[RMVX ACE] REVIVING TRIPLE TRIAD (FF8 MINIGAME)

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Hey guys,
Its been a while since my last post here on RMN, anyways: Im currently messing a bit with Raizen's Triple Triad script. I guess many of you remember the old Triple Triad card-minigame from FF8. Im currently adding the Elemental Rule to Raizen's script and wonder if you have simple ideas how Triple Triad could be improved without changing it into a completely different game?



As the cards have four corners and the numbers are on the top left corner, we still have 3 spaces left to put other stuff. To me it makes sense to use all the available space, it limits the scope and prevents the cards from becoming too cluttered while offering lots of extra design freedom. The elemental rule Im working takes the upper right corner, so we have 2 more left to put numbers/icons to them. Here are some of my ideas that would fill the 2 remaining card corners:

1. Type/Family
In addition to their element, a card could also feature a type (like goblin, angel, demon, undead). Each type would be strong against another type and gain +1 against that type when you place it adjacent to it. For example placing a Angel next to a Demon would increase the Angels touching side by +1. Please note this only counts when you place a card.
The question is if this rule is good enough so that it justifies taking up a whole corner of a card.

2. Special Effect / Ability
My main interest right now. There could be a bunch of special abilities and each card can only have one (or none). This would make the game much more tactical and interesting. The biggest problem is coming up with clever ideas without breaking the design scope of Triple Triad.

For example, if you play a card with the Clairvoyance ability, it would make the cards in your opponents hand visible, just like the open rule had been used (only on your opponent). But Im having trouble inventing other abilities, I would like to see a dozen or so.

3. Places of Power
This is not related to the cards but would be a new rule: In addition to fields that feature an element symbol there could also be power points. A card placed on a power point would gain +1, in addition to any elemental effect that might be there. This would enable a Fire creature placed on a Fire+Power Point space to gain +2 in total. Placing a water creature on a Fire+PowerPoint space would result in +0 (the power point cancels the fire negative effect on the water creature). There would be a maximum of 1-2 power points per game, sometimes also 0.

This rule would be especially interesting when you begin with your opening move: Do you place a card on the PP in order to gain +1 but accept a (possibly) less-optimal location for your card?

4. Bigger Numbers
Finally I would like to increase the number values on the cards a bit. It would limit it to 1-digit numbers (because 2 digits take too much space). But instead of just an A, there would be higher values symbolized by B, C, D, E and so on. Z would be the new A, although I don't think numbers would ever be that high. This just adds a bit more freedom to card design (and the computer would calculate all numbers anyways so there is no hassle with numbers VS. letters).

k, thats all for now. Would be very interested in your feedback guys!
<excuse my double-post please>

For all who might be interested: I have started reworking Raizens script and released a new version on rpgmakervxace.net. This script already contains lots of the changes I mentioned in my opening-post. Feel free to check it out, demo included and easily integrated into your own project. Expect another update next week containing new features and graphical improvements.

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/21183-triple-triad-ff8-mini-game/page-5

Im still interested in hearing suggestions/ideas regarding the topic!
Well, here's a consideration to keep in mind-

A lot of the rules in the original game were regional, which allowed the game to introduce them after giving the player time to absorb the basic rules without being overwhelmed. If you're going to implement even more rules, and even more powerful cards, well... remember how much time a dedicated player could sink into Triple Triad in the original? Unless you want the game to come off as cluttered and confusing, you'd probably want to ease the player into it over an extended period. But this may run the risk of having Triple Triad take over the game, if the players are given enough incentive to play it, or have the players mostly ignore it and waste your effort, if they aren't.
hi,
interesting point of view and perfectly legitimate. But this does not change my original intention: Modifying the existing Triple Triad game into something that you could call a 'Advanced' version. Ignoring any RPG design principles at this point and not looking at TT as a mini-game. I just want to boost the maximum out of this little Triple Triad game.

There have been online versions done in flash or browser-based as well and they all introduced new rules (like Cross, Retry and others) to the system. I don't think all thats possible has been done yet in order to expand good old TT. And this is why this topic was created: If you have any thoughts about how to expand the game, feel free to post them here and I will do my best to integrate them.

BTW: all the rules (current ones as well as new ones) can be turned on and off. So its possible to emulate the region style of play that we have seen in FF8 as well. The whole pool of rules can be introduced step by step to the player, just as the designer wishes.
Are you aware of Tetra Master? I never liked it myself but maybe they did something different/better.
I also really liked Tetra Master, except the rules (which were actually pretty complex) weren't really touched upon in the main game, like, ever (except for some lady in Dali off in the cut).

