DesignDocument

Overview

Argentum Age is intended to be a digital Collectible Card Game which is built by a community of enthusiasts that love Collectible Card Games and desire to build it for the pure joy of building a CCG. In lieu of sophisticated analysis of a target market, we intend to simply build a game that we love and hope that there are a reasonable amount of people who have similar tastes.

Distinctive Features

• A digital CCG with a tiled board to allow for fun tactical play
• A ruleset designed specifically to make best use of a digital format.
• Caters to lovers of the genre with full "chaining/response" mechanics
• Sharp play with plenty of response spells, ability to cunningly move creatures around the map to dodge spells
• Once on the board, creatures move and behave autonomously. The focus for the player is on summoning creatures and then invoking spells that support those creatures rather than controlling them directly.
• No "pay to win" aspect at all. Not only can you obtain all cards by playing, you cannot obtain more powerful cards by paying money.
• Community-driven. Intended to allow community members to contribute to the game, with curation by project leadership to ensure quality.

Project structure

Argentum Age has both a different structure and different goals to most projects. To begin with, we are most of all interested in people who have a love for Collectible Card Games working on it. There is the potential of generating revenue eventually, but the purpose of revenue would be to sustain the project. To pay people to enable them to work on it more. The ultimate purpose is the project and making it something people love.

The project has a small leadership team which delegates broad responsibility to community members who want to become involved. We value contributors who arrive and identify areas they would like to work, rather than being told what to do -- though asking for suggestions is welcome, of course.

Game modes

Argentum Age is intended to support both single player campaigns and multiplayer with other players. This will include constructed formats, drafts, and other formats we come up with.

Collectibility

As a collectible card game, players will collect cards by playing the game. The collectibility will not be used as a method of raising revenue and so the design and pacing of the card awards will entirely be guided by making an experience that is satisfying and fun for players -- starting off with simpler cards, being awarded more and more complex and interesting cards as they play.

Revenue possibilities

The game will be free to play and players will not pay money to gain an in-game advantage over other players.

However, we hope to raise revenue by selling cosmetic items. Players may pay for cards that are 'premium' versions of basic cards. They will work exactly the same way as their regular counterparts, but may have alternate art, fancy special effects, sound effects, voice overs. They may track stats, and allow special customization by the player.

We might also raise money by charging for access to some game modes, early access to new sets (but no possibility to play with players who don't have the same access), and other features.

Initially, the small budget available for the game is dedicated almost entirely to artwork. However once the game establishes a revenue stream we will become open to the possibility of paying our most valued contributors to enable them to continue working on the project.

Lore / Setting

Argentum Age is set in a multiverse. A linked set of worlds which are all clustered around a central Spire where the powerful Shapers make battle, forming, creating, and battling over different worlds. Our own world, Terra, is quite distant from the Spire, but tales from it leak out as myths and legends. Tales of Zeus and Hercules of Thor and Loki of Kali and the Rain Serpent are all reflections of battles between shapers in the world of the Spire.

When the Spire was first created was the golden, or "gilded" age, a time of perfection. Of peace and prosperity. Perfect worlds were shaped and formed, paradise after paradise coming into being. But after the one known as Pandora opened the Jar, all of the evils within it were let out upon the universe. Many of the shapers turned against each other, instead of collaborating they fought and competed over the worlds they were shaping.

This led to a time of war but also of heroic acts of bravery. Of great giants and creatures, men and women of renown roaming out on adventure, going into battle in the worlds of the Spire. This is the Silver Age. The Argentum Age.

Argentum Age takes place in a slightly surreal fantasy world full of magic, but also with anachronistic steampunk and cyberpunk features. There will be no mundane 'modern' weapons such as guns. There might be computer-like devices, electronic-looking lights, etc.

Character diversity

Human or human-like characters in Argentum Age should be chosen with a diverse range of races and balanced gender ratios. Characters should not be sexualized.

The five schools of Magic

Entropia

Primary

• Life Drain
• Benefits from creatures dying
• Reanimating the dead
• Removing life
• Poisoned
• Transforming creatures
• Destroying creatures

Secondary

• Flying
• Converting creatures into mana (only if the creatures are dying)
• Converting creatures into cards (only if the creatures are dying)
• Creature bonuses (static bonuses from other creatures)

Bad at

• Directly removing wounds
• Ranged attacks
• Armor

Aether

Primary

• Removing wounds
• Adding life
• First Strike
• Cover
• Flying
• Moving multiple tiles per turn
• Reducing attack
• Adding exhaust

Secondary

• Benefits from creatures dying (only their own creatures)
• Regeneration (spells give Regeneration)
• Creature bonuses (static bonuses from buildings)

Bad at

• Directly damaging
• Massive creatures
• Creatures that grow

Gaea

Primary

• Massive creatures
• Aggressive creatures with lots of attack
• Regeneration
• Haste
• Marauder
• Creatures that grow
• Destroying buildings and land
• Summoning multiple creatures at once
• Removing exhaust
• Creature bonuses (in large, temporary bursts; response)

Secondary

• Cover (spells give Cover)
• Poisoned (creatures give Poisoned to others)
• Removing wounds (creatures remove their own wounds)

Bad at

• Ranged attacks
• First strike
• Direct damage from spells
• Buildings
• Drawing cards

Materia

Primary

• Armor
• Ranged attacks
• Converting creatures into mana
• Altering summoning locations
• Indestructible
• Buildings
• Constant mana boosts
• Creature bonuses (moderate, permanent bonuses with an equipment flavor)

Secondary

• Relocating creatures (only friendly creatures)
• Lands that grant life and other creature bonuses

Bad at

• Flying
• Drawing cards

Sapienza

Primary

• Drawing cards
• Deck and hand manipulation
• Relocating creatures
• Directly adding wounds
• Converting creatures into cards
• Transforming creatures

Secondary

• Removing wounds (creatures remove their own wounds)
• Creature bonuses (transformation and evolution)

Bad at

• Combat abilities
• Large creatures