Valkyrian Games

[valkyriangames]

What's Going On

It's been a while since I've updated news. That's because there hasn't really been any! I've laid out all the different changes I need to make, but it's really up to some card redesigns now and I don't really want to do that until the tools I plan to use to make the new card graphics are made, and that is the current bottleneck.

Of course, I am the one that will be developing the tools I need, so work has not stopped. At the moment, however, the program is more something I would rather post info about on my personal site: www.thiefknight.com

I will post again when there are more news in the card gaming front.

[valkyriangames]

Week 5 & 6 Update - Play Testing Results

So this past week has been about play testing the game which I still have not settled on an official name yet. It's highly likely, at this point, that this incarnation of the game will be Freya's Odyssey Epic as the cards, characters, as well as gameplay elements are all taken from that world.

After a lot of play testing, we've come up with some ground rules to go off of which we enjoyed. First I'd like to talk about some concerns I had going into this design. The game is centered about a fail group of adventurers that are incompetent in battle and are more likely to hurt themselves than the opponent. There was concern that having your heroes continually hurt themselves would lead to great frustration, but after testing it seems to be not an issue and can be a source of great hilarity. Another concern was that the rules would be too complicated, but in tests, the amount of math involved became more of a concern than rules. While it was still fun, I can't deny that it was a very math heavy game and not everyone will be willing to sit through the calculations, so I've heavily reduced the math involved in game play by reducing the amount of additions to attack and defense.

So I've decided to make a quick overview video of how the game will be played. Note that this is still early in testing so there will be a lot of adjustments to fix some issues with the game, but this should be enough to give you a general idea of how to play the game.

One thing I want to immediately append from the video is that attacks can be cancelled. This means if there are no enemies on the board, you do not have to roll your attack. It also means if you block an ally's attack with a counter attacking move, you do not have to roll the counter attack. However, cancelling an attack will not net you any experience, so there will be times when you do want to purposefully hit your ally.

A problem I encountered during test play is that we never really brought out a mini boss simply because it could be avoided. I'll be making an adjustment to have one of the quests require you to bring out a mini boss.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the progress we've made. One thing I'm especially happy with was the feeling of control you have the entire game through. It was very important to me that the game wasn't too luck driven, and I feel like I've accomplished that. Hopefully by next week I will have completed the program I'll be using to generate the new cards.

[valkyriangames]

Week 4 Update - Prototype Printing

The prototype was printed last week. It is currently on it's way. Once it arrives, I will possibly record an unboxing to show off the quality of the print. After some play testing, if all goes well, I will record a demo of gameplay as well. That will allow me to explain the rules in a more understandable way.

I do foresee a lot of work needing to go into rebalancing the stats since right now they are purely based on conjectural equations. My plan is to basically create a program that will act as a character creator you find in RPGs that will help keep the stats balanced. I'll reveal more details on this program as I work more on it.

Another thing I need to make a program for is assembling card art, because it's far too tedious to change each and every card PSD when I want to make a small change. I think this is may be a bottleneck for many would be card game developers as even with the tools available today, it's difficult to keep track of many hundreds of cards at once. So I figured why not develop one?

I think one concern I have for the game is that the design of the different card types are very different. While I'm pretty happy with the way most of them look, I may try to experiment with perhaps having them more consistent. I'll show off any experimenting I do on my twitter as per usual. Also, since there are actually writing news feeds here, I figured it's time to start signing posts.

-Thefre

[valkyriangames]

Week 3 Update - Prototype Sketch Alpha

It's time to polish the game up a bit to make it more easily playable. I've decided to leave loot cards out of it for now as they really weren't important to the cooperative aspect I want the core game to have. Another thing that changed is that it's not particularly important for there to be someone controlling the encounter deck. Any other rules will be determined once I print out the first prototype and do some test plays.

