I haven't played Magic or Summoner, and the few times I played YGO I couldn't get my head around the rules.

The limitations on the resource pile is a tactical consideration. The maximum amount of resources you can have out at one time is six - as of now, Animal and Tribal use Food resources, and Civ/Space use Spice. So if you are going to use Civ or Space cards, you have to transition over from Food to Spice unless you already have minimal food usage and few animal/tribal cards.

Look at it this way - a perfectly "balanced" setup would be, say, 3 food 3 spice. If you're mainly using red cards, then it'd be Meat and Red Spice. Now if a Civ/Space card has a powerful attack that costs 4 Spice (or 4 Red Spice maybe) you will have to sacrifice a food card to get 4 spice in your resource pile, leaving you with 2 food 4 spice. That means you can use the powerful civ/space card's attack, but your animals and tribals will not be able to use any ability costing more than 2 food (unless you have a specific card tactic going on).
This is intentional and is supposed to be a tactical consideration - do you maintain flexibility and stay balanced with resources, or go all-out and make the powerful high-end abilities open to you?

The card design for attack costs comes into this also.
Neutral-resource abilities will generally be less powerful as they require less specialisation - "Food" means you can use any kind of resource to meet the cost. Specialised ones are slightly more powerful. From here it kind of fans out with things getting more powerful as the costs are more complicated to meet.

An entirely neutral food cost is weaker than the same cost in specialised resources.
Flipping a coin to determine if the attack fails or succeeds adds to/balances the power. A low-cost attack which inflicts a status might need you to flip a coin.
Then there's putting the user at some disadvantage, such as self-damage or sacrificing the armour for one turn.
Then there's attacks that require you to sacrifice resources to use them.
And finally there's attacks which require multiple types of resource.

These mitigating factors do play into how much attacks cost - for example a straight 50 damage attack might cost 3 Meat. An attack that does 50 damage on heads but fails otherwise might be 1 Meat 2 Food. It depends on the other things the card does.

But yeah, to put a long story short the limit on the resource pile is a tactical consideration, and also a thing that attack costs rarely rise above 3, and attacks costing the full 6 resources are very powerful and specialised, putting you at a disadvantage in tactical flexibility in exchange for raw power.

The limits on how many of a specific card you can have in one deck is another tactical thing. The standard is 4 (though standard resources are unlimited) - a "weak" card's forte may be that you can play many of them in your deck and use them as fodder, or they may have some kind of "team" ability that relies on many of them being present, while weak individually.
A very powerful and otherwise unchecked card on the other hand might have a limit of one - meaning it essentially becomes an "ace in the hole" a player pulls out to get out of a bad situation. The concept of card limits is actually from the WoW TCG, which I was given a boxset of for a christmas present, but was never interested in playing.

I'm sorry if I didn't read this carefully, but I have to say something.

A lot of this game is based off of flipping a coin. It shouldn't. It's really easy to get the coin flip to be exactly what you want it to be. All you need to do is find out how to get it to spin only once.

To improve Tribe and Space cards, mix up the objects/items a bit. Each item/object would be specified as either Animal, Tribe, or Space. Animals can only use Animal O/I. Tribes can use animal stuff, but not Space. Space has no restriction.

First, Thanks to let me know about your card game experience so I can give you more specific example that make you understand better.

Second, thanks to giving me more info on in-depth resource system.

Now, Let's start on discussion.
- Flipping coin for retreat.
First, In most game card, flipping a coin consider to be a luck with 50%. Like an attack that caused status effect on opponent's Pokemon in PCG. So, do you consider retreat need a luck? Do player like to flip a coin everytime they want to retreat their creature? Also, I think flipping coin for retreat is somehow... not much different than having an anger status on that creature.

Now, let's see the problem on current resource system.
After reading your OP and a in-depth thought of it, I think I might found the problem and solution.

- The problem of the Evolver deck rely on having a resource that consist of Spice and Food which also have more specific than that. Now as you stated that animal and tribe use food, Civs and Space creature use spice. So there are any use of Spice in the beginning of the game to make a limited slot of resource becomes more flexible?
If you look at the PCG, I think most of the card stated that retreat cost is colorless instead of specific color. Why is that? because it's far more flexible than giving a specific color. If you look at your game, you will see that Evolver deck is some how, like playing at least 4 type of energy card (2 food type and 2 spice type) with at least 2 type of Pokemon (Low evolve and high evolve creature) that don't have any correlated energy between them. and with your rules (as I see in pic. on the OP) it's like saying that your Pokemon can only be retreat if you discard a following specific energy card, Not "any" energy card attach to them. Make the resource problem even worst on Evolver deck.

- The solution for this problem.
I think you already have your own idea of what resource card should look like. I will explain my idea that comes from Magic, it should be easier for understand.

