ColorFriends by Marzipan Maddox (Video Game)

I made this game over  a year ago, and I had some free time so I spent the weekend fixing some bugs. I made it through a game without any fatal errors, so that's good. Hopefully the picture works. It is even more confusing and difficult to play than it looks!

It is a 100% skill based F2P card battle game. Pokemon style strengths weaknesses with not just 1 chart, but 4 charts: 16x16,9x9,5x5, and 3x3. True E-Sport, extremely high skill celling; but also tiny font, ugly and easily too clunky and confusing to be enjoyable. It is free though. I'll post the manual below.

Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YNxIGfQGe25-XOcRH13OOJfSd6LDJcSK/view?usp=sharing

v v Manual v v

Colorfriends Manual
by Marzipan Maddox

I made this game over a year ago (mid 2017), then gave up when I realized I would have to recode the entire thing to include online multiplayer. I have done no programming save for a couple of minor edits in the game over the course of a day. I wrote a book instead because i'm lazy and programming is hard. The game is clunky and ugly, but it is what it is. I'm putting it out there because I'm bored and there's a tiny chance somebody might like it and send me an email. (Marzipanmaddox@gmail.com)

It is a hotseat card game. There is no RNG. It has a color system like pokemon, but there are four sets of colors (color, element, genus, corporeality) instead of just one like in pokemon (type)

*** means important***

Controls - Mouse only

Right Click - Most things; select

Left Click- Deselect; Player 2 End Turn

Middle Click- Attack;

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Class Types- This is your hero. There is a bonus for each one.

Fighter +25% Card Attack Damage

Wizard +25% Spell Attack Damage

Colorfriend +25% Color Multiplier (Best but hardest to maximize)

Elementalist +25% Element Multiplier

Captain +25% Genus Multiplier

Mayor +12.5% Labor (+12.5% Attack and +12.5% Defense)


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How to Play

Starting Turn, Player One
Left Click the leftmost Labor box, and then select a labor color, then click ADD. You get labor points based upon what the element roll of that labor color is. Ex: Fire is 2x bonus against water, so Having 1 fire laborer means you can get 2 points of water labor when you spend it, the same applies to 0.5 bonus, etc.

Once you are spending a laborer, your available Labor appears next to the word 'Labor' above your laborers.

 'Up' next to the type of labor point plus signs shows you how much labor points your laborer's labor can give you in that field, if you spend all of your labor. So If you have two labor points, and there is 0.5 up for exchange, that means you spend 2 spendable labors points to gain 0.5 units of playable labor.

To Spend a labor, left click the spend button, then left click the + button next to the labor points you want, they go up by 0.5 to facilitate adding two 1.5 rolls into 3 labor points.


You can get one new laborer each turn. If you want to change your laborer, you can middle click an established laborer to cause it to become empty (bone fish). You can only change a laborer if you have more than one labor.

To Spend a labor, left click the spend button, then left click the + button next to the labor points you want, they go up by 0.5 to facilitate adding two 1.5 rolls into 3 labor points.

To spend multiple labor, this must be done one at a time. After 1st is spent, Right click the BLACK 'spending' button. Once you right click this, you cannot spend that labor again, even if you did not use all of your spendable labor points.

Right click the spent labor (indicated by small green circle in right corner) that is still selected; then you can left click the labor you want to spend, then spend it. Only one labor can be spent at a time, so if multiple are selected (green outline) you cannot spend until only one is selected.

The 1-4 laborers you have determines the color of your hero, so when enemy cards attack your hero, this is what determines the color multiplier. Changing labor colors is beneficial because you can counter the labor colors your opponent has been exploiting you with.

Mayoring Laborers- When you spend 8 Labor points a a Mayor, you can Mayor one Labor and use it again after it has been spent.
(Select a spent labor; left click the RED mayor button to be able to spend it again)

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Drawing a Card

You can draw two cards per turn. There is no way to look at the board during your draw phase, so try to think of what you want to play before hand or just take a shot in the dark. You can however see available playable labor points that you have acquired next to the colors, correlating with their position on the 4x4 grid.

Click the Red Draw Button. Click 'Card 1' on the right side. **** Click the 'Reset' button next to the 'Card Preview' because otherwise it won't work ****; Left click your desired element, then add it, one click adds one element to a card. Each card can have up to 8 color points total, and 4 different colors. Select your Element; Corporeality; and Genus, then click the add button.

(You cannot create a card without adding at least one color, and selecting the other 3 types)


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Changing Attack/Defense. You can add attack at the cost of defense and vice versa with the dock menu. This does not change the cost of the card. You must add bonus stats before docking the other to balance it. For card to be valid, it must have '0' next to the word Dock.Then click the small blue ADD button in the dock box to finalize.


Effects - Unit effects add bonus effects to your card. These effects have a dock penalty, meaning you must sacrifice stats to gain these effects. You can only have on effect at a time. Click on the desired effect, click the big red ADD button, then get your dock correct, then click the small blue ADD button in the dock box to finalize

Blitz- (Charge/Storm) Can attack on the turn it is played.

Staunch - This is a taunt/ward; enemy cards cannot attack your hero or your other fighter if you have one of these in play.