Thanks to suggestions by Astragali, I've decided upon three fonts which I will be using for all the cards of the game. Here an example of an Event encounter card:

I've designed all the cards I need so now I just have to actually make the graphics before I'm ready for printing. As the title of this post suggest, this first print run is a prototype sketch alpha. I will use this print run to test game balance and iron out the game rules until it's at a playable state. I may introduce some more cards if testing shows a need for them, but the goal is to solidify the game rules and balance before going into sketch beta phase which will basically be a release candidate. Once the beta clears of errors, I'll release the sketch version of the game to the public while working on coloring the pictures. Once the colored version is released, I'll discontinue the sketch version.

Anyway, you may see more preview cards coming out over the next few days since I'm working on the graphics now. Also remember that development is an open process. Your input could make a difference in the game so feel free to share your opinions at any time.

[valkyriangames]

Week 2 Update - Skill Cards

Last week the new gamemode of Epic Quest was revealed. Much of this week has been spent on the development of this gamemode. More specifically the development of skill cards. As previously stated this mode is a deck building game. The object of this game is to build player decks and work together to defeat the boss. Decks are built through the use of and purchase of skill cards.

Skill cards can be added to player decks only by spending XP to purchase them. XP is earned through the use of skill cards. Each player starts off with a starter deck consisting of ten cards. The deck contains five Basic Attack cards, and five Block cards which are used to attack and ward off enemies and build up enough XP to purchase higher level skills. The cost of each skill is determined by how powerful the attack is, and how likely it is to hit its intended target rather than backfiring to hit an ally. Each skill card contains XP (cost) in the top right hand corner, and on the bottom of the card in order are RXP (reward xp), B (boost), BXP (boost xp). Other card details vary based on the type of card.

The skill deck currently contains cards that are based in either attack or defense. Attack based skills have a chance of hitting enemies or allies in battle, and are how each player attacks. The chance of hitting either an enemy or an ally is based on the roll of a die. Attack skills utilize stats by pitting them against each other. For example the Basic Attack skill card sets Strength against Endurance. If the strength of the attacker is higher than the endurance of opponent, then damage is done. If strength is not higher than endurance, then the no damage is done. Some attack cards will damage both allies and enemies. Defense skills can be used to defend against an impending attack, Defensive skills do not guarantee safety from an attack, but are meant to boost stats so that the success of an incoming attack is less likely. For example the Block skill boosts Endurance by 5. This boost will reduce the chance of an attack causing damage. Some defense cards do not boost stats, but will remove damage, or cards.

Before you roll the die to use your skill there is the option to combine other cards of the same type in order to boost the effectiveness. However if your attack fails to hit your enemy and hits an ally instead that boosted effectiveness will be used against them.

Design Extras

I’ve decided to try out a borderless design for the card. The point of the white border was to prevent the chipping you normally get from continuous shuffling from showing. However, some prefer black borders because white tends to show grime over time. I’ve decided that if it really mattered to you, you should probably be using card protectors.

[valkyriangames]

Week 1 Update - Epic Quest

Last week I revealed my project and gave a survey. One of the questions was which game type you wanted to see me develop first. The majority vote was Schoolgirls vs Zombies. However, in a survey I released prior to the reveal, the most commonly voted theme was magic and dragons. So, putting two together, I thought it would be neat to have a cooperative game set in a fantasy setting. I've decided against a competitive game to start out with simply because I want to bring people together before I have them beat each other up. Cooperative experiences are generally more enjoyable to those new to the game than competitive ones.

So now I present the tentatively titled Epic Quest. If you have better title suggestions, feel free to give them, but that's what I'm working with for now. Epic Quest is a deck building game combined with strategic combat combined with luck. The premise is that you are playing as a group of adventurers who are out on a quest to defeat some big bad that is threatening the world. The twist is that your adventurers are all incompetent to the point where they hurt themselves and each other more than they do the enemy. It's planned to be 1-5 players, and players can choose to assume the role of the heroes or the villains, but the ultimate goal for all players is to have the main boss defeated. Players must figure out how to survive and become strong enough to take out the boss. The villain must figure out how to not get the heroes killed.