Example:
Card Name: Fruit
Type: Normal Resource
Sub-Type: Food

Card Name: Fish
Type: Normal Resource
Sub-Type: Food

Card Name: Red Spice
Type: Normal Resource
Sub-Type: Spice

Card Name: Purple Spice
Type: Normal Resource
Sub-Type: Spice

Now, let's see how it work.
If you're not specific any resource, just simply say Normal resource.
If you're specific the resource but just its main type, just say food or spice.
If you're more specific on it, you can say its name.

So, in some attack, you can say "Resource X 1 and Food X 1" I think you should get the idea here (or you already implement like this, I don't know) That means "To use this attack you need to have 1 of any kind of resource (It may be any kind of food or any kind of spice) plus 1 of any kind of food"

Some attack can be more specific to Fruit, purple spice but should at least leave some cost to be more flexible.

Also, retreat cost should not be associate with a too much specific resource but just say "Resource X ?" or "Food X ?" So, if you have purple spice during a first few turn, you may consider it for discard as a retreat cost.

A major advantage on here is that if you just lost your civs. creature and your reserve slot only have animal creature, you can still have some use from spice when you try to wait and find more food resource as a fall back option for player. Also, if your open hand have only spice resource, you can get some use from it instead of just keep it in your hand (or resource slot) and wait until your creature evolve to civs stage.

- Speed system.
I also have an idea of retreat using speed system but combined it with retread cost. Don't mix with a normal retread system.
Say, if the opponent's creature have speed 4 and your creature have speed 2, then the different between speed is the cost that you need to discard as retread cost. In this case, 4-2 = 2, so you need to discard 2 resource card to retread your creature. However, if your creature have the same speed or faster than opponent's creature, the cost is free. I don't sure that it's good or not but let you consider about it.

just wanted to add that this is great!

And again it makes you wonder why maxis has not already come up with a TCG...

Also, about that evolution system...it's cool, but would you need to fill your deck with evolved versions of that one creature (that would be a lot of cards)? Or would you just put a card that happens to be the same type your evolving to from your hand and put it on top of the card? I'm pretty sure it is the last one, which, in my opinion, wouldn't be the greatest thing. I know it is possible to do in Spore, but why would you do that in the card game? It seems weird to me, to just have your creature constantly changing, becoming tottally different...

What I would suggest is a Part Card, and you get one every time you evolve, a bonus coming with it. You could change the card entirely, but that would require certain parts (for example, you can evolve to Azzard when you have the Twopaw and Mandible).

This looks AMAZING!

If you want to know how a online TCG could be made check out www.chaoticgame.com. Im not much for the card game, but I love how they make it online.

Where are vehicles and spaceships?

ParadoxJuice wrote:Also, about that evolution system...it's cool, but would you need to fill your deck with evolved versions of that one creature (that would be a lot of cards)? Or would you just put a card that happens to be the same type your evolving to from your hand and put it on top of the card? I'm pretty sure it is the last one, which, in my opinion, wouldn't be the greatest thing. I know it is possible to do in Spore, but why would you do that in the card game? It seems weird to me, to just have your creature constantly changing, becoming tottally different...

What I would suggest is a Part Card, and you get one every time you evolve, a bonus coming with it. You could change the card entirely, but that would require certain parts (for example, you can evolve to Azzard when you have the Twopaw and Mandible).

The evolution system currently is thus - each card has three "evolution options", each of a specific resource type. The evolution options correspond to types which cards can be - for instance, you may have an animal card of the Scavenger type which can evolve into Guru, Hunter or Warlord types. If you evolve it in a specific direction, you may evolve it into any card bearing that type - for instance a Scavenger Willosaur could evolve into a Hunter Hugmonster, Warlord Fibea, or so forth.

In addition, there is a neutral type on each evolution stage - Rogue, Nomad, Traveller and Wanderer. Any card may evolve up into one by sacrificing a resource of any type, but generally neutral types themselves can only evolve into neutrals.

Also, when creatures evolve, if they are the first to evolve into a new level (for instance if you are the first to put a Civ card down, evolving a Tribal to do so) then the "stage" of the game changes (in this instance to Civilization Stage) and cards of that type may be played directly onto the field rather than evolved. This is where the problem comes from - decks that require a lot of evolving are going to require more creature cards to be in the deck, reducing space to put in resources and consequences.
However, evolvers are the ones that will need more resources in the first place, so by taking up the evolving strategy they're limiting themselves. For example here's one of the two 50-card decks I used to test the game:

Copy/Paste for full-sized:
KOR (Animal)
KOR (Animal)
KOR (Animal)
Warp Tick (Animal)
Warp Tick (Animal)
Armoured Karma Bug (Animal)
Armoured Karma Bug (Animal)
Hippocampus (Animal)
Hippocampus (Animal)
KOR (Tribal)
KOR (Tribal)
KOR (Tribal)
Power Bun (Tribal)
Power Bun (Tribal)
Lycosa (Tribal)
Lycosa (Tribal)
Lycosa (Tribal)
KOR (Civ)
KOR (Civ)
KOR (Civ)
Lost Plereem (Civ)
Lost Plereem (Civ)
Lost Plereem (Civ)
KOR (Space)
KOR (Space)
Shodus (Space)
Shodus (Space)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Meat (Standard Resource)
Red Spice (Standard Resource)
Red Spice (Standard Resource)
Red Spice (Standard Resource)
Red Spice (Standard Resource)
Red Spice (Standard Resource)
Red Spice (Standard Resource)
Primal World (Planet)
Natural Healing (Event)
Natural Healing (Event)
Special Medicine (Event)
Get Out! (Trick)
Exploding Barrel (Trick)
Obsidian Pyramid (Object)
Goodscope Observatory (Object)
Lucky Coin (Item)

