Aliens Predator CCG: Deductive vs Inductive Planning

Via The Fresh Prince of Beleren

With the full sets of Alien Predator cards recorded into a spreadsheet, they are prepared for data merging and printing. The problem I ran into was deciding which of the ~350 cards in the Premier set of Aliens Predator.
The way that customizable card games are built means theres a lot more options available than you would ever use.
There is not even a maximum number of copies that makes a 'complete' set because Items and Locations have no limit when included in decks. The lack of hard restrictions on what can be included stumped me for a while - I know I have a print limit, and need to filter the card list down to something workable. But with 367 different cards to assemble into 3 distinct decks with their own requirements felt very daunting.

My first plan was to create a set of cards for each faction for the player to build a deck with. I started evaluating which cards to give to each faction, since lots were written to be faction agnostic - even if the card wouldn't be valuable to your faction. I got a fair bit through the Marine faction when I decided to take a different approach:

I simply scrolled through the card records, picked ones that looked important for the faction, and put them into a print queue. It's not perfect or balanced, but the time it would take to get those up to par would be too long. I need playtesting to see if the game is worth keeping as-is, so I need playable decks. And that's exactly what I made!

Deck Building Adventure Game, Part 3: First steps

So now that I've got my goals ready (Challenge, Fellowship, and Expression) it's time to build what the game is.

Italic is a game mechanic term
Bold is a thematic term


Who:
The game is built for Player(s). The target group is teens through adults because of the complexity of the interactions. The themes of the game would suit players that enjoy cooperative games with strong thematics, a moderate amount of chance, and many options. The game is not designed for those who desire strictly low chance, a competitive atmosphere, or an abstract setting.

What: (The big one)
I want a game where the player acts to [ overcome challenges using the resources available to them ]. That's the core gameplay loop - most of the play in the game will be this.

A supporting loop is that [ overcoming challenges provides additional resources ] and that [ failing to overcome challenges provides penalties ].

[ Failing too many or key challenges will result in a Lose condition ].

The challenges for a match are selected from a large pool.
Challenges are divided into Sets that share a Theme or Setting.

Where:
Physical copies of the game are built to be played on a table with ample space. Digital copies would be suitable for Windows, Android, and iOS.

When:
1-2 years of hobby time to generate the game, test it, and make prototypes

Why:
To have a cooperative game that combines the play of deck builders with the progression and persistence of adventure games

New Project! Deck Building Adventure Game, Part 1

This post is about another project I'm starting. The goal is to combine the play mechanics of a deck building game with the character progression and exploration mechanics from an adventure or dungeon crawler game, with a narrative generating bent.

I've enjoyed deck building games since I first tried Dominion a few years ago. I like that deck builders combine the tactics of playing Collectible Card Games (Magic the Gathering, YuGiOh, Shadowverse) and the strategy of assembling a deck beforehand.

I also enjoyed the stories that are generated by playing through strongly themed deck building games like Legendary Encounters: Alien, and other games like Imperial Assault and Hand of Fate.

I want to fuse the two in order to create a hybrid experience.