Publicly posted my card game

This is the first devlog for this project, because this is the first time I post it publicly. For most of you this will be the first thing you see about my game. And yet, you follow me... So you must have seen some of my previous works. Some unfinished RPG's, an idle game, a system for a board game... Mostly little, experimental projects, none of it could really cary the name "game".

Well then, get ready to get your socks blown off!

In this post:

1. What is BiteMe!Cards?
2. How do I play?
3. A little history lesson.
   1. From RPG to board game...
   2. ...To card game
4. Thanks.

1. What is BiteMe!Cards?

Imagine 2 decks of cards. One is yours and one is your opponents. Decks could be small, large or huge! (Starting with 8 cards per deck.)

Both players draw 5 cards at the start of the game and the battle is on. You will play your cards as smart as you can, and the opponent... Well, I made the AI as smart as I could. Your goal is to destroy as many as opponent cards as you can using as few as possible cards of your own. 

At first, the game might look easy enough to beat but soon enough you will notice that not every AI deck is as easy to beat as the others. There the "Rats" deck is the easiest to beat, "Buster" has the strongest deck of them all. 

Yeah... you probably wonder what the heck I am blabbing on about... This will all make sense when I explain how the game actually works, so lets get on to our next point on the list:

2. How do I play?

Short answer:

 Click the link and follow the tutorial. 

Long answer: 

Each player gets to play cards on their turn.
You play at least 1 card on each row. (Bottom and Top)
Or you can fill up your board with a total of 4 cards.

At the end of each turn, all cards will battle.
Each card takes damage worth of the card on the opposing table.
Top-row cards get damage from top-row cards and visa versa.
When a cards health falls below 0, the card is destroyed.

Whenever you play a card, you draw a card.
If possible, you always have 5 cards in your hand.

Once a player runs out of cards, in their deck, hand or table, they lose.
When both players lose their last card at the same moment, the last player
that had a turn with any card alive, wins.

After each game you gain 3 cards. Opponent decks will grow 3 cards too. 
Each opponent you face will be stronger than the last, and so will you be. 
A run lasts till you lose 3 games.
If you won battles, your names goes on the score board!

Then you start with the first 8 cards again, and try to beat your own high score.
Your cards will be different, and your opponent decks will be too.
How many games can you beat in a single run?

3a. A history lesson: From RPG to board game... 

I wanted to make an RPG, so I bought graphics online to make an RPG. I loved everything about it, and I was ready to make the best roleplaying game this world had ever seen... But I did not. In stead I couldn't help focusing on complicated back-ground systems. I didn't have scenes to play, because I was always improving the time and weather system. Which turned out splendid, but... I don't have a game to use it with. 

 I made like 30 different intro's all telling the same story. (And of course the worst/ugliest one gets uploaded publicly while it was intended to be a private share. And it even ended up in an old youtube video play-trough. It was a hilarious watch, but I wish he would play one of my serious projects... Like this one. I found that one yesterday...)

Then suddenly I fel the need to make a board game. Not because I wanted to make a beard game, but just to see if I could do it. I worked on it for months and I forgot all about my RPG. My board game was going to be awesome! First I made a silly game in which everything is random. It doesn't matter on which step you land, it was just an experiment. But to made testing the system more fun, I made thing in which EVERYTHING is random. A random scene plays with random characters and the outcome is decided by dice, but always silly or stupid. 

This made testing it so funny, because you get the weirdest thing, that I put the game online! Intentionally publicly this time. ;) 

Then it hit me: Why not make a board game with the graphics of my RPG!! And so I did. I stuck to the story, used the same characters and I was ready to go. Everything works and I even had a simple card/battle system set up. A VERY simple card battle system. (There is 2 dice on the card, role 2 dice and beat the dice on the cards to win) Too simple.

3b. A history lesson: ...to card game

So I went looking for an existing card system for MV that I could use in my game. Not really my ammo, I love to make those things myself, but I felt lazy that day, I guess. 

I found a plugin, allowed me to create a pretty cool awesome game with 9 cards on the table and you could win and lose cards and it was awesome!! I wanted to use that! But then I couldn't...

It turned out to be a straight up copy of the card game used in one of the Final Fantasy series. Awesome plugin, surely, however I do not want to put an eact copy of an existing game online. As soon as someone notified me, I decided: Even if it will take forever, I will make a card game!! (Here I already forgot it was supposed to be a mini game in a board game.)

I opened gimp first, and created a few cards. That was the easy part. Now I had to make the game. So I took a bunch of my favorite yanfly plugins (note: none of them are created for cardgames) and I started to move cards from one side to the other side of the table. I had no idea what to do... But I knew where to start: I need to make 2 decks. No matter what the rules will be, there need to be 2 decks.

About 40 hours later I was playing a very basic card game against a very stupid AI. It was ugly, it was easy to beat and it was boring, but... IT ALL WORKED!! This where I jumped up, cheered and celebrated, because I had done something I didn't think I could pull off 40 hours earlier, in so much less time then I was prepared to spend on it. 

That has been weeks ago now... And I did not sit still! I kept redesigning the boards, I added cards, I improved the game flow, I added, changed and removed different game modes and ended up with my very own card game!

Admitted: There is still a lot to improve in this version of the card game, but all with all I think I have a pretty enjoyable little card game on my hands. At least it looks amazing! (Is that okay to say myself?) 

New cards and new enemy decks will be added to the game on a regular base!!

4. Thanks!

Thank you all for reading!!
Thank you all for following!!
And special thanks to Caethyril at steam for teaching me about arrays, which is ages ago, but is the very root of this whole project.

I hope you all enjoy playing my game as much as I enjoy working on it, and I will keep your guys posted with more cards! I will hold you no longer, I know you are bursting to play my game. So click HERE to play the game now!

BitmeMe!Cards is FREE  and NO DOWNLOAD REQUIRED!!

https://johndoenews.itch.io/bitemecards

Oh, and don't forget to leave a reply after you tried out my game!!