Game Concept

Cartomancer-for-hire

Concept:

A game about an underpaid sorcerer hired to clear a privately owned dungeon of foul monsters through the use of a card-based magic system based off of the dice-based system of Die in the Dungeon.

Concept creation process:

The game Die in the Dungeon (https://alarts.itch.io/die-in-the-dungeon)(pictured), created for the Brackeys Game Jam, had a combat system which I found fascinating. The primary player input in the game is in the choice of which dice to play when and where – in particular, the element of controlling dice placement on the board to maximise the utility of the boost and mirror dice felt like one with massive potential.

This game concept is my own attempt to more fully realize that concept. I had some major issues with the design of Die in the Dungeon which I’ve tried to address in this concept. These are:

1. The three-dice-per-turn limit caps the player’s ability to make complex moves utilizing the interactions between dice
2. The shield mechanic is a nigh meaningless extension of health
3. Death immediately resets the player’s dice collection, meaning the game loses depth right when it most needs to motivate the player to keep trying
4. Powerful interactions such as those between multiple boost dice are blocked off to maintain balance but the game is consequently less interesting

Audience:

The strange combat system creates a problem-solving focus in the game, with each round being a sort of mini optimization puzzle, encouraging creativity and experimentation. Based off of this I believe the best audience for the game would be found playing games about building machines and systems – Games like Besiege, or those by Zachtronics, come to mind as similar examples, though both operate on larger scales than this game.

On similar grounds I would consider the game to be of a miniature strategy genre.

Treatment:

In cartomancer-for-hire you take on the role of a sorcerer recently hired by the advance guard of a mining corporation looking to open operations in a cursed dungeon. You are provided (on loan) with a deck of magic cards and a crystal capable of teleporting you to safety in a near-death scenario.

Each day you descend the dungeon to fight off the hordes of beasts infesting it and progress deeper into the depths. Combat is a turn-based effort in which you are dealt 3 cards each turn which they can use in addition to those already in their hand to create a spell. The card types include:

• Heal n health
• Attack for n damage
• Reflect n damage
• Damage Self
• Bleed – does n damage, n-1 damage the turn after, n-2 after, and so on until 0
• Re-roll – all cards n spaces away on the board have their values randomized
• Boost - all cards n spaces away on the board have their values increased by n to a maximum of 13
• Conduit – all cards within n spaces have their values increased to the highest of those among them

The number of cards you can play of a turn is determined by your mana – playing a card uses one mana, and each turn you gain three mana. Hoarding mana allows you to play exponentially more powerful moves by stacking boost and conduit cards, but having more than nine points at a time causes mana burn, damaging one point of health per turn per mana over the limit.

As an added caveat, if your hand has six or more cards, further cards will be dealt on top of those cards, rendering them unusable until those on top of them are played.

After winning a certain number of fights, you return to the surface. A portion of your spoils from the dungeon go to the company, and the rest of them can be traded at the supply depot in return for potions, deck modifications, and permanent upgrades. After having paid the company its cut and browsed the depot, you begin the next day.

In the event that your health reaches 0, your teleport crystal will activate. This immediately ends the dungeoneering segment and returns you to the surface, where you will find the company’s daily fee has increased in response to your increasingly becoming a liability. As such, the only way to lose cartomancer-for-hire is to fall into such poverty as to be unable to pay your fee to the company