Wing Commander Card Game - Is there a digital version?

[capi3101]

Appologies, but this made me chuckle.

I could probably take an accurate guess of the thought that crossed your mind...because the same thought crossed my mind when I posted the thing.


Today I'm watching my youngest and I'll be out of town over the weekend, so it'll probably be next week before I can pick up work on the module. That should give me some time to do some research on how other VASSAL CCGs handle deck-drafting. There aren't that many CCGs that have been written with the engine, as it turns out - I count a grand total of four.

Another nice thing about the VASSAL engine - you can crack open any module to see how it was put together, even if it's not yours. So, you don't necessarily have to "reinvent the wheel" every time...

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

It all looks very nice, especially considering that you've put yourself to it only recently. I'm impressed.

 

[capi3101]

I broke ground on the mod proper earlier this evening. The main 2 player board is in, the carriers are in and their positions can be swapped, the carriers can be damaged, all the nav points ard in and can be selected manually, and the mod can select nav points at random. Still very preliminary; nobody is shooting at each other just yet, but I figured I'd let y'all know that things are underway at this point.

 

[capi3101]

It all looks very nice, especially considering that you've put yourself to it only recently. I'm impressed.

Thanks. I'm hoping the game itself won't disappoint. I know all the work I've been doing has had me itching to get out my old cards again, maybe this time build a halfway decent deck...

 

[NinjaLA]

this is pretty excellent. I love the CCG

 

[capi3101]

Alright guys, I'm picking up work on the module after being out-of-town this afternoon.

Quick question - am I right in that the cover art on the CCG Starter Packs is the same as the box art for WC3? I'm assuming as such for the time being but I'd like confirmation. I was able to find the big poster art of that from the CIC's 13th birthday (I remembered it was there - nabbed a lot of the WCRPG Core Rules cover from that specific event). I'm planning on using it as the "welcome" art for the mod if I can.

Can't say I've done much else - as I said, I was out-of-town this past weekend - though I did write down some thoughts on things to implement with the game.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Hmm, no. I am away from my card but IIRC, the starter packs just had the Confed Stars and the Icon of Sivar respectively on it (like the back of the cards, but on a black bakcground). The displays in which the starter packs (and booster packs) were sold had the box art cover of WC3 on them in the middle (e.g. Thrakhath and Blair before a Longbow being attacked by a Dralthi).

 

[capi3101]

Okay. Well, the WC3 art is a tad more interesting to look at, IMHO. Plus I've got the Confed Star and Icon of Sivar in the mod predominantly already.

Cards are in. Having a few issues getting them to behave properly at the moment but that shouldn't be too difficult to correct. My main concern at the moment is the size of the mod - it's already up to 168 MB, which, if you know anything about VASSAL, it's on the "friggin' huge" side, and I don't have all the visual elements in just yet either. I want to say there's a size limit around 200 MB, but I'd have to verify that. If necessary, I could resize everything to make things smaller. I'd rather not do that of course, but...

 

[cff]

I think these are the covers, aren't they?

Taken from the BGG isting of the game at https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3842/wing-commander

 

[capi3101]

Yeah, those are the covers on the boxes. When I asked the question, though, I was looking at those big boxed sets in this image that ChrisReid posted the other day when he did the spread on this project for the front page:

Related question for Chris Reid: are those big boxed sets what I won the last two years in trivia during the CIC birthday celebration?
(Related related question - when am I going to receive my prizes for the last two years of trivia from the CIC birthday celebrations? The cards would come in serious handy at this point...)


Looking again at the image this morning, I realize those aren't big boxed sets...those are in-store displays, like the one that's open there on the right-hand side of the shot, and the sealed ones are full of booster packs. Okay. My bad there. Still, that is the WC3 artwork, and I'll stick to my prior assertion that the WC3 artwork would make a nice "welcome to the game" image.

Nothing new to report on the mod this morning (haven't had time to work on it yet today), but I hope to have some good news for y'all soon.

