Sword & Shield

Sword & Shield

Rel    : Oi oi, you said you will show me your new game? so, where is it?

Lus   : Well, actually it's not finish yet, but if you insist

Rel    : ……. (you're the one who boast it every day)

Lus   : It's a card game, it name is "Sword & Shield"

Rel    : Still bad at giving name, eh?

Lus    : Shut up

Rel    : Hahaha, sorry, carry on

Lus   : So, it's quite simple. in this game your objective is to conquer all domain in the board

Rel    : Just like Go, then?

Lus   : Sort of, but in here, we use card. and the domain is created from the intersection of every 4 cards.

Rel   : hah?

Lus   : To conquer the domain, what you need to do is basically create a sequence of numbers, from small to big value in a pattern of cycle. If you succeed, you can place your orb in that domain

Rel   : heh?

Lus  : But, you can only do that by change the card in the board with the…..

Rel   : Wait, wait, wait. I don't get it. what is domain? what is card? what is orb? what do you talking about?

Lus   : haah, it must be hard being stupid..

Rel    : Dammit

Lus    : Ok then. let's do this with an example. this is the card. there are two kinds of card, red sword and green shield. each card has values from 0 to 4. there are 40 cards that are used, 20 red swords and 20 green shields.

Lus    : And here are the orbs. there are two kinds of orbs, gold and blue. each player get one of the orbs. an orb has a symbol in it in a shape of clockwise arrow and counterclockwise arrow 

Rel    : Okaaaay

Lus    : At the start of the game, you shuffle the 40 cards. and then randomly distribute them at the board in 6 rows and 6 columns position. just like this

Rel    : 1,2,3,4…. hey, there are only 36 cards. how about the rest?

Lus    : The rest of the cards is given to players. two for each player. just think it as the player's hand cards. Oh, and player mustn't hide the card value to the other player.

Rel     : Wow, so there is nothing that hidden in this game

Lus    : Precisely, except what is in your mind. ok then, after the preparation finished, game can be started. each player will move in turn. in every his turn, player must change the card in his hand with the card in the board. by must I mean a player can't skip his turn doing nothing. like I said earlier, the objective in this game is to conquer the domain, and you can achieve this by create a sequence of the number between 4 cards that surround that domain.

Rel    : gaah, I don't understand. give me the example

Lus    : sigh, here,

Lus    : So just like what you see, the number of cards can be a sequence if we change the card with the value of (0) with the card which has a value between (1) and (2). If for any chance that you got that card in your hand, then you could change that with your hand card. and then you place your orb in that domain. but remember, you should place the orb with the same arrow direction with the sequence of cards. so because in here your sequence is clockwise, you should place an orb with the clockwise arrow. 

Rel    : okay, so then I got a domain and also the card that previously in the board now become mine, right?

Lus    : Brilliant. oh, i forgot. you can only change the card with the same type and the greater value. so you can only change sword with sword, and shield with shield and as long as you change it with a greater value card. 

Rel    : What? so we can't change it with any card that we have in hand?

Lus    : Nope. but you can change the card in the board with the other type card in your hand. but by doing so, you wouldn't get a domain even though it create a sequence of cards. Think it just as a way to get a better card for your next move. 

Rel    : So I can change sword with shield and vice versa right?

Lus    : Yes, oh and you still need to change it with the greater value card.

talk about the value of cards, here is the order of value, from the smallest to the biggest. 

as you can see, 0 has two value, as the smallest and the biggest. it depends on where it located. If it is in your hands, that means it act as the biggest value card that you can change with any cards in the board. but if it is located in the board, it will be the smallest value card, that can be changed with any card in your hand. Oh, and in sequence, 0 can only has one value, as the biggest oar smallest. So you can't for example, create a sequence of 0-3-0-2

Rel    : hmm, so basically what we do in our turn is change the cards in our hand with the one in the board to create a domain, or to get a more suitable card to create a domain in our next move, right?

Lus    : Correct. more on the topic of domain, it's not only act as your score but can also as your strategy.

Rel    : huh?

