I Made A TCG From Scratch! - Episode 1

My passion has always been making collectable card games. After making Chaos Galaxy TCG for 8 years, I'm starting again from scratch and documenting the entire creative journey...

❓❓Episode 1: Where To Start...❓❓

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If you want to check out my old TCG - CHAOS GALAXY, here's a link to the online store:

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Comment any characters, mechanics or directions for the game in the comments!

⏰ Timecodes ⏰
0:00 Intro
0:32 Where To Start?
1:20 What I Want
3:18 Looking for Inspiration
5:06 A Game Direction
7:08 Very Basic Gameplay
11:42 Post Game analysis
12:57 Artwork Concepts
13:59 Outro

[usedmop]

Man I’ve legit been watching you since I was like 12-13. I’m turning 20 this year lol. So glad to see you still making stuff. I remember I watched your vid on how to make your own tcg and I stayed up till 4 am drawing. Your vids were a ray of sunshine in a bleak time in my life

[touim_]

Man I remember watching one of your vids YEARS ago and when I clicked on this vid I was like "wait I think I've seen this name before". So cool that you're still at it

[drk]

The video we have all been waiting for since you said it is finally upon us

[FelipeCatao]

I'm from Brazil and I've watched your videos practically since the beginning, I create card games too, and I think I'll start creating again... your video inspired me

[amongustoelover]

i plan on following along with this series to make my own game, i anticipate where these videos go

[pineaxolotl]

Not sure on the die roll thing. But otherwise this is a really nice base.
I don't really like luck beyond draw in my games generally but to be fair, the die roll being influenced by the evolver level is a very nice way to make the luck interactable
I'd be warry of a few things though:
1. Mechanics like this generally lead to having people not run high level things or to run things that make them ignore the die roll entirely. I think it'd be good if you gave the high level stuff more reason beyond stats/ability to actually use
2. Having luck based mechanics can also lead to players getting screwed over by their luck here. Rolling a 1 may mean you basically can't do anything here, which is really feel bad. Generally, I prefer it when luck is an assistant in a task and not really what determines that task itself- having something not be playable unless you roll well enough might be really feel bad if someone just gets really unlucky all game. Maybe you can play your monsters no matter what, but if they don't match the rank of the die roll, they die at turn end or something?

I really like the idea of the evolvers. It's something pretty unique, a good way to track health while also giving the game a very easy selling point. You can point to the game and instantly tell what the identifying game mechanic is. And I'm also very glad you didn't take the very old and tired (and frankly, pretty bad) pokemon style evolving system.

Of course, since you did a lot of this work months ago, you may have already dealt with these potential problems lol
but yeah that's my feedback :)

[wismuel]

Popular opinion alert: I like counting in TCGs. It makes me feel smarter while playing the game rated 6+.

[CardGameCrypt]

Pretty good video to show you DO NOT need art or a card frame to start running some tests. A lot of new creators get bogged down thinking the game has to look good before it plays good! Put some numbers and words on paper and play the game!

As others have commented, I'm not sure about the dice mechanics - but maybe look at Dragoborne TCG. They used dice in a pretty fair way that didn't really lock you out of the game if you rolled badly but still played a bit of a part.

Another thing I might look at are other games with 1 stat - most bandai games (dragon ball super, digimon, one piece, battle spirits), vanguard, or duel masters. They usually have some way to add or subtract power for the current attack to make it a little more interesting than "bigger number, better person." I'm sure once effects start coming into play that will change.

Finally, I second some kind of Branching path for evolvers - that way there's a bit of mystery and surprise when you evolve into something unexpected, or at least less expected. Maybe a deck can divulge from a pure strategy to a hybrid of 2 archetypes as it evolves.

Let's see how this one....Evolve..ers. Gottem.