 

[ChrisReid]

Related question for Chris Reid: are those big boxed sets what I won the last two years in trivia during the CIC birthday celebration?
(Related related question - when am I going to receive my prizes for the last two years of trivia from the CIC birthday celebrations? The cards would come in serious handy at this point...)

Yup, it's the box of 12 starters. Should be soon.

 

[capi3101]

Awesome.

Another question for y'all, just something I'm considering. The basic board has five nav points, of course, and there are ten nav point cards (twenty, actually, but the cards are duplicated between the Confederation and Kilrathi decks as a rule). I've thought about limiting the number of possible nav point cards at a nav point to just two. Why? At the moment all ten cards are possible at all the nav points, and there's a button that will randomize which card will appear on the interface, but there are often occasions where the same card appears at more than one nav point. I don't know if this is a problem or if it's even something y'all care about, but I thought I'd toss this one to the community and see what kind of response I got.

 

[capi3101]

Next question for y'all - what's more important, the ability to move a Flight (fighter/pilot/ pilot reward/weapon system/battle damage) all as a single unit, or keeping said stack of cards in the same order every time? I had been using layers to keep the cards in the same stacked order (fighter on top, pilot next, award next, weapon system next, battle damage next, etc.) but it turns out that "pieces on one of the levels will not stack with pieces drawn on other levels above or below it".

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to override that. Meantime I've answered the question of why the cards aren't stacking on top of one another in the current version of the mod. I'm leaning towards making the things able to stack and just saying vraxar to the notion of splitting levels of a flight, but once again I figured I'd toss that one to the community.

EDIT: Never mind - I like the damn things stacking.

I need to increase the size of that stack preview but that's no big deal. I think I also need to go ahead and rename all the cards based on their titles instead of their filenames (or just remove the piece movement reporting from the dialogue box; that would actually be easier to implement, IMHO.)

Alright - I still need to get the Power Point counters in, I still need to implement hands and I still need to set up card drafting, but there's been some definite progress today.

 

[ChrisReid]

The basic board has five nav points, of course, and there are ten nav point cards (twenty, actually, but the cards are duplicated between the Confederation and Kilrathi decks as a rule). I've thought about limiting the number of possible nav point cards at a nav point to just two. Why? At the moment all ten cards are possible at all the nav points, and there's a button that will randomize which card will appear on the interface, but there are often occasions where the same card appears at more than one nav point.

Yeah, I don't think you want duplicate nav points. Whatever it takes to make them unique is good. I like your solution of tying two possibilities to a single point to avoid having five repetitive cards showing up every time. Does the engine not have a way to randomize nav point placement without duplicating?

For your second question, I'm not sure how you're defining "stacking." The way your image shows the cards displayed with the bottom modifier stats poking out looks perfect to me. It would be nice if the order didn't flop around.

 

[capi3101]

I could probably implement a system for "auto-seeding" the nav points from a single draw deck. I'd have to do more research into how a system like that would work. Right now the nav points are all being handled as a single piece with multiple layered images; the current function selects a layer at random to display when you ask it to, and what it picks determines the nav point card you see. And right now, all ten nav point cards are possible at all five nav points - which is why the "two possibilities per point" solution would work and it'd just be a matter of removing the excess image layers at certain nav points. I say it'd work - it'd work for the original 2-player game and the CIC bottleneck board, but the 4-player map has eight nav points.

"Stacking"...I'm not sure I can explain it very well, other than to say that what is in that image is a stack (and there's a preview of what specifically is in the stack above and to the right of it). Honestly, I've given it more thought since I wrote the question and I think it looks/plays fine the way I've got it.

The order of the cards shouldn't flop around once a stack is formed. On the other hand, drawing a specific card out of the middle of the stack would be convoluted (for example, lessay ol' Rusty there got in a scrap and some Cat played his Malf on his backside, and the Cat told him to lose the Stealth Technology card. To do that, it's necessary to remove the Arrow, Rusty and the Gold Star from on top of the Stealth Technology card one by one, discard the Stealth Technology card and then reassemble the rest of the stack). I haven't found a way to draw multiple cards off of a stack at the same time; if I do, however, I'll make sure to say something.