Thematic Sense How does this theme fit in with Valkyrian Girls Academy? In the previous post, I mentioned that within the school, the girls all play an MMORPG. This happens to take place in that MMORPG. The villain player is a "GM" running an event that the hero players are playing through. This is why the villain player doesn't want to just outright kill the heroes. The goal of the GM is to provide the most entertaining experience for the players. Now, whether it's the players themselves that are incompetent or the characters they play...I'll leave that up to your imagination.

Gameplay You start by choosing 4 characters to be your heroes. The encounter and loot decks are shuffled. Players start off with about 10 cards that are half basic attack and half basic defense. During your turn, you may play one skill per character, but each skill may be boosted by other cards of the same type. For instance, a basic attack may be boosted by other attack cards. As you perform skills, you gain experience which you then use to purchase more skills. When you boost a skill, it will also boost the amount of experience you get for performing that skill. At the end of each round, you count up how much experience you gained that round and buy one skill.

The Challenge The challenge of the game comes in the inconsistency of your skills. For a basic attack, you must roll a 20 sided die and you will only attack an enemy on a roll of 20. Any other roll forces you to attack one of the heroes. You will have to balance out which of your heroes takes these attacks until you can get enough experience to purchase the higher level skills. The higher level skills will offer higher chance of actually hitting your opponents as opposed to yourself, but there's always going to be drawbacks you'll have to balance.

Variants While my game is designed to be cooperative for the most part, it's also designed to be easily modified to be competitive. By using the xp values of enemies slain as a type of victory points, the game becomes highly competitive and adds new strategic elements. Do you want to kill off your teammates so that you have more enemies to fight? Someone falling behind on victory points could easily kill themselves off in order to switch sides and kill you to take all your victory points. This is just a beginning concept for competitive play and I'm sure I'll have to do a lot of balancing to make it work right, but that time will come.

Design This was originally inspired by an RPG idea I had where you had a party of characters but you only controlled one of them. The rest of your party was completely incompetent and hurt you more than the enemies. I turned this idea into a short web animation series using the walfas create.swf which I had a hand in developing as well. I figured, if I could turn my schoolgirls vs zombies idea into a card game, I could do the same with this.

The game is designed to have momentum. Your heroes are constantly hurting themselves and your enemies are constantly attacking you. If you ever dwaddle, the game will end quickly. This is further complicated by the fact that when the hero you control dies, you switch over to the villain side, but instead of sharing the goal of having the main boss defeated, your goal becomes to kill off the heroes.

So far I've been balancing this out for 5 players, but I plan for it to be equally playable with other player numbers, so the rules will probably change around a bit as a result.

[valkyriangames]

Valkyrian Project has launched!

Welcome to the official launch of the Valkyrian Project. Our first mission is to create the collectible card game Valkyrian Girls Academy. Actually, is collectible even the correct term for it? Perhaps expandable fits better? Maybe it's both. You tell me.

First a bit of thematic story. Valkyrian Girls Academy is a boarding school for girls. It doesn't really have classic classes though. Instead it's entirely club activities. Lots of randomly insane things happen there such as mass water balloon fights, mecha wars, or zombie outbreaks. Also, there's a fantasy MMORPG that's popular with the schoolgirls.

Now for the idea behind the game. The plan is that the core "set" is a collectible card game consisting of all students. These cards are basically a collection of characters with stats which are then used in various different game types. To those worried about this turning into a massive money sink, rest assured that each game is playable with premade decks. Also, one deck will be reusable in many other game types.

I already have two game types planned that will be playable with just core decks.

Water Balloon Warfare This is a duel type game mode that is basically a water balloon fight. It's meant for 1v1 or 2v2. You build up a team of girls and balance out between having them gather resources(water balloons) or attack(throwing water balloons at opposing team). Each girl's effectiveness is determined by their stats. There will be rules for playing with just a single deck as well as playing with personal constructed decks.

