Card Creatures v0.5.5

New in this release:

• Deeper AI that evaluates future moves (basically a minimax algorithm). This is enabled by AI knowledge of the Open rule.
• Per-character AI settings, defined in the Defaults.ini file with the other character information.

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A short update this time, but a lot of work did go into it behind the scenes. :)

Card Creatures v0.5.2

New in this release:

• A rudimentary single-player campaign flow! All of the data is placeholder, but the backend support should be mostly done. The only big improvement I can think of making right now would be a visual tool for hooking together dependencies, instead of specifying them by hand in the .ini configuration file. But since I'll probably be the main person setting up these dependencies it seems like it probably won't be worth the effort of making a complicated visual scripting tool.
• The campaign flow is set up as a generic lock-and-key system, with certain player actions (defeating an npc for the first time, obtaining a card for the first time, currently owning a card, etc) automatically giving keys to the player, which can then be set as requirements for some progress condition (new npcs becoming available, high level cards showing up in npc's hands, dialogue changes, etc). The lock-and-key system can work like the following example:
• Class=FoeInfo
  Name=Rena
  AvailableAfterKeys=[ClaudeBeatOnce]
  &Class=Card
  Name=TTOdin
  AvailableAfterKeys=[RenaBeatOnce]
• In that example, the npc opponent Rena will become available after the player has defeated the npc named Claude once, and npcs will only start using the card TTOdin (if it's in their deck) after the player has defeated Rena once.
• The current campaign flow I've set up starts with Claude as the only available opponent, with more unlocking along the way once the player has defeated all of the previous npcs at least once.
• Dialogue text. The current plan is for the narrative and character development to occur through text-based dialogue. I've added dialogue hooks for the start of a match against an npc, after the match depending on who won or lost, and from a new Talk option in the npc-selection screen (hold Shift while clicking on the npc to talk to them).
• Right now only Claude is set up with any dialogue, but he will change what he says after the player has defeated him (once again using the keys as described above).
• The idea is for the dialogues to be a back-and-forth between the npc and the player (...hence the name), but right now the messages that pop up only include the first line. This will be fixed soon.
• Some misc bug fixes: card capture status not always being cleared correctly between matches, rules being misapplied on occasion, always having to write [1*thing] to have an array entry with only 1 thing in it, etc.

Design discussion:
I've kicked around a few fancier ideas for what-happens-between-card-games. Right now I'm sticking with the npc-selection menu and some text-based dialogue, but there are a lot of directions I'd like to go in to expand this, from simple village-exploration-and-npc-talking a la Zelda: Link to the Past or Pokemon, to a full-on highschool dating sim where everyone is strangely into playing cards O_o. I think the first step I'll make toward these types of expansions will be a relationship value that changes depending on wins/loses/card-gifts/???.

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Card Creatures v0.4.1

New in this release:

• Real AI! It's still fairly shallow, but it has actual knowledge of the different rules and it could beat you if you aren't careful (and set up balanced decks). Just select Smart AI from the debug menu at the start.
• The Start Match button is broken. This isn't really new or intentional, but I noticed it and didn't bother fixing it yet. Just select Start Campaign instead.

Next steps planned for the AI:

• Per-character AI-Controller settings from the ini file, so that characters can have different "knowledge" levels for the various rules. The knowledge levels affect how often the AI will spot a possible application of the rule.
• Evaluation of future moves, paired with a knowledge of the Open rule.
• Personality quirks.
• Preset combo set-ups that can be planned or identified.

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Card Creatures v0.4.0

I'm back from a couple-month break in development. Card Creatures lives again, just in time for halloween!

New in this release:

• Save games! It saves whenever you finish a match, and loads when you start the game up. So far it's only saving the deck of the player and each NPC, so if you win/lose cards it will be remembered. It should be easy to extend this to include other single-player progress or multi-player stats.
• Updated the temp art to something more palatable.

Unfortunately this change requires a web server to run the saving/loading cgi script. I have set one up locally that you can also use, but it's a bit of a pain in the ass. If you don't use it, you just won't save/load your info when you play. Here are the steps for running the game with the local save-game web server:

• Install Python (if you don't already have it. 2.5 or later should be fine.)
• Run server.py from the webserv folder. This will bring up a window with some text, which you'll need to leave open while you play.
• Play the game! Reminder: this is done with the file CardGame.swf.
• If an Adobe security warning pops up, allow this game to download.

If you want to manually edit the save files for some reason, it's the same format as Defaults.ini (described below).

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Card Creatures v0.3.3

New in this release:

• Winnings selection screen - the winner gets to take a card from the loser's deck. Right now "One" is the only trading rule, but more will come later. If the AI player wins then they will automatically select the card with the highest overall values.
• Now you can keep playing as many hands as you want! Winning or losing sends you back to the opponent selection screen, with updated decks from the card that was transferred. The decks are not saved between sessions yet, so they will reset when you close and restart the game.

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Card Creatures v0.3.1

It's been a while since we've been busy with Fanime, E3, etc. but Card Creatures is still being developed, slowly but surely!

New in this release:

• Enemy selection!
• Hand selection!
• "Campaign Start" option in the debug menu. Use this to be able to select your opponent and the cards for your hand. It doesn't start a real campaign yet exactly, since you still can't progress.
• Ability to specify the information for an available opponent and add new opponents. To set this up, open up Defaults.ini in Notepad. Here you will see something called PlayerController, which is where you can set the Name, Deck, etc. for the player. You will also see some things called FoeInfo, which are where the NPC opponents are specified, with a Name, Picture (not yet used), and Deck. You can add more at the bottom as long as the formatting looks the same (with the & symbol separating the entries). For the Deck (for both the player and the NPCs) you can set which cards will be available like so: Deck=[2*Geezard,3*Selphie,1*Odin] and if those card types are defined in CardDefs.ini (see my previous post) then the deck will be filled with 2 Geezards, 3 Selphies and 1 Odin card.

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Initial sketch of Insect #1: mantis

Hey Guys!

I decided to draw an initial sketch of one of the insects, and I need to tweak it a bit but in general what do you guys think of it? This one was the mantis type