 

[capi3101]

I think the Ready Area is too small...



Power Point Counters and Faction Names are in - like the ships, these can be swapped out, though it has to be done manually and individually at the moment. I may look into a method of automating the process. The color change for the numbers is also a bit of a kludge; it's one set of layered images on top of another set of layered images, with one set turned off at the time of game start. It's pretty easy to get the two sets out of sync with one another. That's something I could stand to figure out a better solution to but at least works for the time being.

I'm thinking the current turn indicator shield plan I've got won't work, since both players have to be capable of getting to their Power Point tallies at any time. Right now the shield would obscure both the faction name and the Power Point counters; If I just obscure the faction name, that should work. I'll have to see how it looks.

I also think Thrakhath meant to say "Vraxrai, Terran'hra", but that's a different matter entirely.

 

[capi3101]

VASSAL is starting to hack me off...the turn shield is in, it's the right size, it does the job it's supposed to do, I can get it to move over to the right side of the screen...but for some reason, I can't get it to move back again......

 

[capi3101]

Getting there guys...this morning I added the necessary menus for card drafting, and I've added a feature that will tell players how many cards are left in the draw decks as well as the current size of their hands. I've also added the game rules, FAQ and credits from the data here at the CIC (taking the time to correct the board layout; I'll do further proofreading later) and added all of that to mod.

I need to seed the draft area, and it looks like I will be renaming the cards in-mod to correspond with their names (it'll be easier on the players, methinks). I still need to figure out a method for limiting Luck cards drawn - my initial idea looks like it's not going to work. I need to make the Ready Area larger, limit the cards that can appear at nav points, and prep the other two boards. Still a lot to do but I think I can get a lot of it done soon if I can find the time.

I also still need to get that damn turn shield working. I've asked for help on the VASSAL forums there; we'll see if I get a response any time soon. May have to drop that particular feature - all it's supposed to do is help indicate whose turn it is. That's it. I can get it to move to one side of the screen but damn me if I can't get it to move back again...

 

[capi3101]

Busy, busy day. But a good one - I need to head out in a few or I'd put up some eye candy for y'all. Maybe this evening if I get a bit of time. Let's just say that at this point the mod is just shy of being able to support four player at once, Confed-v-Confed and Cat-v-Cat fights are possible if folks want to try them out, and Luck cards are definitely just one per draw deck. Maniac and Rachel will behave like they should now (no more tapping Rachel, you pervs!!) and you can no longer tell what a crew/pilot card is when it's face down. I still have a lot of work to do but I daresay the mod is playable at this point. I suspect - don't know yet - that the decks can be pre-built and then loaded in later on, which will be uber important if this thing works like its intended.

I'd say more, but I gotta dash. Maybe later.

 

[capi3101]

We're just about in business, y'all. The draft area is fully seeded, all the cards have been renamed and sorted by type, and thanks to a piece of excellent advice from VASSAL forum member Foobarius, that thrice-damned turn shield is finally working as it should (I don't understand how the solution works, but then again my programming language of choice is usually Python, not Java).

Most important of all - I've confirmed that decks can be built ahead of game time, saved and loaded at will. This fact opens up the game in ways I'm pretty sure I haven't thought of fully...it makes it possible for y'all to share decks among members of the community...something I hadn't really intended when I set out to begin the project, but a delightful bonus. I guess I'll build a few decks to put up on the VASSAL page along with the mod when the time comes, so all of you can adequately inspect my suckage. Seriously - I drafted the first deck for the game this evening and I think that if I were to have had to play an actual game with that deck, I would've rapidly gotten my backside handed to me......

Okay - so here's where we stand as of "get your sorry ass to bed, you have to wake up at 5:45": I still need to figure out what I'm going to do with seeding Nav Points, I need to make the Ready Area larger, and I need to get the other two scenario boards in (the CIC bottleneck and the 4-player board). That's not a big to-do list. On the other hand, I probably spent more time on this today than I should've. We'll see how things progress tomorrow.

Meantime - eye candy.