Game Design Document - Orhu/Summer2023Project GitHub Wiki

WORK IN PROGRESS

Game Concept

Introduction

Cardificer is a 3rd person, top-down dungeon crawler/deck-builder game. The player plays as the Joker, a mysterious spellcaster who has been trapped within a cardboard dungeon by the Cardificer, an evil wizard with the power to turn anything into cards. The Joker aims to defeat the Cardificer who lurks deep within the dungeon, hoping to earn their freedom. As they explore the dungeon, the player will collect magic spell cards and use them to construct unique magic runes that augment the basic spells on the cards, building a wide range unique attacks.

Design Pillars

The Pillars of the games design are:

Strategy

Players must strategically choose which cards to add to their deck, considering simultaneously the consequences taking it will have on their deck and how it will synergize with the cards already within their deck.

Learning through Experience

Players will become more familiar with the game's mechanics, it's cards, and the behavior of enemies as they play. By learning across several runs, players will get better at the game.

Replayability

In each run, the player will unlock new cards, new dungeon modifiers, and other ways to interact with the game. These unlockables create new ways to interact with the game and open up new strategies for players to experiment with, giving incentive to play the game over and over rather than just trying to make it through once. Additionally, the dungeon's rooms and the cards you obtain are decided randomly, meaning no two runs of the game will be the same, providing even more incentive to play the game over and over.

Key Features

Cards

In each run, the player will build a deck composed of cards they gather from booster packs found throughout the dungeon. These cards each have a unique "base spell", an attack that defines all combos (called "chords") built using it as the base (or "root"). There are a huge range of spells in the game, ranging from a basic slashing attack to a fireball that burns anything it touches to summoning giant asteroids down from the sky. Within this system, there are over 13 million different possible combinations of cards that can be created, many of which will dramatically change the base spell.

All cards have a cooldown, a base spell, and a chord effect. The cooldown determines the amount of time the player must wait after casting a card to play another card in the same hand slot (see Combat section below). The base spell is the action that is played when the card is used as the root of a chord (or when played by itself). The chord effect is the effect that is applied onto the root card of a chord the card is used in.

Cards are gained through a draft format. Whenever the player opens a standard booster pack, they must select one of three random cards to add to their deck. Providing the player with several options gives them much more control over the kind of deck they build, but also creates situations where the player must take a card they are not familiar with, encouraging experimentation, or a card that doesn't work well with their deck, creating some risk when opening packs, especially later on in a run.

The player begins the game with a deck of 7 cards selected via a short draft sequence where the player opens 8 booster packs. Throughout a normal run, the player will encounter, on average, 24 booster packs distributed throughout treasure rooms and boss rooms (with 2 appearing after each floor's boss is defeated and approximately 18 appearing in treasure rooms spread across all 4 floors of the dungeon). The player will also be able to gain cards from defeating minibosses, which grant rare cards, and in shops found on each floor, where the player can exchange gold gathered throughout the game for single cards and booster packs.

There are a total of 60 cards in the game, 12 of which are rare.

Combat

The player will fight against enemies throughout the dungeon, using a MOBA-esque ability system that maps each card in the player's hand to a key on the keyboard. Combat is fast-paced, so cards are represented by unique icons called "runes" that allow the player to easily identify what cards are in their hand without needing to read the cards' text. Players will also be moving around and dodging enemy attacks as they fight. This makes it extremely important for cards to be easily identifiable so that the player can split their attention easily between selecting cards and dodging attacks.

Each card in the player's deck has a "Chord Effect", an effect that can be added onto other cards when two or more are played together. This system, called Chording, allows the player to play combos, using multiple cards at the same time to enhance the power of a "root" card. Chorded cards inherit the behavior of the "root card", the first card played in the chord, and additional cards in a chord will each apply their chord effect onto the root card. For example, a chord with a slash attack as its root and a fireball as an additional card will act as a slash attack normally would, but it will now inflict the burning status effect on any enemies it hits thanks to the fireball card. There are different behaviors that occur when a card is chorded with a duplicate of itself, essentially "leveling up" the spell and making it dramatically stronger, much more than chording it with another card would.

The Dungeon

The dungeon is a multi-floor labyrinth of rooms full of cards, enemies, hazards, and bosses. The dungeons generation is done procedurally, but can be influenced by Dungeon Effects (or Dungeon Modifiers) selected by the player before they proceed to the next floor after they defeat a boss. These cards may change the kinds of enemies that spawn on the next floor, augment enemy stats (i.e., causing more enemies to spawn, but reducing their overall health and damage), or alter the generation of the dungeon's layout (i.e., causing more treasure rooms to spawn on the floor).

Metaprogression

Each time the player finishes a run, if certain milestones were reached, the player is able to open a booster pack containing three cards the player has not yet unlocked. These cards are then permanently added to the pool of cards available in booster packs. These unlockable cards have more complex behavior than cards the player initially has available to them, offering a natural progression of complexity to the overall game as players continue playing.

Game Mechanics

Core Gameplay

The core gameplay involves players exploring a procedurally-generated dungeon, fighting enemies, and gathering cards to build the most powerful deck they can. Players unlock new cards across multiple runs, providing a means of progression over time.

Deck Building in Cardificer functions via a card draft system. At the start of each run, the player drafts a deck of 8 cards, selected one at a time from different sets of three cards (though, the player can choose to start with the same starting deck as they did in their most recent run of the game). At the core of Cardificer is it's chording system, which offers a unique opportunity for players to think creatively, using cards in new, interesting ways that can create extremely powerful effects. This encourages players to try playing with new cards rather than sticking to the same basic decks each run.

