For a long time I had this idea about a cycling RPG game but I never really started it.
But now I am learning to program in a new game engine and therefore I did a quick game. And since I played some card games recently, I made a cycling game with cards.
A race consists of multiple stages, and each stage consists of 360 event cards (90 rows of 4 cards). Those cards represent events which can happen during a cycling race, like sprints, flat tires, feeding zones, …
The goal of each stage is to reach the finish line by collecting those event cards and each event card has a value, positive or negative, therefore some cards are more valuable or costly to collect.
You can only select one card per row, so some strategic planning is required while advancing.
Let's try to get some high scores.
On each stage, there is 1 mountain sprint, 1 intermediate sprint and the final sprint. So the maximum per stage is 20 mountain points and 70 (20+50) sprint points. But it is not possible to get the maximum on all stages.
I will improve the look of the cards and maybe add more cards.
Maybe you have suggestions how to improve it.
Important hints:
You have to reach the finish line of the first stage to unlock the next stage.
The game does save your progress but it might not work on all browsers.
it was OK on Microsoft Edge and Firefox but not Opera. You can test the save feature by completing one stage and then closing the game. When you start it up again, the score should remain.
Edited by Lachi on 21-08-2019 10:33
It's a nice little game. Couldn't stop playing until I reached the finish line.
Blew my first two tries learning the rules and then finished with 4:19:30 1 Sprint- and 10 Mountain-points.
Would be amazing if you manage to bring some randomness in the displayed cards without breaking the balance.
An option to create your rider/team (starting conditions) would be nice, too.
Can imagine on evolving stages (difficulty levels) or even grand tours and online leaderboards.
Guess you have already made plans to expend the game. Keep it up!
Will definitely follow the development.
For a long time I'm thinking about a game where you start as a little boy or girl and have to evolve into a career in pro cycling.
It should be a casual game with daily tasks (quests) where you can gain experience (XP) and money ($) which can be used to evolve your character.
This card game would/could be a mini game (quest) within that game. But at the beginning I keep it as a stand-alone game.
The cards are generated randomly except the intermediate and final sprints, but it is the same randomness for every play making it easier to develop.
I don't know which is better, each game randomly generated, which give endless play or designed stages, which are better suited for grand tours.
Or I could make hundreds of randomly generated stages, so that everybody can play them. These could also be grouped into grand tours.
Starting conditions should be in the game, for example picking your hand cards (the 3 cards below which can be selected at any time). Also teams, equipment and rider stats should be considered.
Teams could have better team mates. Teams could also be used for the starting conditions, so every team has different hand cards.
Equipment could give an advantage for/against cards, like mountain bikes reduce cost of climbs, second bidon gives more energy, ...
And rider stats could be related to the two stats, energy and attack power, like having more attack power or more energy, or start with more energy.
I am not a graphic artist and normally when I make games I look online for game resources but I doubt that there are many cycling related graphics around. Maybe there are some graphic artist willing to design the cards or the user interface. But this should not be rushed, first the game become stable so that I know how it should look like.
The only thing which bugs me at the moment is the player card. It would be nice to have some sort of top down view of one and two riders (without and with team mate) and 1 icon for attack power, something like this: https://drive.goo...F8imIAIzcu
Now it has several stages and the points are carried over to the next stage, so you can try to reach a high score.
The game does have a save feature but it is not working on all browser. it was OK on Microsoft Edge but not Opera. You can test the save feature by completing one stage and then closing the game. When you start it up again, the score should remain. I just tested with Firefox and it is saving also, so I guess it is fine.
Edited by Lachi on 07-08-2019 17:14
Wow, it sounds like a much bigger idea than it looked on the first glance.
Not beeing skilled at graphical arts myself I had okay results using e.g. artisan filters of gimp turning a pic or real life photo into some kind of clipart. It may not meet your expectations, but it turned out quite quick and easy.
Are the improvements you mentioned in the last post testable?
The link in your opening post leads to 404 error (page not found).
Let's try to get some high scores.
On each stage, there is 1 mountain sprint, 1 intermediate sprint and the final sprint. So the maximum per stage is 20 mountain points and 70 (20+50) sprint points. But it is not possible to get the maximum on all stages.
Finished all 14 stages with 47:25:02 (680 sprint points, 182 mountain points).
No crashes, can confirm saving worked like a charm (firefox) and the animated player card is a nice feature.
As it feels somewhat repetitive as a standalone over 14 stages it makes you perfect your strategy, too. Yes, it got easy at one point, but guess as an interlude for a much bigger game the balancing is fine.
I understand red cards are draining from your overall energy (teammate-->energy-->Attack Power) and it makes sense to have just the value written in the upper right corner of a card, except in certain cases (e.g. hunger, sprint train, attack,...).
Regarding blue cards I wonder why energy gel has a letter added (A1) but the others don't, as they also support certain values. It may be easier to apprehend for new players if e.g. a food card has "E4" written on it.
I agree that you must put the A, E, T identifier on every card (not just on the A cards). It's easy to figure out which cards relate to which stat, but from a design consistency and ease or use view this is kind of a must change.
