Custom Game Brainstorm~

[Sleepy]

During my free time once in a while, I've been trying to concrete this project in a notebook.
Here are the concepts I have in mind so far:

The field and energy.
The board is 4 x 4 zones in size, and at the beginning of the game it is just an empty grid (hollow).
You have something called "Zone Cards" whose size is bigger than your regular cards (enough to fill a zone in the board). They go on their own separate Zone Deck pile.
At the beginning of your turn, before anything else, you will pick up your Zone Deck and choose 1 of these cards, and put it anywhere you like.
A Zone Card has a Level (from 1 to 3, and sometimes maybe even 4) and an Attribute/Element. 
The Level in all your zones combined is the amount of energy you can spend each turn, which is the cost to play all of your cards. Some cards ask for some energy of a certain element(s) so keep that in mind.

Players can only play cards on Zones that have a Zone Card to stand on, as the field develops.

Zones also have a text box, for a potential effect some of them could have which affects whoever is there.
Finally, Zones have arrows... In fact, ALL kinds of cards in this game have arrows, similar to those of Link Monsters in Yugioh, but not for the same purpose.

Monster Cards.
The arrows in monsters represent the directions in which they can attack or target cards with effects.
During your turn, you can pay a set amount of energy to have monsters be moved to other of your zones to better suit the strategy you are going for.
I'm still debating on if this payment is gonna be a universal function with the same cost across everything, or if the "move" cost will vary from card to card and be printed in each...
Once your card enters a Zone Card, the Zone's arrows are used by the card you played in them. 
If a monster has multiple arrows in the same direction, it means its target/attack range can go up to that many zones in those directions, so there's a meaning to stacking them up.

Monster Levels can use the "Tribute" system, but here's how it works:
The Levels go from 1 to 12, and every set of 3 levels puts them at a different "stage"
Levels 1 - 3 are "stage 0" Levels, and you can just pay the energy and they need 0 Tributes.
Levels 4 - 6, are "Stage 1 Levels, and you have the option of paying the total energy and no need for anything else, OR you can Tribute 1 monster, and if you do, you don't need to worry about the cost of the Stage 1 stars (you still pay for the first 3 Levels in energy though) (these are colored slightly different than the first 3), and the Tributed monster gets attached to the new one, lending its arrows.
Levels 7 - 9, follow the same pattern. Then Levels 10 - 12 as well.

Monsters also have ATK, HP, and SP stats.
If a monster attacks, damage to a players life functions the same as in Yugioh, but there's an HP bar now, and the attacker hits full force to the attack target's HP. This damage remains as long as your card is face-up on the field, and if you Tribute your monster for a bigger Summon, the newly Summoned monster will take on the damage of the Tributes.
(HP damage refers to the difference between a card's current HP vs their original/printed HP. If your card has 300 HP but the card says their full HP was 1000, this means it has 700 HP damage on it).
The monster attacked also retaliates with 1/2 its own ATK towards the aggressor's HP, because even when monsters lose the battle, it doesn't mean they just sit there and let themselves get hit.
SP stands for (Speed), and the standard is that mostly all monsters will have 2 SP. It dictates who conducts the damage to the player's LP and the enemy's HP first. The bigger the number, the quicker the blow, and if you kill the other monster before they could attack, they won't get a chance to retaliate.
If a monster has 0 SP, it doesn't have attacking speed and therefore can't do any damage or even continue its own attack. 
This is so cards don't outright "negate the attack" but instead slow down or speed up a monster little by little.

If a card's HP becomes 0, it is destroyed, and it'll be destroyed "by battle" or "by an effect" depending on what caused the HP to hit 0....

Notes:
Energy doesn't accumulate over turns. At the start of your turn, you produce all the energy from your Zones (yes you can put a Zone in play and immediately get their Energy) and it is yours to spend throughout your turn and your opponent's turn... and only until your turn comes around again, you forget everything that went unused and reset to whatever the total zones produce of any given element(s).

No DEF stat. I kinda wanted to but there's a lot of stuff to keep track of as it is, and DEF interactions are pretty much unique to Yugioh as a game so it didn't sound wise to implement it.

I don't know how I'd call or branch out on these things but I do wanna have an equivalent to Spell/Trap cards... maybe not as 2 different mechanics like Yugioh does, but something.... In which case it'd also come with energy/level, attribute/element, arrows, and HP..... IDK if it'd have SP, depends on what I come up with.
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^This is so far what I have, and it might seem a little complex to keep up with.... I myself have a bunch of dice to keep track of the HPs and all Energy points and stat modifying stuff.... which makes me think this is the sort of thing that would work best in digital, a la Heartstone, although I personally wouldn't mind doing all the little actions xD

Is it too complicated? Too comboluted?
What are your thoughts people?
 

[HQCardmaker]

Sounds like a nice game.

What about arch-arrows or spirals?

Also, you could create effects that for examples:

Change arrows.

Swallow "Monsters"/Zone Cards.

Create additional Hands with their own rules.

Revive a Zone Monster.

X-Out a 3-D diagonal.

Split a "Zone Card" Attack into two Attacks.

Double or Skip a Battle Phase.

Locks all SP at 2.

[morrisoni4]

This is interesting. I feel like you've managed to combine MTG and Yu-Gi-Oh! in a way, but still maintain your own feel to it. As for the Spell/Trap mechanic, I think you'd be best off starting with a single mechanic this early in the development. It would be kind of cool if you could move the monsters around. I do wonder if there might be an effect that allowed you to move in more than one direction at once, if you have the proper arrows (like a knight in chess)? For instance, if you have 2 arrows going south and 1 going east, you can make all 3 moves. Maybe not in the basic game, but as a card effect. 

[Sleepy]

On 3/13/2020 at 6:50 AM, morrisoni4 said:

This is interesting. I feel like you've managed to combine MTG and Yu-Gi-Oh! in a way, but still maintain your own feel to it. As for the Spell/Trap mechanic, I think you'd be best off starting with a single mechanic this early in the development. It would be kind of cool if you could move the monsters around. I do wonder if there might be an effect that allowed you to move in more than one direction at once, if you have the proper arrows (like a knight in chess)? For instance, if you have 2 arrows going south and 1 going east, you can make all 3 moves. Maybe not in the basic game, but as a card effect. 

Cards cannot have more than a couple arrows or else they start getting very comfortable where they are positioned and I actually want them to move around. My idea was that the arrows point towards what they can attack or target by effects, but moving is just "pay cost > put it in whichever of your zones you like, including swapping with something else you own".

but now that you mention it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make them only move as the arrows dictate as well, forcing more extra support to make up for it, and giving me an excuse for cards having arrows on the bottom beyond effects that want to target your own cards xD

[morrisoni4]

On 3/14/2020 at 8:00 PM, Sleepy said:

Cards cannot have more than a couple arrows or else they start getting very comfortable where they are positioned and I actually want them to move around. My idea was that the arrows point towards what they can attack or target by effects, but moving is just "pay cost > put it in whichever of your zones you like, including swapping with something else you own".

but now that you mention it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make them only move as the arrows dictate as well, forcing more extra support to make up for it, and giving me an excuse for cards having arrows on the bottom beyond effects that want to target your own cards xD

Alrighty then. Glad to be of service. But I do see what you mean about too many arrows.