flauwekeul / strings-n-cymbals

Strings ’n’ Cymbals

🚧 Work in progress These are mainly ideas and may change radically 🚧

A card game where the player manages a band of 3 musicians. Each round the player chooses which cards are played from a drawn hand. Each band member has action points that are used to "pay" for cards. Some cards have an immediate effect, others represent an event where the player must choose an outcome. The band can gain idea cards that can be used to compose songs. The band can do shows where their songs are performed.

Character creation

Skills

• vocal
• strings (guitar and bass)
• percussion
• keys

Traits

Traits have a positive, negative or no cost. When the trait has a positive effect, its cost is positive. Traits with negative effects have a negative cost. The player must choose a combination of traits (or no traits) that result in net 0 cost. Traits often introduce cards to the game. Traits can become manifest more in later phases of the game. E.g.: a junkie may have more energy in the beginning, but gets serious problems later.

More inspiration.

Positive traits

• Educated
  • cards: CUSHY_JOB, PROMOTION, BOSS_WANTS_TO_SEE_YOU
  • excludes: Uneducated
• Special voice
  • cards: something for during shows
• Charming
  • cards: something to improve relations
• Flamboyant
  • cards: something for during shows / PR
  • excludes: Gloomy
• Organized
  • cards: EFFICIENCY
  • excludes: Chaotic, Tardy
• Poet
  • cards: something to improve Lyrics cards
• Dancer
  • cards: something for during shows
  • excludes: Clumsy
• Ascetic (practice, practice, practice)
  • cards:
• Good looking
  • cards:
• Cook
  • cards:
• Mechanic
  • cards:
• Sugardaddy
  • cards: CALL_PAPA, DISAPPROVAL

Neutral traits

• Perfectionist (goes the extra mile, but sometimes without results)
  • cards:
  • excludes: Tardy
• Sentimental (great for performing, but may get in the way)
  • cards:
  • excludes: Narcissist
• Activist (protest songs, political)
  • cards:
  • excludes: Frivolous

Negative traits

• Heavy drinker
  • cards: DRUNK, HUNGOVER
• Junkie
  • cards: JACKED, STONED, WITHDRAWAL
• Gloomy (depressing)
  • cards: DEPRESSED
  • excludes: Flamboyant
• Volatile
  • cards:
• Chaotic
  • cards: CHAOS
  • excludes: Organized
• Smoker
  • cards: PACK_O_SMOKES
• Tardy (being late often)
  • cards:
  • excludes: Organized
• Promiscuous (very sexually active)
  • cards: STD
• Frivolous (superficial)
  • cards:
  • excludes: Activist
• Sweater (sweats a lot)
  • cards:
• Passenger (can't drive vehicles)
  • cards:
• Clumsy
  • cards: OOPS
  • excludes: Dancer
• Insubordinate
  • effect: can't work

Relations: band members, friends and acquaintances

Band members are often friends or siblings. Relations can be an acquaintance, friend, BFF or family. Acquaintances have some traits hidden; they can be discovered later. Band members can have annoyances with each other, too many of those and the relation needs to be mended.

Stats

Fame

This indicates how known/famous your band is. The band can achieve up to 10 (?) levels of fame (non-linear). Each level adds/removes cards from the game. The sooner you reach the max level, the better. Each level has its own goals.

0. Unknown
1. Beginner: do 1 show (3 fans)
2. Local: do 5 shows (10 fans)
3. Regional: do shows in 3 different venues (30 fans)
4. Ether: get played on the radio (100 fans)
5. TV: perform on a local tv station (300 fans)
6. Sensation: go viral (1k fans)
7. ? (5k fans)
8. ? (20k fans)
9. Superstars: perform in a stadium (100k fans)
10. Legend: have 1M fans

Fans

See fame.

APs (action points)

Used to "pay" for action cards. They represent the energy of each band member.

Money

Needed to buy things and pay for recurring costs (rent, gas, cigarettes, booze).

Inspiration

Can strongly fluctuate. Can boost/lessen the outcome of actions related to songwriting significantly.

