Fire and Ice

So last night I took my current CCG design doc, about 200 cards I’ve already put to paper, and me and a good testing/idea buddy of mine Michael Marshall (God bless him) learned my game and we consequently tried to play it via Magic Workstation. I won’t get into the hour or so it took to actually get the damn set working in the game client.

Man, talk about a fucking train wreck. This must be what its like for every game, let alone CCG, ever developed.

First it seemed that my alternate winning condition isn’t powerful enough. Then the system by which your life points were measured was a little too easy to overwhelm. Then there was a question of attack phases, and why certain phases exist.

Then I change about 3–4 rules on the fly to see if that improves things (“Let’s try another game with this different…”). Hilarity ensues. This was about the time that Mike said “Uh, I gotta go.” This is geekspeak for “Fix your shit, we’ll work on it tomorrow.” I don’t blame him. The difference is that I’ve had these ideas running around my head for weeks (some of them for much longer), yet the struggle to make them actually function as promised, or function differently…that is the question.

Mike promised to think on it, and of course its all I can think of at some points during the day. I get quite obsessive with my projects, and this is no exception. I’ll be lucky to tear myself away from this damn thing until I finish it, and I can’t wait until the CCG alchemy turns out correct and I finally drill down to the core of the game and let it shine for everyone.

But until then the questions remain as to how best to proceed, how best to design and develop the game as it stands, and what card-based casualties will have to be rectified to make it work.

But I’ll make it work, it’s all I can do not to do so. There are times in this life when you see a glimpse of the future, a glimpse of something greater than yourself. Last night I had one of those, but it will be a job to get it as good as it is in my head. That is my task. I hope I do much better, and at a faster pace too.