PDA

View Full Version : "Shandalaar II": A Forum-Based(?) MTG Game (Interest Thread)



Zovc
2010-08-06, 04:38 PM
I recently got the chance to try the ancient beast of a computer game that is "Shandalaar" (That's what my friends call it, but it's apparently called Magic: the Gathering). I really enjoyed it. (Wikipedia Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering_%28MicroProse%29))

Today, I had the idea of recreating the game in a multiplayer fashion. While I could likely design the entire game myself, I have a habit of abandoning projects. It's not only that, but my capabilities in a lot of departments (art in particular) leave a lot to be desired. So, I'm slowly slinking through a few forums and checking interest.

Of hand, a forum seems like a good platform for this game, but the platform should be taken into consideration when designing the game. As such, it's a good idea to decide what the platform for the game will be.

One thing that won't change from platform to platform is Magic: the Gathering itself. So, I'll ramble on that for a bit here.

In Shandalaar, you decide what color you want to start the game using--that makes sense, but for some reason, you start the game with a deck using that color and its allies! I imagine it's a good idea to define what decks a player can start with in hopes of setting a baseline for 'level 1' power. To resemble Shandalaar, I suggest we first design decks based on the Shards of Alara. The shards of Alara focus on one color, but also have its ally colors present (and no other ones). So, in hopes of preserving some Magic flavor, each player (planeswalker)'s origin determines their starting deck.

So, I was considering making a starter deck for each Shard, then making 'the rare' of the decks the appropriately-colored dragons from Invasion (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&type=+[%22Legendary%22]+[Creature]&subtype=+[%22Dragon%22]&rarity=|[R]&set=|[%22Invasion%22]). Doing so would allow me to make decks based around Planar Chaos' cycle of dragons (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&type=+[%22Legendary%22]+[Creature]&subtype=+[%22Dragon%22]&rarity=|[R]&set=|[%22planar%20cha%22]) as well.

I would make the starter decks start at 60 cards, abandoning the 40-card-minimum in the PC game.

I'm not sure I would keep the "use money to buy cards" theme, though. I really like the idea of entering dungeons and fighting bosses in hopes of finding great treasures, so I will definitely try to preserve that aspect of the game.