be able to handle this at all; the "banking" mechanism is a count-up methodology and wouldn't be able to coexist beside a countdown methodology without feeling like a Healer with pipe-cleaner "tentacles". And games with "scorched-Earth" or other alternate win conditions (Pokémon) would be approximately akin to these games the way Ninja Gaiden is related to Peggle, i.e. worlds apart and incompatible.

Thus, true universality is unrealistic. The best we can hope for is to decide the style of game (Banking? Combat? Kill-em-all-let-God-sort-them-out?) and build based upon *that* goal.

I agree with Jéské here. If we did make a universal card game it would soon devolve into a yelling match arguing what the heck each card did (not to mention the template would end up looking more like a spreadsheet.)

Actually, mechanics are much more important than theme. Theme can drive the mechanics but you can normally put a variety of themes onto any given mechanic. So yeah, feel free to use your theme as a starting point, but don't obsess over it. You just have to throw ideas out there and see what sticks.

This was the point I was responding to, Picks-At-Flies. While themes can be crammed onto mechanics, too many mechanics and the theme becomes immaterial and you're carrying a War and Peace-sized rules "booklet".

I'm not saying "pick a theme". I'm saying "Pick a primary win mechanic".

Here's an interesting concept derived from magic's most common alternative win conditions: what if the main win condition of this was making your opponents run out of cards? It would be original and differentiate itself from other games because decking is usually a side win condition or a special case.

I believe the Harry Potter TCG has decking as a primary condition, and I know the DBZ CCG does. I did not mention decking because having that as the only win condition can make for frustration unless handled expertly.

Harry Potter ccg does indeed feature milling as the only wincon, and it actually works quite well. Essentially, all direct damage turns into that amount of mill, and they included a lot of graveyard tutoring, especially of the sort that addes x chosen cards back into your deck.

I came up with another good idea:

How about a game where everything would be like an instant. The games would only last 5 min. at the most. Each player would have something to measure to how much and how powerful your magic could be. Each player would have to respond to the other players spells fast. To measure that we could possibly have each player get, lets say 5 points each response. Most spells cost 1, 2, or 3 points, but some more powerful ones would cost 7, 8, or 9 so it takes a few turns to put down spells. The games would be fast paced, require skill, and fun. There would only be one or two ways to win too.

I've always wanted to see an asymetrical tower defense card game. One player is trying to get n number of "mobs" through and another is trying to stop them before the first player runs out of "waves"

The issue I always ran into was making it dynamic enough to be fun, it would always seem to be decided in the first wave and if the 2nd player could get enough down he wins. Plus it's hard to have the first player get progressively stronger without something strange or weird.

Netrunner did this, and did it WELL. Unfortunately, it's literally impossible to find these days for a reasonable price.

I like the idea of a universal two pronged vic condition..Firs was already mentioned by Jeske the Decking win. The other is a secondary win condition from the Doomtown collectible card game entitled Victory points.

Basicallt virctory point means, if you pull of your victory conditions that collect you victory points before your opponent deck, decks you or gets victory points, you win.

Say you make a Virtua Fighter game, your victory condition would be attached to character to character combat. Using cards that let you enter "duels" and winning those duels would give you a vic point. 10 vic points win you the game.

Or if you are a movie studio you would need certain cards to create a movie, fulfill those conditions, make your movie and you get a vic points, due to difficulty in the conditions, you would need 5 vic points to win the game.

each "faction" would have its own condition and its own vp require to win...

ocb777) Each "faction" requiring its own VP total would invariably lead to some form of unbalance due to the metagame; everyone would pick the faction(s) with the lowest VP requirement and/or the fastest VP acquisition rate.

Also, decking wins are (for the most part) a universal win condition. It's only primary if all the cards in the game are mostly geared toward mill (HP, DBZ).

Virtua Fighter would fall closer to the UFS card game (and would likely be easier to do in that setting, which is one-on-one "scorched-earth".

Menasor) We haven't decided the theme or even primary condition of the game yet, so calm down. Just because you show a card frame does not mean we're gonna be able to use it, especially at this stage.

EDIT) I'm doing a bit of research into wincons for several TCGs and putting them in table format. So far as I am aware, most games have a deckout wincon (either primary or secondary) and either a zero-out, bankout, or wipeout con as well (some games, like Illuminati: New World Order and Pokémon, have these as secondary wincons (Wipeout in both cases) to an alternate primary wincon - Illuminati's 12th Man and Pokémon's Prizes). Thus far, seven games IO've looked at (Pokémon, Munchkin, LOTR and its predecessor Middle-Earth, Duel Masters, Illuminati, and Spellfire) do not have "standard" primary wincons (Prizes, :L10, Destroy the One Ring, Get thru enemy defenses, 12th man, Sixth Realm).

