Weekly Meeting #1

[norswap]

Agenda:

• Git merge flow (Norswap)
• Lore & art direction for PoC cards: ideas + brainstorm

[norswap]

My summary:

• Git merge flow
  • use rebase inside feature branches (PRs)
    • as often as possible: git fetch master && git rebase master
    • in particular, make sure this is done before merging into master, so that every commit in the branch is logically on top of the head of master
    • some commits inside feature branches are expected to be non-functional (tests/functionality broken), that's expected and sometimes desirable to make better small commits
  • merge PRs into master, so that the master history from now on is only merge commits from pull requests
    • this allows us to go from working state to working state better, and pinpoint regressions more easily
• reformatting with prettier
  • wait until the two current PRs are merged, then reformat the whole typescript codebase with prettier before carrying on with further work
  • configuration:

    {
        "trailingComma": "all",
        "tabWidth": 4,
        "semi": false,
        "singleQuote": false
    }
    

    (trailing comma: having them makes the diff cleaner)
• lore & art
  • (summarizes the discussion, which includes input from other than the initiator)
  • Norswap
    • let's use a "DnD-style" setting: there are a lot of mysterious things everywhere (mystical creatures, dungeons, objects of power)
      • this means a lot of cards will naturally not be faction-aligned
      • this gives us more creative freedom to design iconic & distinctive cards
    • factions vs resources: in MtG, colors encompass both playstyles and color, but the factions are a bit stereotypical / boring because of this
      • the point of multiple types of resources is gameplay — strategic decision for resource management, including when to go multi-resources and how much
      • the draft mechanism for resources (playing a "colored" card face down to generate one resource of the color) is a lot more forgiving than magic, might encourage going multi-resource more
      • we could split factions between multiple colors, and have tribal effects across both colors and factions (kind of like "tribal" mechanisms in MtG)
  • Jasin
    • old card game he worked on: a card game but where creatures lived on an hex grid and had to move around to attack
      • also a single hero had to be chosen, which was aligned to a faction, and you had to have a minimum amount of cards from that faction
    • let's keep that as a "difficult" use case for developing our extensibility framework
      • in particular, the key thing to avoid is having to rewrite all the cards, so the game state interface that gets passed in to each card's logic should be compatible
    • extra attributes: could be defined as a cardTypeID → attribute mapping in a separate contract
      - we could also define a bunch of attributes on each card, not used in the base game but that could be leveraged in extensions
      - we can't balance those, as we don't know the use case! but the cost is small, at worst people ignore those
  • Aritra
    • we could build Legend of the 5 Rings (LotFR) style stories on top of a faction mechanism
      • e.g. earn points for your faction or for yourself, unlock faction rewards, earn more points if beating an enemy (strong against) your faction, faction war events, etc...
      • this could/should be a different metagame from the base game, for instance by putting restrictions on decks to use a minimum amount of faction-aligned cards
      • this is another good use case that should be able to be built on top of the base game, maybe run by us but "opt-out" for extensions
    • select "blessings" or effects for your deck, similar to planeswalkers in MtG or heroes in Jasin's game

I most likely forgot some stuff!

[eviterin]

• Norswap had a Bob Ross moment drawing the git rebase/merge flows.
  • I'm sure there were some smart points but what I remember is that I should spam 'git fetch master' then 'git rebase master'
• Art discussion
  • Norswap
    • started by bringing up (proposing?) a setting where there are old relics and machinery which kind of can be used to introduce different cards.
    • magic's mana system. Which is not always very good because sometimes you have a bad draw and you don't have the correct colors needed and you just lose.
    • 0xFable can have both a mana system and a faction system which could work together. Simple example: some cards can buff factions - some cards can buff colors.
    • Cards can be placed face-down to generate mana of that card's color. (How? ZK proofs).
    • Small discussion on game constraints. Traditional card games have constraint that they should be possible to play in real life. 0xFable can disregard that constraint and do wiiiiild shit.
    • something about MUD and rewriting the game architecture in that?
  • Aritra
    • continued by preparing us mentally for what he was about to say
    • POINTS - players can gain points by beating other factions. Say player 'A' vs player 'B'. If A wins then they gain points both in their own faction and the opponent's faction. These points can then be used for various things, such as changing faction. This could be a springboard to make 0xFable a place where players can shape their own story.
    • Both Jasin & Norswap thought this was a cool idea. Norswap mentioned that this type of thing should be something that could be built on-top by anyone.
  • Jasin
    • said a lot of smart and cool stuff - you had to be there
    • explained about game he had worked on previously where cards also had a movement attribute because the game was played on a board (like chess).
    • Norswap said that this use-case should be something to have in mind when we design the architecture - making sure it could be done.

Feel free to correct me.

[ultraviolet10]

My ideas/notes:

On attack flow: refer to architecture docs for first draft of the POC, game-play mechanics will evolve over time.

On game lore/setting:

• Create the idea that everyone can derive their own "fable" and contribute to the stories of their respective factions.
• Cards can use hue gradients from https://0to255.com/ for design clarity. See: Duel Masters.
• Players should enter 0xFable for the first time and it should allow them to choose a faction based on a bunch of questions (focused on personality, preferences). A direct reference to this would be discord's Hypesquad concept, and God of War's difficulty guide. We should aim to define houses/factions/regions based on this, and as their gameplay evolves their experiences evolve.
• It would be cool to measure the success of a player against players from another faction. A Scarlet Pirate beating four Black Mages in a row should ideally signify some form of progress within the game, for which we could use the concept of experience points (forgive me @norswap). I do think some form of progress measurement does help with continued engagement.
• If we're doing weapons, it'd be very cool to have certain creatures matched with certain weapons, so people could use them as boosters - composite strategies, basically.