Digital CCG Project Off To Great Start
capi3101 has embarked on a new project to digitize the Wing Commander Customizable Card Game in the VASSAL engine. He's studied prior attempts to do something like this and has already made some good progress laying the project's foundation. capi has an excellent track record of sticking with projects and providing regular updates, so we're excited to see where he can go! Right now he's soliciting feedback from people who've played the CCG to help shape how the things comes together. He's already made a useful addition to the Stealth Technology cards by adding missing text about how they can be used in conjunction with other weapon systems. Follow the project and help weigh in with your perspectives at the CIC Forum here.
It's a pretty slick little engine. I myself have used it to make nine mods (soon to be ten :) ), four of which are up on their site. The module for Dennis Sustare's Star Smuggler, a solitaire RPG, is one of mine (and arguably the most complex mod I've built to date). VASSAL can be used for practical purposes too - the nav maps I built for the Elegy campaign were all originally built with a VASSAL mod.GREAT way of prototyping and playtesting a game without having to spend money on real parts. I've already had a thought about the possibility of expanding the CCG mod with new cards (or maybe ships/pilots/factions from different eras), but that's just a thought. Probably oughta get the basics in before any tinkering happens (if at all).
The process of cleaning up the card images has begun. Really, all I'm wanting to do there is to clean up the edges a bit so that there aren't white borders around everything. So far I'm off to a bumpy start; I was working on the card backs yesterday and while I think the Terran back is okay, the Kilrathi back had a lot of noise in the border for some reason. I'm probably going to want some extra pairs of eyes out there once the cards are in to help look for stray pixels against the backdrop. 2 down, 312 to go...
Let me ask you guys - as far as a "tabletop" is concerned, I was thinking about going with a starfield, maybe with the "nav map" connections drawn on top of it. My current plan is to set up the Nav Point cards so that they can be randomized prior to gameplay. I've also given some thought to the possibility of having the four-player map in the mod somewhere; it wouldn't take a great deal of additional effort to add it, methinks.
Any suggestions or ideas about what needs to be in the mod or any wanted features would be most welcome.
Follow or Contact Us