So the layout is thus:
x9 Animal
x8 Tribal
x6 Civ
x4 Space
x8 Meat Resource
x6 Red Spice Resource
x1 Planet
x3 Event
x2 Trick
x2 Object
x1 Item

Or, more simply:
x27 Creature
x14 Resource
x9 Consequence

A simple deck with no evolving would need to dedicate far less space to creature and resource cards, giving them a lot of consequences and basically no disadvantage over civ and space cards anyway, meaning there's a big imbalance that needs to be addressed.
Digi-P's suggestion of having "resource" as a cost type is definitely something i'm going to add.

I'm currently pondering the viability of a "DNA Points" system rather than junking resources which is used to evolve. It'd tie in with being Spore-related, but I still need to think about how you'd earn these points. There's also the problem that if I take out junking resources to evolve, then resources will never be junked except for certain attacks, possibly taking a tactical aspect out of the game.

In the meantime please keep the feedback coming! It means a lot to me and there's been many suggestions I think I will actually use in the finished game. You will of course be credited.

how about you get dna points fir killing a creature like heres an example: you need 10 points to evolve a creature and you get 5 points for killing an creature,so you would need to kill 2 creatures to evolve.
and the point system would go like this
10 points to evolve a creature up a stage,20 to evolve a tribe,and 30 to evolve a civ to space and the point you get are like this
5 for killing a creature
10 for a tribe member
and 15 for a civ. but also the could go to another creature like this
our opponent has a tribesman you hav ea tribesman and a creature and your tribesman kills your opponents so then you could evolve your creature into a tribesman

so what do you think about this method

Hmm, i have an idea have "adventure" cards which apply effects until it expires or certain conditions are met, if the conditions are met whoever met them will get a bonus.

Luminar wrote:Basically, if one creature evolves to Civ, you no longer have to keep evolving up to that point, allowing you to choose some as 'evolvers'.

I see.

Well, this game is pretty simple...compare it to Spore, though.

Attacks-Still good
Social-Got changed a lot...you should be able to 'impress' other creatures, maybe giving them a debuff or something.
DNA points-The resource system is there, and it's cool, but DNA points, and just points in general should be incorporated...maybe you need to 'buy' consequence cards?
Evolution-Losing one resource sounds like no big thing. It's mostly just so you can choose which path you need.
Diplomacy-If you can trade your resources, I could see what could be really awesome. Is your opponent simply desperate for two blue spice, or are they planning something sneaky once you've got no blue spice? Better make a good back up plan...so many mind games.
Creation-Well...you do create the cards...and combining consequence cards could in some way make the creature new again...I still think the Part card would be cool.

Bump?

gtriff07 wrote:how about you get dna points fir killing a creature
so what do you think about this method

This seems like the most obvious way to go about it, yet it's kind of a bad idea.

If someone kills a creature then gains points for doing so which allows it to evolve, the player may then evolve an Animal into a more powerful Tribal creature, which would have better defence and/or attack than an animal - this means it is easier for the player with the Tribal creature to kill his opponent's still-unevolved animals. So the Tribal kills animals and evolves again to Civ, making it even more powerful.

This would effectively lead to "steamrolling" where one player takes the lead, and gradually becomes more and more powerful with the other player's chances of beating them getting worse as the match goes on, making it largely pointless for the losing player to go on. It could be viewed as punishing the losing player for losing, which is only going to make them more likely to keep losing and thus their position will keep worsening. The game would basically turn into "who evolves first wins".

Unfortunatley, I still haven't been able to think of a good system to replace resource-junking. Currently i've pondered the Cells idea a bit more and have it so you do not junk the cell cards upon evolution, but you can only have two in the resource pile at most. These would be divided into three types - Microbe (Green), Bacteria (Blue) and Virus (Red) which power the evolution options in place of Fruit/Green, Eggs/Blue and Meat/Red.

I need someone else to look at this and weigh up the pros and cons of this, though, and possibly offer suggestions on how to expand and/or improve this proposed system.

Hey Luminar, you can turn this dude into a card if you want. If you need any statistics or information let me know (If you use it of course).

FGDD Shock-Trooper
NOTE: The image is click-able.

Currently my priorities are more focused on getting the actual game rules in working condition before filling the last couple of slots. I'll be sure to look you back up when i'm done with that though.

Okay, no problem. Just let me know when/if you need it.