The game's combat plays similarly to an ability shooter (like Risk of Rain or Overwatch)/MOBA game (like League of Legends), with the player having several ability slots representing the cards in their hand. Players must also move around to dodge enemy attacks as they play. As an alternative to a mana system, after playing a card, the slot it was in will be locked for a short time based on the played card's cooldown time. Players can also play multiple cards at once, creating "chords", synergies that can be significantly stronger than playing cards one at a time. The player can also "channel" by holding down the right mouse button, increasing the speed of cooldowns (i.e., doubling the speed they tick down at), but reducing the player's movement speed, requiring them to strategically find times to channel where they are out of danger.

Combat hinges on the player's ability to react quickly, both to the cards that enter their hand in order to attack effectively and to the enemies they are fighting in order to effectively dodge their attacks. Players do not have time to read cards while dodging between enemies, so cards are represented by unique icons that make them easy to identify. Some mastery is required to fully understand the effects of playing each cards and how they affect one another, which lends itself to the roguelike nature of the game.

Being the most engaging aspect of the game, combat is flashy, action-packed, and somewhat complex thanks to the chording system described above, rewarding players for experimenting and learning the underlying mechanics of the game in the same way that the deck building does, pushing the player to keep playing.

Game Loops

Room Clearing Game Loop Explore rooms -> Fight enemies -> Get rewards -> Repeat

Single Run Game Loop Explore rooms to gather cards and find the floor boss -> Fight floor boss -> Get rewards/Edit deck -> Go to next floor -> Repeat until final floor is cleared

Outer Loop Complete runs -> Unlock new cards/abilities -> Get stronger -> Repeat

Gameplay Elements

The Player Character

The player character has a health bar, a set hand size (4 cards) (which determines how many ability slots they have in combat), and several modifiers that adjust various stats (how long cooldowns are, speed, amount of damage taken when hit, amount of damage dealt by attacks, etc.). These can be upgraded during runs via Boons, which are discussed below.

The Deck

The player builds a deck throughout each playthrough. The player builds a starter deck by drafting a series of eight booster packs at the start of a run (or choosing to use the starter deck from their previous run, or allowing the game to select cards at random). This gives the player a lot of control over their deck right away. They gain more cards throughout their run as they open booster packs during exploration.

Boons

In addition to cards, the player will find various Boons throughout a run. Boons increase the player's core stats (max health, attack, movement speed, and cooldown time) and are extremely important to gather throughout the game to keep up with the dungeon's increasing difficulty. Boons can be found in treasure rooms, as rewards from defeating bosses and minibosses, and in shops where they can be purchased in exchange for gold that regularly drops from pots and enemies. When the player gains a Boon, they select which of their four main stats they want to increase. Rarely, the player may find a "Super Boon", which increases all of their stats at once.

Exploring the Dungeon

The dungeon consists of several (probably three or four) floors, each with its own boss, several special rooms (i.e., treasure rooms, shops, etc.), and a procedurally-generated maze of rooms connecting them together (think Binding of Isaac). Each normal room generates upon entry, with things like the hazards within them and the number/types of enemies within them being determined based on the cards in the player's deck.

Upon clearing a room, the player will be rewarded with gold and potentially a selection of cards they may choose one card from to add to their deck. At the end of each floor, the player will fight its boss, gain a sideboard card and a rare card for their deck, and then have an opportunity to adjust the cards in their deck, removing cards in exchange for gold and reverting their effects on the dungeon.

Gaining Cards

Whenever the player opens a booster pack, they choose one of three cards to add to their deck. Each card will list what it does as well as a rough description of it's Chord Effect (i.e., "+ Damage", "Create lightning", "Become bouncy", etc.; basically, enough to get a rough idea of what it does but not enough to know precisely what it does without experimentation).

The player can also gain cards from shops, where they can buy cards in exchange for gold collected throughout the dungeon, either as single cards or as special booster packs that allow the player to select any number of cards to add to their deck, and from Card Printers found after boss rooms, which allow the player to remove cards from their deck or create duplicate copies of cards already in their deck in exchange for gold.

Bosses

Each floor has a boss that guards it's exit. Floor bosses are always the same, so an experienced player will know the best way in which to prepare for each floor's boss as they progress through the floor (and potentially the entire game). As players become more familiar with the game, they will learn how to best approach each boss, learn their attacks, and what cards work best against them.

Card Properties

Main Article: Cards

Note: Eventually, this section will become a breakdown of all the different types of cards in the game. For the time being though, we will just list out some general ideas for card types.

Each card has a name, a description, an easily identifiable icon, and an ability attached to it. Abilities can be things like "shoot a fireball projectile at an enemy", "create a black hole", etc. Cards have an element attached to it, but these elements serve only to give the player a general idea of the behavior of the card and what they can expect from it at a glance. Elements have no direct mechanical importance whatsoever.

All cards can be chorded with all other cards, creating an extremely large number of potential combos that can be created.

There are also dungeon cards that alter the dungeon. These cards are selected at the end of each floor and augment the next floor of the dungeon in various ways, usually serving to the player's benefit if they are selected strategically. These cards are used to determine what enemies can be spawned, what kinds of obstacles can appear in rooms, and various other aspects of the dungeon's generation (number of treasure rooms, for example).

Enemy AI

[TO DO]

Controls

Here is a general overview of the controls:

W/A/S/D = Move
Mouse = Aim (via cursor on screen)
LShift/Q/E/R OR 1/2/3/4 = Select card (corresponds to hand slots ordered left to right)
Mouse1 = Fire Spell
Mouse2 = Channel
ESC = Open Pause Menu
Tab = Open Map/Card Menu