When your T hits 0 it would be better for it to remain visible as 0 in the blue box, in the same was A and E remain visible at 0. And i think it would be better for T to have a stable maximum like E and A, or for E and A to have mavable max values. At the moment it feels inconsistent to have one move but two static, and then you'd have to make more choices about your path (do you move to top up on T, or to increase you cap on E ahead of a climb?).
Randomness is the better way to go against design, but i think to randomise the patterns for the Moutains, Sprint and Finish would help. At the moment it's too easy to position yourself coming up to them on repeat plays (taking second at every Moutain, Sprint and Winning the Sprint each time without difficulty).
I don't think i've ever taken the A1 boost card, it has too small an impact and A is used in only in the run to the Mountain and Sprint. I think A needs to be used heavily in the Mountain and Sprint moments, saving E and T more for the normal moments and Finish.
Maybe making A more like a "jump" where you can go to an A space and then 'jump' a row forward. So you have a choice between using your A (but now you only have 5 at all per stage) or a very tough E/T line.
Basically something to make A matter a bit more because i just ignore it.
Anyway, it's a nice concept. Very easy to pick and play. Going to keep an eye on it if you keep working at it
Completed 4 stages. 80 Mt, 165 Sp, Time 13:32;52. Savings works fine on Chrome, will continue later.
If you go for Mt the Attack cards are required although agree with TMM that having them play more role would be good, could let them give you access to a file that gets you to the finish more cheaply for example.
Not sure what makes the time better or worse, so if the goal is to minimize time that would be good to know. maybe I missed it in the documentation.
A few thoughts:
Why are food 9 when you can never have more than 5 E anyway?
I think it is great as a quick game, wonder if aiming for a week long stage race you could finish more quickly is better than a grand tour
Is the plan to have the profile at the top vary for each stage?
Would be great if you could customize your rider with different point or card combinations to better suit them for specific terrain.
It is easy to add the indicators for the blue cards, so I just do it. I thought it was obvious by the name of the card. But I could not find a good name for the attack power (so I used the name from PCM) and therefore I added the identifier. If anybody has a better name for the card or the power, just name it. I'm open for any name changes or other events.
I am not sure how to handle the indicators on the red cards though. Most cards consume any energy and I rather keep this logic. I think of the team mates as a "shield" so as long as I have them, they work for me, except for special events like cards hunger and attack, where the team cannot help.
Would you prefer to have each card dedicated to a single energy? So that you cannot pick a certain routes because you don't have the corresponding energy?
I copied the idea of the variable "shield" from another game because it adds some strategy (go for a level 3 team mate at the near left or try to reach the level 5 mates at the far right). But for a cycling game a stable maximum should be more suitable, Especially if I add rider customisation.
I was thinking about random intermediate sprints. My idea was to have multiple bonus cards distributed randomly over 2 rows (similar to the feeding zone), so that you can pick up more than one. Other suggestions?
I agree that the attack power is unimportant. Maybe it would be better to use the attack for all intermediate sprints. If I keep it limited, you would have to decide if you go for the mountain or the sprint points. Or like I wrote before, having multiple bonus cards on the intermediate sprints: 20 bonus points cost 3 attack power, 2 attack are needed for 10 points and for 1 attack power you only get 3 points.
There are no mountain stages yet, but I was thinking about attack cards which give a time bonus at the last climb of mountain stages. This could be implemented as a "jump" (skip one row and gain some time).
Not sure how to do the mountain sprints because there are no sprint trains. Maybe have 2 different attack cards, jump and points, so you could try to gain time or collect mountain points.
The food is 9 because I was planning to have customisation to increase the stats, for example better teams or better equipment.
If I make the RPG game, XP could be used to increase the maximum and the team could also give some advantages. But the game should not become too easy. So either the stages have to be more difficult over time or the bonus points and bonus seconds have to be more expensive. I tend to the latter, so that you can complete any race as a young rider, but with more experience you can start winning points and races.
Another way to customise a rider would be perks (like Mountain goat: All mountain related cards cost less energy).
I think there should be different type of races, one day races, short stage races but also hard/long single day classics and some GTs.
Also different race profiles would be nice, but I have to consider balancing. Maybe 4 or 5 different stage types: Flat (2 intermediate + sprint finish, so no mountain points), Hilly (1 mountain + 1 intermediate + sprint finish), Mountainous (1 intermediate + 1 mountain + mountain finish), Mountain (2 mountains + mountain finish), Classic (no intermediate but special cards which give time bonus like cobbles, climbs and of course the sprint.)
I have not decided about the cards in your hand (the cards at the bottom). Maybe it would be better if they cost something, like getting 5 energy but it costs some time. I could replace the "team car" with a re-usable card which gives 4 energy every time but you lose 1 minute. With this card it should always be possible to reach the finish line. Another cost/benefit card could be the "jump" (gain time and/or skip a row) but it costs attack power.
Several card games have random hand cards, like choosing 6 cards from your deck but at the start of the game you randomly get 3 of those chosen cards and another random card is drawn only after a card was used.
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