My suggestions are more meta; I liked the 'Collection' aspect of TM (showing how many cards you had and giving you 'rank' for it, but not the fact it had no impact on the main game whatsoever, which is the polar opposite of TT, meaning that mastering TT means eventually breaking the game.
How about have some cards have special features. For example, Edea has an A/A/3/3 setup. If you lay it down against two other cards that match up A to A on both her A sides, then the values are switched, so A now becomes 3 on Edea and vice versa. Awesome to eliminate cards on the other side of Edea which wouldn't be turned over by a 3. Small bonuses to certain cards like that which have certain fulfillment requirements.
hey guys, big thanks for the feedback so far - this helps me a lot!

@Link_2112
Yeah I know Tetra Master but I also like Triple Triad much more. But there are two things in Tetra Master that I would like to incorporate into TT as well: Random Values (only as a special rule for certain cards) and: Card Progression/Levelling.

I still don't know how to do the Progression/Levelling Aspect.

@Feldschlacht IV:
Hm that Collection Aspect sounds really cool. As Elements/Creature Types are present in my version of the script, it would be possible to break the whole card set down into parts (Like Fire, Water, Goblin, Demon, Angel). When a player collects 100% of a certain part (like all Water cards) there could be a bonus, and more bonuses if you collect 25/50/75 or even 100% of the total card set. I think this could be nice addition to keep the players going!

@Darkflamewolf:
Also a very good idea. I like to have more special abilities like this one. I have been thinking about adding a special to every other card. It would be almost like a regular CCG/TCG (trading card game) where (almost) each card has a special ability.

So far Im planning to have some cards with Random Values, they would feature a "?" instead of a number on the specific side. And that side's number would be determined once the card has been placed. The number can be anything between 1 and X. Where X is higher than the cards level would actually allow on a regular card.

Lets say a level 5 card could feature a maximum of 6. If it features a "?" instead, it would be able to produce any result between 1 and …lets say 7 or 8. Well, its a pure luck thing, but it would be perfect for "Chaos" aligned cards.

Stuff like this could really improve the game I think, but - its very important NOT to plaster all available cards with specials. Only every other card. In the old TT only a few cards featured an element, but not all of them. It should be the same with special abilities.



One final thought I had was about how the rules would be handled. As much as I like the "regions" from TT that determine what rules are used, I would like to offer another approach. There could be a sixth's card for each player, a so called "Rules Card". This card cannot be played onto the board, instead it modifies the rules that are in effect for the match. There could be a card that activates the "open" rule while another one would activate the "combo" rule. The big question is if this can be implemented in a fair and balanced way into the existing game.

More feedback anyone? Like new rules or additional "meta" effects?
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Hmm, we coded a text-based (!) version of Triple Triad in the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD. The biggest problem we ran into was how to let players get cards. We have a command you can type, "tt getdeck", that gives you three random cards and can only be typed once every three days (realtime). This turned out to be a pretty lousy solution. It doesn't change the fact that 95% of the cards are worthless, it just randomizes the amount of time you have to spend gathering cards before you can play.

Using Tetra Master's leveling system would probably be a better approach. Personally I would make it so that every card could be levelled up to the same max rank, so that eventually all cards would be at about the same power level. This would offer a much wider variety of possible games than the original Triple Triad.

One simple idea for a new ruleset would be a larger board. The players could get more cards per hand... or they could still only get 5 cards and the game could end with some spots on the board empty. Both of those could be different rulesets. Also, an irregularly shaped board or even a randomly shaped board would make games a lot less predictable. A randomly shaped board that you can't see the shape of until after you've chosen your hand would actually create some challenge at the highest level!

I will say that instead of using type/family, I would just use a chain of elemental weaknesses. Lightning beats water, water beats fire, fire beats ice, ice beats earth, earth beats lightning. Wind/holy/poison can go fuck themselves, ain't nobody need eight elements.

I also don't think having higher numbers is useful at all, by increasing the possible range of values from 10 to 36 you're basically just adding a bunch of in-between numbers. It could be seen as the same as adding decimal points. What's the point? If you did want to do this, decimal points would actually be more readable than letters... but it's dumb and adds nothing to the game, it just makes every choice by the player take 0.5 extra seconds.
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