Suave- This is known as divine shield in hearthstone. The first source of damage dealt to this fighter will be negated.

Spell Damage - This increases the attack of your spells. This is applied before the spell damage multiplier. (1.5x for direct damage, -1.25x for heal, and 0.5x for Damage all enemies)

Camo - This unit cannot be targeted until it is out of camo, it can be hit by area of effect spells.

Double Strike- This unit can attack twice in the same turn.

Draw- You can draw an extra card. (When you make a card with draw. The draw marker will be consumed once you reach the correct amount of labor spent, if you already have enough labor spent to play the card, then it will disappear when you draw it, but your number of draws (listed next to the draw button) will not have gone down.


Silence- This removes the effects on an enemy's card. To play a silence, you draw your card as normal. You enter 'rally phase', and if you have enough spent playable labor points to play the card, then you cast the silence as if it were a spell by middle-clicking your target.

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Spells- These do damage or heal.


Spells - Spells are cards played from your hand after you draw them. They have the same requirements to be created and played as fighters do.

To make a spell, create it as if it were a normal unit.
(Click card 1 -> Hit reset button -> add components)

To make a card into a spell, click the Red 'spell' button at the top, it will become yellow, then click the type of spell you want, then click the *SMALL BLUE ADD BUTTON* next to the 'spell' button. The dock and multipliers are applied automatically. (Damage all has a flat -0.5 damage dock, Direct Damage has 1.5x multiplier, heal -1.25x multiplier, and Damage All Enemies has a 0.5x multiplier.

To Cast a Spell in your hand, select the spell with left click, then middle click the target you want to attack

You cannot target heroes with spells.

Tip: Spells don't have any reason to reduce the damage they intake, because they die when they are played regardless of anything. You can take the default points out of fortitude and place them in another category for no loss.


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Stats - This give bonuses to your multipliers.

Strength- This gives a 1% bonus to raw attack damage per point

Fortitude- This gives a 0.8% reduction to damage intake per point

Luck - This gives a 0.264% bonus to color roll per point

Constitution - This gives a 0.46% bonus to element roll per point

(These % were an attempt to balance. Raw Damage puts out a 1:1 on average, Color rolls put out around 4 on average, and element rolls put out a bit above 2 on average. The damage is reduced after it has been multiplied by color, element, genus, and corp rolls, so that is why it is below 1% reduction. I tried my best to balance this, but it is a lot of numbers to try to balance. Meaning that each point gives roughly the same benefit, but can be applied situationally if you know you have a hot color roll or a hot element roll that you want to maximize.)


Once you have made your card, click the red draw button in the corner to draw it.
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(Back to battle room.)

Once you have drawn a card. It will appear in your hand, next to your hero. If you have enough points, you can play the card and it will be on your board.

 If you want to cancel that card and draw another one, your draw will be used, but you can cancel by left clicking the Red X, then right clicking to confirm the cancel.


Click on the card to see the stats, and the HP it has. It will also say what effects it has. It will also tell you how much HP it has. (On the left most panel.)

****You need to set the Genus / Element / and Corp of your hero before you can end your turn. Player one cannot attack Player 2 before the end of Player 2's first turn.****

You can change one of your 3 lesser types per turn by middle clicking the one you want to change.

*****
For Player One to end the turn - Left Click
For Player Two to end the turn - right click
*****
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Attacking

Your card must wait a turn to attack because it is sleeping when you play it. (Unless it has blitz)

If your card is not sleeping and you want to attack, select it with left click, then middle click on the card you want to attack or the enemy hero.

Damage and rolls are displayed In the middle box between the two labor sections.
The Damage on the Left is from the attacking card, the damage on the right is from the defending card. (This only works with one on one card attacks, and direct damage and healing spells. It cannot display more than this.)

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Powder - Powder allows you to increase the stats of a fighter you already have, as well as add additional colors to your fighter if you have empty space. Powder deals 50 damage to your own unit. It likes to kill smaller and hurt fighters who can't handle their powder, so watch out.

Powder gives you strength, but not health. It increases your fighter's max health, but does not give you the actual health. You can heal your fighters to full after they take powder though. Powder will deal 50 damage on contact, but if your fighter survives the 50 damage, that 50 damage gets negated. I think... (Ex. Powder used on 50HP guy will kill, on 100HP guy, will leave him at 100/200 HP)


To make Powder: First you need to spend your labor as usual. When the labor is spend. End the spend phase by right clicking the 'spend' button. Then enter the powder phase by left clicking the powder button, it will turn black. In the powder phase, click the '+' button next to the pre-spent labor that you want to turn into powder.

When you have made your powder. Left click the powder, then middle click on your fighter that you want to give the powder.

***you cannot be in spend phase and powder phase at the same time*** ; if you cannot enter spend phase, check to see if your powder button is black, then right click it. Otherwise, you might have two or more laborers selected when trying to enter spend phase.

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HELP!

"I can't end my turn" - Check to see if you have at least one labor color; check to see if you have assigned genus/element/corp to your hero (No bone fish). If you are player two, right click the 'end turn' button instead of left turn.

