| First Epsidoe | Previous Epsidoe | Random Epsidoe | |
* * *
July 30, 2010
Epsidoe 72: Hooray for Drawings
It's been too long since I put up a properly drawn IC Epsidoe. I can't believe I actually stopped play Crossfire [link] long enough to put it together. Actually, I've sort of burnt myself out of CF. Playing the same game from sun up to sun down every day for a few weeks can do that to you.
So for the rest of this entry, I'm going to talk about an interesting project I found recently called WTactics [link]. WTactics is an Open Source Card Game based on the Battle for Wesnoth [link]... which is something I've been wanting to see for a long time (card game... not Wesnoth). Oddly enough, the focus on this project isn't creating a computer card game (blasphemous, eh?), but creating a set of rules and cards that people can download, print out, and cut up... like the good old Ishara and Evoblade cards of days long past.
The rules are quite unique, even if they're still being worked on. According to the roadmap, the folks at WTactics are trying to come up with a game by removing two traditionally crucial elements of card games.
First of all, the power of cards in most collectible card games are usually governed by its supposed 'rarity', which is a variable that may or may not exist, representing how often it shows up in booster packs. Since WTactics is open source, and all of the cards are free to download, this pseudo-variable can not be used to govern power. This means that all of the cards will have strengths and weaknesses, and determining the tradeoffs is an exercise left to the players. I feel sorry for the folks doing the balancing here.
Secondly, unlike most card games, the 'luck of the draw' factor is being factored out. Instead of drawing a card each turn and playing things in your hand, at the moment, they want to make the entire deck an open book and let you do whatever you want. In fact, to paraphrase the design document itself, they want to make the game as 'deterministic as possible'. In other words, they're making this game just for me. :)
Now, one thing that was a little disturbing about the game was that the developers basically snagged all of the Wesnoth art and used that for the card images. However, from the blog posts, it looks as though the team has someone drawing more card art for them (since I've been seeing card pictures using art that I can't find in the Wesnoth SVN). The one thing I love the most about card games... other than the thrill of a decisive tactical victory, is that your card collection doubles as an art gallery. If the WTactics team is really getting some new card artwork done, then these will be valuable contributions to the Free and Open Source world.
Hard to believe school starts back in less than a month. I can't wait for the Summer of Undefined Behavior 2010 to finally come to a close so I can back to my classes.
* * *
Visit the Downloads page for software and other goodies!
About the Site