Perhaps to create a dynamic play-style, we could have two win conditions that both must be met for victory. Think of when you're dominating a chess match and your opponent is down to just a few pieces. Even though he's nearly defenceless, you still need to trap his king before you win.

I'm thinking we could have cards that get you closer to one of the conditions or the other, but not both. To use magic as an example, pretend that you needed to both deal 20 damage to an opponent AND clear out their field of creatures. A mono green deck would be fairly good at dealing the damage but would fall short of the creature clause. Then, that player is naturally inclined to make a deck from a mix of green and black/red cards.

windandfire) Chess games end in stalemate in some of those cases, and having two simultaneous wincons is more a burden than a benefit. Reason dictates that someone who already has enough wealth to conquer a foe or whom has already killed his foe or that foe's followers (Wincon 1) does not need to pursue damnatio memoriae (Wincon 2).

Remember of course that games can have multiple wincons without having them enshrined in base rules. For instance, l5rs 'collect the five rings', or mtg's Test of Endurance.

FPM) I wasn't counting wincons spelled out only on cards (i.e. M:tG's Test of Endurance, YGO's Exodia, Illuminati's Secret Goals) because of the golden rule of T/CCGs - If a card conflicts with the rules, err on the side of the card.

As a new idea, what about having multiple time eras in a game?
For example (using format "Age (Example)"):
-Prehistoric (Caveman)
-Classical (Greek)
-Medieval (European)
-Modern (WWII)
-Future(Star Wars)

Issues include making all ages reasonably equal (maybe earlier ages have stronger/tougher units, and later ones better tools & augments?); working out cost system (such as Yu-Gi-Oh's one-monster-per-turn or MtG's mana costs or LOTR's Twilight costs); and pretty much everything else - its just an idea.

::EDIT::
One other idea - commerce game, when the person w/ most $ wins.
You have sources of income, jobs, espionage, mercenaries...
Sort of like merchant princes, either medieval or futuristic.

I don't think World War 2 counts as modern... I mean you can buy a more powerful computer then the combined allied forces for a few bucks.

Modern, as in post-Industrial Revolution.
WWII is pretty modern compared to knights on horseback or dudes in togas or smacking each other with clubs.
Anyhow, WWII is just an example, not a definition.

Here is a prototype template I made:

Each square represents one person that you would need to make the film/show come to life.

Let's say that you wanted to make a drama, so you would need a producer, director, and at least 3 or 4 stars (five to six squares). The rest of the squares can be filled with all different types of people, (up to eight) if and only if it fit's into the budget. The budget includes: salaries, cost of shooting in various locations, props (including clothing), editing, and advertising.
_____________

What do t.v. stations and movie companys like the most? Saving money, and making money.
Thus a game based on making a t.v. show/movie would have two victory conditions:

I. Not going over budget
Rule: Any money left over from the budget can go into profits.
If you'll look at the prototype card you can understand where i'm coming from.

II. Profit
Profits depend on the type of film/show and advertising. Do you want to rake in millions or make an art house film? Should your movie open nationwide, or internationally? (If you got the cash, you can do both).

Alternate win condition:
I. Cult classic - a movie or t.v. show does not have to make a lot of money for a lot of people to like it. This victory condition takes into account the amount of people who like the film/show.

II. Target audience - this victory condition measures how well your t.v. show/movie connected with your target audience. (ex.- different age groups, men, women, children, etc...)

Menasor) You've already shown this. I've already pointed out that we don't even know the fragging theme or even the wincon of the game yet.

If you're so gung-ho about a movie-related game, code it yourself. Don't try and force us to adopt it w/o our assent.

I apologize for being so strong about this, but we're still discussing the primary victory condition and you're already stomping on as if you've already decided for us. It's a bit annoying.

Another idea, flavor-wisely:

Perhaps some kind of Myths theme could be used? Preferably a mixture of cavemen, greek heroes and monsters. The game would be oriented about creatures. Perhaps the summoned cards could help the player on a treasure hunt to get hold of some sort of epic artifact, etc.

Mechanically:

A wincon could be that each player has a "treasure" or "artifact" or "price" - and each player has to fight through the enemy creatures/monsters/characters in order to get hold of the enemy treasure. Perhaps the artifact you chose would have an impact on the game play (With "Golden Helmet of Zeus" giving a boost to the owners' creatures' attack and "Horn of the Goblins" auto-summoning a goblin per turn?)

Decking, of course, would also be a possible wincon.

I have no idea what resources could be implemented. Perhaps a new sort of lands granting a pop limit - fx a "Sunken Temple" allowed up to 4 food points for regular creatures and allowed an additional 2 food points to Merman creatures (Or whatever), while a "Farm" allowed up to 5 food points.

Flying monsters could possibly choose to avoid a set number of blockers (If three monsters block the way to the treasure, a "Jumping Caveman" can "jump" over one blocker before fighting the next, "Winged Liontaur" could "float" over two blockers and a "Dragon of Fire" could "fly" past all three. Of course there's a limit of these passings).

