Elsher Abraham - Game Design

I have been playing card games, casually and competitively, for as long as I can remember. I've tried my hand at the "big three" Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Magic: the Gathering, having played the latter two somewhat competitively. I found the most competitive success playing the Naruto CCG by Bandai during its peak popularity and the digital card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Other games I've played include Dragonball CCG (Bandai) Dragonball Z CCG (Score), Dragonball Super Card Game, Zatchbell CCG, Force of Will TCG, Kaijudo TCG, and Duel Masters TCG, just to name a few.

My first memory of designing a custom card was long ago in the first grade, drawing on sticky-notes to create makeshift Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG cards. Fast forward five or six later: with an old version of Adobe Photoshop I started messing around with graphic design and tried my hand at making custom Naruto CCG cards. I found like-minded creators in the Naruto CCG community and since then have been developing and improving upon my graphic design skills as well as my card and game design philosophies. I would later find myself using these skills and knowledge to design and create my own card games.

CUSTOM FAN CARDS

Like most other creators, my first real attempt at creation was imitation. I made countless fan sets of Naruto CCG and Dragonball CCG (Bandai) cards, covering story that was not yet covered by the real sets. When the Dragonball CCG died after only a few sets, several friends and I tried to continue it with our own creations, trying to solve some of the issues the game inherently had with new mechanics and design philosophies. Years later, when the Naruto CCG died, we did the same; we attempted to revive the game several times though we faced non-design related roadblocks.

Custom Naruto CCG card (2014)

Custom Dragonball CCG card (2012/2013)

Custom card for revamped Naruto CCG (2018)

Custom Hearthstone card (2018)

PERSONAL GAME DESIGNS

At a certain point, I grew tired of the limitations of a game with set, predefined rules; not to mention my eagerness to make cards for a property other than Naruto and Dragonball Z. From that came my One Piece Fan Made Card Game (FMCG) in 2010. I have been working on this game to this day in an attempt to create a game much different from everything else in the marketplace, but just as, if not more, fun.

The project began in early 2010 and was made (somewhat) public in March of the same year. It was shared on an online community of custom card makers and designers, "Make your own cards. Preferably images." which later became known as the "Card Making Boards". The forum was the product of the official Naruto CCG forums disabling the ability of forum-goers to post images and in turn the Card Making Boards became a sanctuary for designers and creators of all levels.

The One Piece FMCG was initially a simple adaptation of the Naruto CCG. The majority of the rules and mechanics worked very similarly to those of the Naruto CCG. The only main difference being the inclusion of a tap mechanic and the win condition: Instead of moving cards from the top of the deck to the Battle Reward Area, the game started with each player having 10 cards (Treasures) from the top of their deck in the Treasure Area. The game would then be a tug-of-war between players until one player reached 20 Treasures.

After the conception of the game, I left it alone for a few years, choosing to work on other projects instead. Two years later, I revisited the game with new ideas that I wanted to implement. This version was developed to the fullest extent, having cards designed up to the eighth or so expansion.

One Piece FMCG 2.0 (2012)

This version, now dubbed 2.0, also played similarly to the Naruto CCG, though a few notable changes were made: beri was introduced as both a resource and a player's life total; a range system was introduced that allowed targeting of cards in play based on their distance from each other; two new card types; and an altered combat system with respect to weather conditions.

We were able to play-test 2.0 through a program known as LackeyCCG. Physical testing was done as well via printing out the cards and placing them in sleeves over real cards.

This version was released to the public through the mediums of YouTube and ArlongPark (a popular forum for One Piece fans). You can check out the early rules for this version of the game here.

One Piece FMCG 5.0 card

One Piece FMCG 6.0 card

Today, I've been tweaking the game here and there whenever I have free time. I've rehashed the game enough times in its entirety that it's currently in Version 8.0. On each Version, I realized an aspect of the game that did not make the game as fun as I hoped it to be, whether it be the simplicity of a combat based game or the complexity of a multidimensional combat system.

I knew at a certain point that I wanted this game to be a real card gamer's game, meaning that simplicity was not my goal (I would later toss this philosophy away, realizing the importance of being able to convey ideas simply and succinctly). As such, these versions included several different stats, more than just the typical attack/power and defense/health/toughness.

One Piece FMCG 5.0 card

One Piece FMCG 6.0 card

I also wanted to include a way to play the game and win without the game being incredibly reliant on combat. This led to the idea of a Goal System, where some cards would feature a certain Goal that had to be accomplished in the game. Once you accomplished that Goal while that card was in play, you achieved that Goal (adding to your Goal count) and got some sort of reward (as stated on the card with the Goal). This allowed for winning without the means of combat, as most games require.

The Steal stat was great for balancing cards, because a character could have high combat stats, but low Steal stat, so it wouldn't be useful for trying to win the game through attacking, but would be good for defeating enemy characters. This provided a three-way balance of Steal, Combat stats, and card abilities/Goals so no one card was extremely overpowered in multiple areas.

To further balance cards, I came up with the idea of Locations which acted as a limit to the power level of card you could play. Akin to Turn Markers in the Naruto CCG or your total Mana in Hearthstone, Locations limited what kind of card you could play by granting you a numeric value (Level). You could only play cards with Level equal to or lower than the Level of your Location.

Furthermore, I experimented with giving each character a certain number of movements or actions they could take per turn rotation. Attacking, blocking, using an activated ability, or using Skills and taking Logs would require a movement. This added more complexity to the game, however, forcing people to remember multiple things every turn rotation.

Ultimately, I dropped the One Piece FMCG for a few more years, hoping to be able to reconcile my want for a strategic card game and the need for simplicity and nuance in design. Today, I am still working on a version of the game that suits modern design sensibilities while maintaining my vision for gameplay and fun.

Avatar: The Last Airbender FMCG card (2010/2011)

Attack on Titan FMCG Character card (2010/2011)

Attack on Titan FMCG Area card (2010/2011)

Throughout the years that I was working on the One Piece FMCG, I also worked on a few side projects. One of the earlier ones was the Avatar: The Last Airbender FMCG. It worked very similar to the Naruto CCG and was made between the time I had the idea for One Piece FMCG 1.0 and 2.0.

Sometime around 2014 I had the idea for a zone based card game after being inspired by the Attack on Titan series. There were three zones, each representing a Wall in the Attack on Titan series, totaling 6 zones all together when playing with an opponent. The idea was to move cards through your zones and into opponent's zones in order to achieve victory, similar to many tabletop games. This was where the idea for movements or actions per card came from. As shown on the Grisha Jager card, this game also featured multiple stats which would be useful for different cards. I felt this game had the most potential, as it was flavorful to the series, was simplistic enough in mechanics and combat, and promoted strategic game play due to the multi-zone system. However, due to my academic time constraints, it never got off the ground.