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DESIGN DIARY - 11.29.00
The Pavilion
Over there under the dark, ornate tent, our in-house spy - the playtester
formerly known as "Z" - is busily revealing secret Jedi Knights tidbits.
Once more.
So, before both our hard-drives are wiped clean, here's his second piece
of the undercover pie.
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RESOURCES
As I sat down to lunch with one of Decipher's game designers, a while
ago, he fired a question at me: "What do you think about the idea of resources
in a card game?"
Over the next hour we discussed and contemplated the idea. The top card
games (from Star Wars CCG to Magic: The Gathering) had them,
as did many popular board games (from Monopoly to The Settlers
of Catan). We concluded that game players enjoy the strategy of being
able to control and manipulate expendable resources.
When the first revised versions of Jedi Knights debuted, I witnessed a
new idea for trading card games: a separate "side" type deck (called,
appropriately enough, a Resource Deck) that dictated a player's resources
for that turn. Each turn, players could select - from among the Resource
cards they have Left - a different Resource card. They would have the
option of picking a high Resource card, insuring that they would be able
to go first, but this would mean that they did not get to deploy much
or draw many cards that turn. Conversely, they could choose a low Resource
card, giving their opponent the chance to go before them, but with the
benefit of having more resources (deploy and draw) for that turn.
The size of these decks changed over time, from 12 cards to 13 to 10 to
finally 8, and early on they alluded to different colors as well (one
deck would be red, another blue, etc.). I'll give you an idea of the evolution
of one card, and show you how it changed. Resource Card 1 went from:
Deploy 12 / Draw 0
to
Deploy 14 / Draw 1
to
Deploy 14 / Draw 0
to
Deploy 8 / Draw 1
to
Deploy 10 / Draw 3
Others went through more drastic changes, and one card even briefly had
the bizarre stats of Deploy 0, Draw 0. Eventually the numbers were stabilized
and the cards became known as Force Cards, while the Resource Decks were
renamed Force Decks.
Decipher has hinted that down the road players will have multiple Force
decks to choose from, adding even more variety to this part of the game.
In any case, gamers can look forward to this very strategic element of
Jedi Knights. With the ability to choose your own amount of resources
each turn, the luck factor is removed and control rests squarely in the
player's own hands!
"X"
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More confidential information than you can shake a long slender piece
of wood at.
Francis K. Lalumiere
The Juggler
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