Experiment Lab

[Ajit]

A way to test potential card ideas, to see if there are any blatant ways that they are overpowering or game-breaking.  (not to be confused with the trainer! This would be a way to test your own content)




The more freedom given to manipulate the game, the better.  I don't know how open-source Zanz feels, but this would be really fun to play with.  There could even be entire mod games based off of the Elements core.

Yes this would be a big project.

Also, I think a prime way to do this would be to make it as user-friendly as possible.  I'm no good at coding, as is the majority of people I assume.  I mean minimal code-related input from our end would be ace.

Ideas?

Or is this just a bad idea?

Thanks for reading.

[Malduk]

Game could potentially grow huge with open source approach. I'm not sure how Zanz feels about releasing the source.
Non-programmer friendly mods probably wont ever happen.

[Ajit]

Cool thanks for the input

[stickinthemud]

It would be pretty cool, yeah.  Speaking as a programmer, it wouldn't necessarily need the source code.  The game system has its specifications and it can be redone, and probably wouldn't even be that hard (as long as it didn't have to be pretty).  Then, individual cards could then be scripted in a slightly-more-user-friendly-but-still-involving-programming way.

All that said, I definitely wouldn't want to clone the system without Zanz's explicit permission.

[Uppercut]

You can do this if you have some actual cards and dice (for random effects) laying around. Having another program is not necessary.

[EvaRia]

It's way too difficult to keep track of everything though.

Imagine playing pandemonium.

[Ajit]

LET'S DO IT

[bored_ninja777]

i posed the same idea months ago about adding to the trainer or something similar to add in cards of your own to see how they would work. It would help a lot to see how well they actually work but there is way too much work that would need to be done to allow us to implement our own cards.

[DrunkDestroyer]

To me, it seems te amount of work required to make this would exceed the amount of benefit for the game itself.
Since only a small proportion of the people playing are active on this forum, and an even smaller proportion are making cards, and then an even smaller proportion would take the time to truly test their card in every possible situation.

While it would be useful in it's way, I can't see any reason why it would take priority. The best chance of this happening would be a user created system of testing cards. So, if you are really into the idea, find other people who are as willing to put their time into this as you.
However, I imagine it would take a lot of work to not only recreate the game as such, but prepare for possible card ideas which can be very varied.

[stickinthemud]

Oh, I definitely agree that it's not worth Zanz's time to do this.  Whether it's worth anyone else's, well... if I end up having any spare time in the next couple months, I'll try to hack up a (terrible) prototype of an enhanced trainer.  No promises on anything, but I don't think it would be that hard to code up the game engine and get the core mechanics working.  Maybe I'm wrong, though, we'll see

[Ajit]

very cool sounds like fun thanks for the comments

[Ekki]

Oh, I definitely agree that it's not worth Zanz's time to do this.  Whether it's worth anyone else's, well... if I end up having any spare time in the next couple months, I'll try to hack up a (terrible) prototype of an enhanced trainer.  No promises on anything, but I don't think it would be that hard to code up the game engine and get the core mechanics working.  Maybe I'm wrong, though, we'll see

Errr, IDK about Zanz' opinion about this but it may be sort of very simple copy just to try cards, trying not to make it too similar to the game...

Anyways, not worth Zanz' time, by far.