Decide:

• Inspiration is needed to "pay for" idea cards? But inspiration can also be used to alter songs or ...?
• "Gain n inspiration" is replaced by "Draw n idea cards"?

Cards

Can be upgraded (usually once). A lot of cards must be unlocked by playing the game (so they appear in later games). Cards have a rarity (common, uncommon, rare, unique(?)).

Types

• Play cards
  • Action cards: see below
  • Event cards: cards that can't be played but cause an effect
  • Story cards: player must choose from multiple options, each with a different effect and cost
• Idea cards: see below

Action cards

Are drawn from a deck into the hand each round. They have a cost of 0 or more action points. They're subdivided into categories:

• Instant: has immediately effect, may have secondary effects.
• Passive: has effect (positive/negative) that last multiple rounds. Are "attached" to band member.
• Snag: has negative effect; can't be played or must be played if a condition isn't met. Can also bloat the deck to prevent useful cards from being played.

Event cards

Are drawn from a separate deck and can only be drawn when an action card permits it. They can have any outcome (positive/negative). Event cards may result in a future event like a show, interview or recording. The player needs to prepare for these events in order to successfully complete them.

Story cards

Idea cards

Are composed (and only relevant) during songwriting into songs. The deck consists of 112 cards:

• 4 suits (Melody, Lyrics, Chords, Rhythm)
• each suit has 28 cards (7+6+5+4+3+2+1): 7 ones, 6 twos, 5 threes, etc. (7th triangular number) (average rank: 4)

Cards have to be arranged in a 3x3 grid to make horizontal, vertical and diagonal combos. A combo is any of these: same numbers, consecutive numbers or same suit. A supercombo is a either same numbers AND same suit or consecutive numbers AND same suit. The grid requires at least 1 card of each suit. A song's potential is calculated as follows:

• sum the numbers of all 9 cards
• multiply that by the amount of combos (horizontal, vertical and diagonal)
• if there are any supercombos: multiply that by twice the amount of supercombos
• score = sum * combos * (supercombos * 2 || 1)

Example:

 C3 | L3 | C3  Score:
----+----+----   - sum of all numbers: 3+3+3+2+4+4+1+5+5 = 30
 L2 | L4 | M4    - combos: 1 horizontal + 4 vertical + 1 diagonal = 6
----+----+----   - supercombos: 1
 L1 | L5 | R5  Total: 30 * 6 * 1 * 2 = 360

Min score:

 L1 | C1 | R2  Score:
----+----+----   - sum of all numbers: 1+1+2+1+2+1+2+1+1 = 12
 M1 | R2 | C1    - combos: 0 horizontal + 0 vertical + 1 diagonal = 1
----+----+----   - supercombos: 0
 C2 | L1 | L1  Total: 12 * 1 * 1 = 12

Max score:

 C5 | L5 | M5  Score:
----+----+----   - sum of all numbers: 5+5+5+6+6+6+7+7+7 = 54
 C6 | L6 | M6    - combos: 3 horizontal + 5 vertical + 2 diagonal = 10
----+----+----   - supercombos: 2
 R7 | L7 | M7  Total: 54 * 10 * 2 * 2 = 2160

Jargon that may be used to give cards some flavour

Cadence, tuplets, augmented fifth, diminished seventh, downbeat, upbeat, backbeat, circle of fifths, chromatic harmony, diatonic scale, diminished triad, half/double time, groove, inversion, lydian dominant, melodic minor, modulation, lick/riff, blue note, (tritone) substitution, syncopation, timbre, tonic minor, triad,

Shows

Shows can be auto-resolved (to prevent it from being tedious). Then a chance of success is shown and a simple "die roll" determines the outcome. If the player chooses to play the show themselves:

TODO:

End game

The game ends when either of these things happen:

• You achieve max fame
• You run out of money (for n days)
• When you reach 0 fame after your first show?
• Certain (story) cards can result in death or something else that ends your musical career

Backlog

1. Deck of ~20 action cards
2. Deck of ~10 event cards
3. Basic UI (decks, hand, stats)
4. Shuffle deck, draw cards, play cards
5. Jamming: idea cards
6. Upcoming events
7. Shows
8. Character creation and traits
9. Relations