[kaydio]

I like the base of the system, I think having a single unit that updgrades over the course of the game while you play supporters is a really neat way to do things
I'd definitely be worried about two things, the first being that a lot of board games are going for a completely different style of game than TCGs. Board games are usually a little bit more loose fun experiences whereas card games are strict, syntax based, and (mostly) ultra competitive. The dice roll mechanic is definitely improved a lot by the evolver level catchup system, but I feel like most decks are going to be played in a way where they try to ingnore what the dice does entirely, to focus on consistency. Another issue I can see popping up is just turtling, where you hold back and spam creatures/pick off your opponent's until you can one/two shot your opponent with a bunch of attacks so they never get the chance to level up in the first place

The other primary worry is the evolvers being too linear, I hope there's a faction/mutation system that lets you split down an evolution line instead of just going from a-b-c, but that seems to be down the line

Either way I'm excited, enjoying the base of what you have so far and am looking forward to the ways you can spice the game up in the future!

[ChaosGalaxyTCG]

What direction would you like to see this game go….

[RoguelikesDen]

I just started making a tcg and seeing this is really helping.

[kyleheinking]

I've been making custom MTG cards for over 5 years and this was so inspiring to get back into the game development head space. Literally inspired me to start making my own TCG, fantastic video and I watched episode 2 the second it came out!!!!

[Wedoo]

Yess yess yess! Ive been waiting for this!

[JakeFrost-ew]

Seeing Evolvers come back is actually hype! It was my favorites of your old tcgs and it does have a lot of potential! I feel like one thing that could help is maybe adding back a health stat and letting people slowly chip away at the larger protectors so that in a bad position, you can still do something at the very least. I know it would add something to keep track of to the game, but it would help with the problem of being behind causing a snowball effect.
Plus I think the game would benefit from some form of deck building restriction so that it doesn't turn to generic good stuff decks dominating without some serious archetypal powercreep. Overall, I think you have a solid concept! Though I will admit, the die roll mechanic has potential to be super frustrating. Maybe the health mechanic idea could help with that since damage over time could take out a bigger protector but there's still the issue of just running out of cards and being unable to do anything about it.

[DreamDimensionTCG]

Been years since I picked up my game, this is motivating me to pick it back up and remake it
Cant wait to see where this series goes!

[wanderingaming]

I play MTG Competitively and Yugioh and Pokémon rarely just for fun. I say one of the most important things for getting someone into a TCG is theming. Magic and Pokémon both have mechanics that mainly go with a certain color and that gives people a sense of identity. “I’m a Grixis player!” (Blue, Black, Red) in Magic, or “I love Psychic decks.” In Pokémon. I think your idea of Elements makes sense, and combining it with an Evolver makes someone feel more involved in their deck. Magic’s most popular format at the moment is Commander, and as the name says it revolves around a singular card that is your commander, capturing that feeling in this game will really help make it take off in my opinion.

As for mechanics, dice rolling being at the forefront seems a little unfun as a terminally unlucky person (luck isn’t real lol) so I’m not so sure I’d enjoy rolling a 1 for multiple turns in a row. That being said the catch up mechanic really helps, and maybe Evolver abilities can also help catch back up. Adding your Evolver level to the die roll makes me imagine powerful protectors that are level 8+ that can only be summoned late in the game off of high rolls. Also cards that manipulate die rolls and maybe spells or things that stay on the field that are not protectors could be cool. Maybe something that buffs your roll or debuffs enemy roll, or buffs/debuffs power of protectors.

[bareket_art]

Just found this and I love it, I hope this series will continue. good luck

[bigboyart]

I've been making card games off and on for most of my life so far. You have been a massive inspiration to me because you were the first time I really saw an indie card game be made. Seeing someone go through the process of making something makes it easier to start doing it myself

[OneThousandTinyElephants]

I've watched you since I was like 11, and I've just turned 18. You've formed the basis of a lot of my pre-teen and teenage inspiration, and i wouldn't have made well-over 20 different tcg designs without you.

Thank you so much, Zach

[JulieSalvatori]

Thank you for this video :) it gave me the motivation I needed to get back to developing one of my own card games 😁