Magarena successor : Dreamwalkers

[jeffwadsworth]

Sounds like a great game. By the way, have you seen that Ascension - Chronicles of the GodSlayer card game for the iPad and iPhone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z26sP1YFwww

The video quality in the review sucks, but the gameplay is great. Your game sounds like it would dwarf the possibilities of this one.

[ubeefx]

Hi Jeff, thanks for the tip.
I have installed the Lite version on my iPad and will certainly try it out.
User interface looks nice. Gameplay is however very different from Magic.

Dreamwalkers resembles a lot more to Magic as game, but is less complex.
One of the bigger differences is the generation of cards.
While this can be a refreshing feature, I still will have to see how it works out.
I do not have the resources to make individual cards anyhow.
Porting Dreamwalkers to iPad or other tablets is on my wishlist if it would be successful.

[ubeefx]

A consequence of generating cards is that the game must be able to serialize the card definitions.
Otherwise the game state cannot be saved.
This will look like scripting cards, but is currently still simpler than what for instance Forge supports.
Hard to say how it will evolve eventually. A card editor with all the supported mechanics is a possibility too.

[ubeefx]

Foil card images are added as a feature.

Dreamwalkers screens

[jeffwadsworth]

That is looking really sweet!

[ubeefx]

The Dreamwalkers card mechanics can now be serialized and deserialized.
The left part is the encoded mechanic string, the right part the readible text.
T is a triggered ability, A an activated ability, E an effect and S a static ability.
The characters between {} refer to symbols.

• T(6,5) = {t} heal 5
• T(10) = {t} reincarnate
• A(1,G,3) = {a} : gain {G3}
• A(11,{R2},1,0) = {R2} : +1/+0 {e}
• A(4,{B1},20) = {B1} : {r} orange {e}
• E(0,14,true) = Annul {x} nonblue fragment$. Remember a fragment.
• E(1,5,12) = Minions you control get +5/+5 and leech this turn.
• E(8,true,4,r) = Awake {x} minion$. It gets +0/+4 and {r} red this turn.
• E(9,3,2,-1,true) = {x} minion$ gets +3/+2 this turn.
• E(15,4,true,false,true) = Waste all nonorange minions with cost {C4} or less. They can't be rejuvenated.
• S(4,2,4,false,7) = Green minions you control get +4/+2 and have charge.
• S(-1,-3,-1,true,2) = Attacking minions {o} controls get -1/-3.

[ubeefx]

I made some very good progress and I am close to a working public beta.
No promises, but maybe I can even make a first release this week.
You can check out the new Picasa gallery.

The game has same type of AI as Magarena, an improved user interface and a quest like game structure.
In the quest you collect randomly generated cards which you use to compose your deck.
You fight against other dreamwalkers while leveling up until you defeated them all.
Over time this could become of course much more fancy.

Will this game find its place in the card game universe? Hard to tell.
But I think it has the necessary ingredients to become good.
As long as you don't expect it to be Magic, then you can play Magarena instead.
Of course the game is inspired by Magic, it would be pointless to deny that.
But I did my best not to violate copyrights of the greater wizards.
I did use a lot of art of several artists, I hope they don't mind.
By making the game free to play, the user base will hopefully become as large as Magarena.

[ubeefx]

Dreamwalkers is released.