Thoughts on the mechanics?

Thought I'd sling these thread-ways, as I've had these concepts kicking around for a while, and I haven't had the time nor the motivation to get them designed and off the ground

1) A 'Tomb Raider'-type game, where each player spends their turns doing research/legwork/travelling to reach a certain secret goal - a destination, such as Atlantis, or a relic, like Excalibur.

2) Battle of the Bands. Each player takes on the role of manager to a musical act.

I've got tons more notes on both concepts (at least, I've got a ton of notes in my head) but I thought I'd throw up the ideas first, and the details later, if the ideas fly.

- bW

Porn Hero: The Trading Card Game (like Guitar Hero)

Each player is a pornstar, they have to take jobs, make contacts, learn "Moves" and complete films and photshoots (quest oriented) to make it to the top of the industry before their opponents and/or the effects of aging catch up with them!

WinCon = "Winning an award" (various award cards have contitions like "Make five videos with 100,000 sales or more") or "outlast your opponent" (without special cards, the "day" you "turn 35" your career is over. lol)

ocb...

This game has to represent MSE2 and the forum... so yeah. Sorry, but I certainly don't want anything with porn involved representing us. It might be a funny idea, but just no.

Why don't we do a game based on creating a template or set since it's to represent the MSE community. The win cons would be 1) A completed template/set or 2) Decking (the opponent has run out of ideas). The card types would be: If template: script, set field, card field, style, and symbol; If set: concept, creator, design, art, and time.

Basically you'd start the game with a deck and 10 "community interest points". Each card played would cost points but also provided more points based on it's effect (easier to play = fewer points, harder to play = more points). Cards could also be played that affect your opponent's interest pool so that as your project gains momentum, their project loses it.

Don't know if it interests anyone, but I think it sounds kind of fun and fairly representative of what we do. If there's interest we can all work on what the card types and their functions and the rules should be, but I won't elaborate more on it right now.

(After I reread that last part it sounded a little weird...)

Art_Freak said:"ocb...

"This game has to represent MSE2 and the forum... so yeah. Sorry, but I certainly don't want anything with porn involved representing us. It might be a funny idea, but just no."

I did not present this as a serious idea. It was more meant as a sarcastic remark, we can throw a million ideas, but really at this point that's all they are. Unless someone "takes charge" of this project, its gonna end up a bunch of ideas with their creators pushing to make that the game. And then we "appoint" a panel of guys, and each one wants their idea to be the game, or is pissed that their idea ISN'T the game.

The first thing that the community needs to to if the community wants to make a game is elect the leaders of the project.

Then, those leaders can request ideas once they have discussed HOW to approach the taking of suggestions.

Then they with the help of the community narrow it down to 1 idea, etc, etc, etc...

As it stands we are putting the cart before the horse, and I believe in the end, it is to the detriment of the idea of a community based game.

Of course, I may not be the best source, having worked on both real and fan based projects, and seeing all the problems therein, I'm bitter and jaded and believe that this is never going to make it past the brainstorming stage.

Honestly with so many games that don't have support in MSE I'd rather see those games worked on, instead of us all coming up with ideas to make a game. A long and arduous process that may never see the light of day.

Just my Two bucks.

I am now going to go work on the World of Warcraft TCG Template.

I like Art Freak's idea, if only because it allows me to legitimitly make a card for myself. My ego also agrees. Also, if we do go along with idea, I call dibs on being a B.F.M-like card where you have to kill off both me and my ego.

ocb: You're point about needing leaders is valid, and that's really what we should work on now. We have plenty of ideas to get a game out of, but no set leaders. How about this: Everybody name 5 people who have shown genuine interest in this project are eligible (in other words, people who have posted here) that you would like to see working as the leader on this project. The top 3 named people in a span of a week will be the leaders. If that sounds like a fair way of deciding the leaders then great, if not, let's here some suggestions.

Also, I knew you were joking ("It might be a funny idea..."), but not everyone that reads your post would. Sarcasm doesn't always translate and it can be taken seriously. The internet is funny like that.

ocb777
smr1313
Tac-Waff
Art_Freak
copapoc

I would have included Menasor were it not for the fact he's twice attempted to force the "movie" idea down our throats. I'd rather have someone who will respect consensus leading this.

My 5 leaders:
copapoc
Art_Freak
Myself
Jeske
smr1313

Sorry I voted myself, but I do show interest in this.

PS: You know, smr1313 really needs to update this topic, he hasn't said anything, he just started it all.

As long as the votes are being put out there I'll add mine to the pool:

smr1313
Jeske Couriano
A Tacticle Waffle
Powerrox93
ocb777

I guess we'll have our top 3 next sunday.

When you say next sunday, do you mean tomorrow or next week.