"I can't spend my laborer" - Check to see if you have multiple laborers selected. Only one can be selected when you enter the spend phase. If your spend button is black, this means you are in the spend phase, and you cannot enter another spend phase for another laborer until you have completed this one by right clicking it.

"What are the controls?" - The controls are only mouse buttons. Right click is select your card, middle click to attack and cast spells.

"I don't understand the game"- I also cannot understand how to even begin to formulate a strategy, I only know that these strategies do exist, but I am not very good at this sort of thing.

Tips for being better. - Memorize the Easier charts first. Corporeal is a 3x3 chart, Genus is a 5x5 chart; they both are cyclical, so it should be easier to remember. Element and Color are 9x9 and 16x16 charts with no particular order, I can't help you there, but remember that this is a skill based game, so it requires a particular set of skills to be very good at it.

"There was a fatal error"- I'm sure there are likely plenty of fatal errors to be had, and plenty of things that don't work as intended. I am just one person who taught myself programming to the small extent it takes to make this game (This is my first game and I have programmed basically nothing before this, maybe a couple copy/paste exercises to learn python which i never did.) Email me at marzipanmaddox@gmail.com and I can try to resolve the bug, I can't say that I actually can do this

"The numbers were wrong" - Well, there's a lot of numbers, and I tried my best to get them right. If that does happen, let's just write that off as "skill based" knowing the disparities between the alleged results and the results produced by the program.

"How do you play online?" - I have no idea. I looked up how to make a game online with this program (gamemaker), and I did not understand it very well, and I have no idea how i would even start to test my coding. (With the hotseat version I can test it against myself, but idk how any of the testing would work in an online mode.) Maybe try to host a virtual machine with this program installed, and then run the program, but allow two people to control the mouse. (Something like how Tech Support can take control of your computer remotely) I don't know how to do that, but that is my best guess.

"How do I run on a Mac" - I don't know. Try wineskin. That might work.

"Do you have any plans for this game?" - No, I doubt anyone will play it. If anyone tries it, I think it will be too hard and seemingly nonsensical for anyone to really enjoy. My original thought was to make it as a smug riposte to the word "e-sport" which often times involves some degree of luck, at least in regards to card games. I don't know the scale of difficulty of this game, but I'm sure it is very high, and so making a very difficult entirely skill based "e-sport" (not that anyone will play it), was my intent. I learned enough to make this game in this form, but learning a new language or online skills is not something I really have time for right now, and I tend to get frustrated easily and that doesn't help if I seek to accomplish something big and new like that.

If you have any other quesitons, email me and I can try to answer them.
Marzipanmaddox@gmail.com



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About the game.

Colorfriends stemmed from an insane idea. An open world RTS RPG full of a combat system like this, but no limit on the number of colors per card, every card could have a full set of armor also made of colors, all sorts of spells, buildings, everything imaginable, 3d building, different dimensions, because I liked imagining that sort of thing. Harvesting your resources with your laborers to build your things and make your units. Massive battles with hundreds and thousands of colorful fighters running at each other.

Needless to say that is insanely complex, and I was able to think of this alternative. I like online card games, but they have RNG like drawing well or not. I thought I would make a card game that didn't have any RNG using some parts of the system that I had originally designed for the Insane Game like the color, element, and that sort of thing being the major factors, similar to pokemon, but much larger in scale.

I made this game about a year and a half ago. Mid-2017, probably spring to late summer. Then I gave up when I realized I couldn't put it online. Then I wrote a book. Then after that I thought it would be fun to look at this game, I thought about creating a single player version like a final fantasy RPG, and then I realized that would be way harder than I was prepared to undertake, so instead I just went through this version of the game over a few days, fixing bugs, and trying to get things to work as intended, because most of it was already designed, there were just a few bugs. I forgot what I did exaclty, but I put in 8 or so hours on it over 2 days over the weekend. It is fun, but only because I'm sitting there polishing this something that is already done and feeling proud of myself; if I had to start over, I don't know if i have that capactiy, and I don't really have that much time, considering that more adventurous projects are likely way harder, and that means a lot more learning and practice.

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Credits

Sprites - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Color and Element Icons - Lorc (Lorc RPG Icons) (I colored them)
Buttons - Me =)
Programming - Me; also Game Maker for making programming simpler and more organized than other languages, make fun of me if you want for using this, but I don't care, I'm lazy and I wanted to make a game far more than I wanted to learn programming.

Bugs - Me =(  --- I did what I could... feel like doing? I gave it an earnest effort, but I'm not tearing the game up and down looking for bugs.

Copyright info

I'm not a lawyer, but i did write the code and designed the battle charts for whatever that's worth. I doubt anyone wants to infringe upon an unplayably confusing system, so take some advice from me, and infringe upon copyrights that are successful and that people actually enjoy. I'm not making any money, so if you can get people to play a game like this, maybe a simpler game, that would be awesome. This is basically just a riposte of E-Sports, showing what a truly skill based card game would look like. I'm not good for being "fun and enjoyable" i'm good for being a pretentious ass, hence why my game is so convoluted, confusing, and frustrating.