Boarding House Buildup This game type is another duel type but it's also a dexterity game. This one requires each player have a deck. In this one, the object of the game is to build up a house of cards. Your "hand" is actually the house of cards you're constructing. You play card abilities by removing cards from your own house, and depending on the element alignment of the girl you pulled, it will either help you build faster or force your opponents to remove cards from their card house.

Along with these game modes, there are other game modes I will be developing that will have more components to it.

Schoolgirls vs Zombies This idea originated as a flash tower defense game. However, I have adapted it to become a cooperative game mode in which the players defend their sector of the school from invading zombies. Players must balance tasks between searching for supplies, throwing supplies at attacking zombies to get rid of them, or searching for other girls to reinforce the defense.

Fantasy World Royale This is the more traditional style dueling game mode that is similar to the likes of Magic the Gathering, Yugioh, or Elements the Game. The key differences in this game is that the resources are more player controlled in that any card can be used as a resource. That card will produce resource of it's elemental alignment. Another key difference is that the girls themselves don't have any inherent special abilities. Instead, there are "rule cards" you select before you start the game that will give abilities to girls of certain stats/alignment. It may give passive or active abilities. It may allow you to discard them from your hand for a spell like effect. I believe this will allow games to be far more strategic than you'd get in other TCGs.

Cultural Festival Clash This is a deck builder game mode. Players are on a mission to make the most of the school cultural festival by running their own event as well as enjoying what others have to offer. Buy supplies, craft items or sell services. Gain victory points by participating in events. In the end, the player with the most victory points wins.

Mecha Mayhem This is the least developed of my game ideas despite being the only one that I've actually made prototype cards of before. A very long time ago my brother made a card game which involved constructing mechs and battling with them. It was very fun though it was unrefined and he never did anything with it. That game doesn't quite fit into VGA as is, but I believe with some modifications I could make a combination deck builder/dueling game out of it. Each player race to build mechs and fight each other until only one team is left standing. The girls will be the ones gathering the materials, building and piloting the mechs.

So, in development stage 1, I'd like to play around with some card designs and build the world up some. Here are some designs of the card backs.

And here's the design of the front of the card.

From the template card, the icons are as follows: 1) Strength, 2) Endurance, 3) Agility, 4) Intellect, 5) Charisma, 6) Willpower. Above the 7 is the elemental sign and the 7 itself is where the cost of the card will be. It seems like a lot, but not all the games will use every stat. Also, I find that it's actually less cluttered and more straight forward than you'd find in other TCGs. This is just the initial design, so I'd like to hear your opinions on it. I'm thinking of redoing the elemental icons, and maybe giving the stat icons some color. I may play around with giving it a more compact design too.

There gold V on the top left of the Vallerie cards are the set symbol. This will let me show which print run the card originated from. Magic the Gathering does the same with their cards, and honoring the same system I am going to make commons black, uncommons silver, and rares gold.

As of this moment, this is primarily a solo development project. I have no clue when that will change, but what this means is that it will take a long time to produce a CCG. So my plan is to develop a premade deck that is basically a standard playing card deck. The reason I show a sketch version is because I may do a print run of a sketch set if there is enough interest. I may also include sketch cards in boosters when it comes time for them in place of foil cards since the printer I'm planning on going with can't do foils. Alternately, I could just use the sketch cards as promo cards and not have them up for sale for general public.

Anyway, if you want to help me out by taking a survey, you can do so here. I'd like to hear any input you have on the project. Next news update will be a bit more coherent as I start focusing on the smaller aspects of the Valkyrian Girls Academy. If you'd like to keep up to date, be sure to follow our twitter.

[valkyriangames]

Welcome to Valkyrian.org

This is the official Valkyrian website. You'll find all the latest Valkyrian projects here. The site is still under heavy construction, but check back soon for more fun stuff. In the mean time, you can spin around in your chair until you become dizzy and fall over. Then you can have a long nap on the floor.

Also, you can find our twitter here.

[valkyriangames]

Valkyrian Girls Academy. Coming soon!