- Play multiple games
- Play and list features
- Play and deconstruct balance
- Observe players
+Deliverables
- Feature List (every possible feature for a collectible card game)
- Feature analysis (Analyze how features work- what they specifically accomplish in terms of the game. Look at abilities, stats, offense and defense and turn-effect cards, etc.)
- Play Strategies (By observation and play, determine the strategies that emerge from each card system. How do those strategies emerge from the feature set of the game?)
- Play Balance Analysis (What balances the game? Create a game-specific list of balancing factors, and extrapolate that to a general concept of balancing in a card game.)
- Marketing Hooks (what keeps people engaged? What do they do, specifically, to keep people buying cards and playing the game?)
Task 1b: Analyze Possible In-Game Card Uses and Strategies
+How are card systems used in other games? List as many uses as possible. What do the Cards do?
+How might they be used in Top Secret?
- As skills
- As stat modifiers
- In the breeding system
- During the races
- Outside of the races
- As an independent game in the game
- As team cooperation cards
- Other?
+How do they affect game play?
- Why do people like cards in games?
- Why to some people not like cards in games?
- Consider the impact of different approaches to a card game within Top Secret.
- How would using cards balance with the ultimate goals of the game?
- How can the card game be designed to appeal to as many of our target audience as possible?
- How can we design the cards so that people who aren’t attracted to card games can still enjoy the game without being forced into using them, or without having to use them ways that they don’t like?
+How do we assess value? List the ways that cards have value in a game and how that value system can be prioritized.
+How do we distribute them? What methods could be used to distribute the cards?
- Shop sales
- Random pick-ups
- Rewards for accomplishments
- Easter Eggs
- Bonuses from successful breeding
- Others
+Balance issues. For any feasible implementation of cards, how do we balance value, effect, distribution and basic gameplay, keeping in mind that this is a racing game, where PvP fighting is likely? This should be an analysis of balancing factors for the game, and how the card system might figure into that balance.
+What other features of the game might they replace? Do we lose anything important by implementing cards? Do we gain efficiency in any way?
+What other features of the game might they enhance?
Task 1c: Integrating In-Game and Collectible System
With all the information gained from the previous two phases of this task, make recommendations on how to create an in-game card system that will most enhance our game, and at the same time can be adaptable to a physical card game/collector system.
- What features of the cards are needed in the digital version?
- What features of the cards must be added to make a standalone game work?
- Can the physical game be tied directly to the in-game card system? If so, how?
Rules
This is a TaskGroup process, which means that we're looking for specific results that you all will submit as a group, instead of individual submissions. When the TaskGroup has completed the work outlined in this task, the TaskGroup Representative can post all the results in this thread.
Note that this task has 3 parts. We recommend that you work on the first two parts simultaneously, and then work on the third part, where you integrate the ideas, after the first two are done. You are working as a team. Feel free to create Subgroups and explore different aspects of the Task.
Deadline: We want to give you some time to work on this task, so we’re setting the final deadline for this Task on May 31 at 9pm PDT. That’s two weeks from today.