Twilight Warring with the Hiatus

I wonder how many people picked up the nuance that the hiatus doesn't apply to Twilight War. Not many perhaps, but it's stated very clearly in Flight Cancelled that it only applies to Exodus Flight and later. Twilight War is definately before Exodus Flight (see this list) which means that work is still on-going on that set.

I have finally finished fleshing out the Weave cards earlier in the week on Twilight War, and it's there for the players to comment on at the moment. Links to a page for each region with all the proposed cards are at the CCGW forums, although the pages for KT, Underneath and Arderial have already been superceded by their current versions on the engine. It's still fair game to comment on any one of the cards though, although I hope people will follow the rules.

I see people making comments like "I like Card X a lot." and although that's good for my ego (heh!), it's not good from a Card design point of view. It's got nothing I can use because I have no idea why that person likes that particular card. Is it because of the colour? the art? the FT? the name? What exactly about it do they like? I wish they would state their reasons so that I can incorporate them into future versions of the cards.

What I do like are the negative constructive criticism as I mentioned in passing in the previous blog entry. No, I'm not a sadist. Constructive criticism, even if they are negative tells me what a player doesn't like about the card, what I should try to avoid, and what doesn't work with the cards. However, it seems not many people are adept at giving constructive criticism; they often miss out the "why" part. Standalone statements like "I don't like Card Y." or "Card Z is useless." is worthless to me because they don't say why said person doesn't like Card Y or think Card Z is useless. There's nothing there I can use to improve the card and that frustrates me more than the negativity itself. I just wish people would mention "why" for every comment.

The other thing to remember is that I'm not designing to please just one person or one group of person. Ever set has to try to please everyone. Yes, I will repeat it again, every set, even a custom set, has to try to please everyone. But that's impossible? Well, not really though. I didn't say that every CARD has to please everyone. It means that in any likely given set, if a player like a least a small fraction, say 5% of the cards, or even 1 card in the entire set, then I have done my job in delivering the set. Those are the cards designed for the said players. The other cards are designed for different other demographics/players.

Let me illustrate. As a mainly Creatureless player (sometimes, if I get the time to play), I have no interest in creatures, and that's probably a quarter or more of a set that I would have no interest in. Now not all spells and relics are created equal... naroom spells and relics are more likely to add energy to creatures, which would be useless to me as a Creatureless player, so there's more cards out of the window. However, if I find that cool Nar spell that I can use in my Creatureless paradwyn deck, or the great KT spell that combos nicely with the final magi in my creatureless Core deck, then I'd be happy... for eventhough most of the set is useless to my play style, there are at least 2 spells on cursory inspection that I would be excited about as a player. Now, these 2 spells might be worthless to a Naroom creature player, but it doesn't matter. The spells are not designed for the Naroom creature player in mind, and in an ideal set, the Naroom creature player should get excited about some other cards in the set, probably a number of Naroom creature cards, which will be of no interest to a creatureless player.

Some people intuitively understood all that. When I got the designed cards back from Tim for Underneath, I didn't even change a word that he submitted on those cards, nor made any comments, because he captured the feel of the Underneath set of cards just right. There was something for everyone, be it Korrits or Burrow or even Creatureless underneath.

By contrast, when I got the list of cards from Daniel, I was aghast and ... well, bored. All the cards looked and felt the same and all of them seemed to be designed for one deck and one type of player in mind. While it might find use outside of that one deck, it would probably be very unlikely that it would be used so, and I wrote a rather gentle email back telling him that the card designed were technically perfect, but were boring and lacking. Credit should be given to Daniel as he took the comments away and worked on the cards after about 4 or 5 edits later, laced with all my comments (and some of those were negative yet constructive), he produced a series of cards that were, well, almost there. I edited a couple of the cards and posted them for comments and there were a number of people praising Daniel in that thread. Good for him.

The thing was, he took his designs away, and together with my comments, redesigned the cards. He didn't let the negative (yet constructive) criticism get him down, but he persevered and rewrote and rewrote as many times as possible to end up with a result that both he as the region designer and I as the overall set designer can be comfortable with. I think only one idea out of the original 6 was retained for the second draft which I got, and eventually, even that one idea was thrown out the window for something more robust and interesting and... divergent. I like the end result of the 6 cards. Each one of them cater to a different type of player and the cards now have a distinct personality to them. Perhaps one of these days, I'll post an example here on this blog.

(And I'm rambling, but some days, it surprises me to see someone using all the custom cards from one region in a single deck and calling it a playtest. The cards were not designed for a single deck, and I think a single playtest with all the cards from one region cheapens the cards somewhat.)

So, it's the final stretch before playtest begins in earnest. Sometime by the middle of May, I'll begin coding the remainder of the 10 regions onto gEngine so that the playtest can begin in ernest. And then after that, of course, there's still Double Jeopardy (which according to the same list is before Exodus Flight). Exodus Flight and Cure for All Seasons will probably take a leisurely stroll down the adaptation road, but look out for the announcement for Cure after Double Jeopardy goes onto the engine!