Lus    : You see, when you got a domain, that means all the cards in that domain are belong to you. but you can't just use them as you like. because you only able to change card in the board by the card form your hand. So to use that card you need to move it from the domain to your hand. to do that, just like when you change the card in the board, what you need to do is change the card in your hand with the card that you want in your domain. the good things are, you can change it regardless its type and its value, and also you can do it as many as you like as long as by doing so you don't break the sequence of the domain. if you break the sequence, your turn ends and that domain will not be yours again.

Rel    : hmmm..

Lus    : And also, you could mess with your opponent domain. first, you could make it free again by break the sequence. And you can conquer it by changing the direction of the sequence. for example, a domain of clockwise sequence can be conquer if you succeed changing a card in that domain that makes it direction changes to counter clockwise. but remember, to do these, you still need to change with the same type card and a greater value. 

Rel    : hm..

Lus    : And that's it! at the end of the game, when there are no free domain left, player with the biggest number of domain will be the winner

Rel    : hmm..

Lus    : Hey, don't tell me it's too hard for you

Rel    : Oi oi, I'm not that stupid. I get it all. basically, in every turn what you can do can be distinguished into three.

first, you can change the card in the board with the different type card in your hand which has a greater value than the selected card in the board. but by doing that, you cannot gain a domain. and you can only do this for the free card, a card that is not belong to any player's domain.   

second, you can change the card in the board with the same type card in your hand which has a greater value. But you can only do this if your act will make you get a new domain, break your opponent's domain, or conquer your opponent's domain by shifting its sequence direction. 

last, you could use the card that belong in your domain by change it with any card in your hand as long as it doesn't break the domain's sequence. 

Lus    : huohoho, I see that you have improved. you impressed me

Rel    : heh, sarcasm. well it's a great game actually, but it's just I think the game could be more interesting.

Lus    : How so?

Rel    : You see, why bother create a visual of sword and shield if we can't juiced it up. rather than use it as an aesthetic, we could use it to make the game more fun

Lus    : I'm listening

Rel    : So this is what I propose. how about every time we get a domain, we also get a character with the attack power of total values the sword cards, and the defense power of total values the shield cards. This character then will be used to battle the other player's character after the game end, which is when the board has been filled up with all orbs.  

Lus    : hmm, interesting. So the game that I explain before would be a session to acquire a character that we will use next. And then, how this battle of characters will go on? Do we only compare the attack and defense power to determine the winner?

Rel    : Well, it could be like that. but man, that could be boring. I think of a battle mechanic where you can select one of your character to fight with one of the other player's character. the battle will be turn based, with player with the biggest number of domain will act first. In his turn, he must select a character of him and a target character from the opponent. than the battle will begin. If the character who attack got attack power bigger than the target defense power, than the target will be destroyed. but if the defense power is bigger…

Lus    : The target won't perish, and the attacker still live too. Just like in Yu-Gi-Oh

Rel    : Yep, and to make it more interesting, let's add a skill feature to the game.

Lus    : A skill?

Rel    : Yeah, so some character will have a skill that they can use at the battle. But not every character has a skill. Only a number of character that has a specific  combination of sword and shield cards would have a skill. so for example, a character who got all cards with same value will have a skill of double attack power.

Lus     : wahaha, that would be overkill!

Rel     : Not totally true. because skill can only be used once. Oh, and the skill would be represented with the orb. So as long as the character still got the orb, he could use the character skill. here how I visualized it

Lus    : Wow, brilliant. by implementing this, it could create more twist when the player deciding which domain that he want to create. 

Rel    : And here the list of skill that I can think of

Lus    : hahaha, this could be awesome! now the problem is whether the game is balance

Rel    : What? you haven't tested it yet

Lus    : How come? I need a partner to test it. I can't play as two player at once.

Rel    : huuft…

Lus    : hahaha, but it will be fun, right? but before it,  we need to prepare the game tools. here you can download the game tools in this link

Sword & Skill tools

Rel    : DOONE

Lus    : Finally.. oh, my back hurts…

Rel    : hahaha, you weaak. 

Lus    : Yeah, yeah. oh, look at this, it's look good, isn't it?

Rel     : No doubt. now then, let's play!!!!