At the moment, there is an awesome looking Kickstarter page called "Eminence: Xanders Tale", It is an action adventure game directly inspired by Triple Triad. Here's a look at the Kickstarter video for this project:
I've had a chance to have a Q&A session with Executive Producer of Aeterna Studios about the project.
**For those not aware of what Eminence: Xanders Tale is can you briefly describe what
the game is about**
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Eminence: Xander's Tales is an MMO/RPG trading card game (TCG) re-imagined for mobile, tablet and desktop. It's the first of its kind featuring an explorable virtual world and driven on a unique and evolving story. The game features a unique card battle system which has been inspired by the simple mechanics of card games such as Triple Triad. You play against others in a strategic high risk card game where the winner can actually take the loser's cards! Imagine taking your opponent's rarest card simply from beating and outsmarting them.
Going beyond the traditional system of attack and defence points found in many other TCG/CCGs, cards in Eminence: Xander's Tales have to be strategically deployed in order to win, providing an extra layer of strategy where players have to carefully consider each move.
Every card has a personal story and the more you acquire the more you’ll unfold the grand tale. In addition to this, the game offers an incredible virtual world where players can interact and challenge one another, forge alliances through guilds, participate in events and tournaments or take up story based quests to advance the storyline.
The story itself takes place in the world of Artalys, a place caught in an endless death and rebirth cycle every 10,000 years. The nations of this planet have gained access to alchemy, a power discovered through ancient artifacts of civilizations past, and things are not going smoothly. Alliances have been broken and war is brewing, and in the midst, an alchemist who bore witness to the previous death and rebirth of the world rises up to try and find salvation from the ending reset of the Sun’s destruction. As the player, you're a student of alchemy, the last disciple of Xander, and a crucial piece in the war of nations and alchemy that is to unfold.
**Why choose Triple Triad as the inspiration for the combat system?**
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When approaching the card battle system, we explored a variety of mechanics but decided to take inspiration from Triple Triad, which is a mini game found in Final Fantasy 8. As much as we loved TT's basic rules and simplicity, it was quite limited in the sense that it could only be played with NPC characters in the original game. We started thinking about how we could evolve the concept and introduce a social layer where players could actually play against each other.
Shortly after, we realised that these concepts would serve well for a TCG. Many TCGs commonly adopt a battle system which consists of using attack and defence points. In Eminence, every card is ranked by four numbers on every edge of a single card. Card battles are quick but very strategic, players essentially have to think several steps ahead and plan their moves from the offset. The objective of the battle is to capture as many of your opponents cards by strategically placing your cards adjacent to theirs where the rank numbers of the two cards will be compared. If yours is greater, you capture your opponent's card. If they do the same then they'll capture one of yours. This goes back and forth until all spaces on the board have been occupied and the player with the most captured cards/points wins. It's a relatively simple and blissful system which can get quite deep when new rules are introduced changing the nature of the core mechanic.
Our intention was to create a card battling system which revelled in simplicity but at the same time offered a framework for easy expansion of the core mechanics. TT seemed perfect and we used the opportunity to evolve the original mechanic by introducing our own rules which held well with the story. For instance, the Story Campaign also uses its own rule which converts the numbers on a card to actions that the player uses to attack enemy NPC, completely changing the core mechanic of the card battle system. This is an example of a rule never found in the original TT game but shows how flexible the framework is.
**What is the inspiration behind the 4 division, Aeterna, Ixion, Wilkurse and Hollows? What big gameplay changes are there between the four divisions**
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When developing the art style for the divisions, we looked to history for our inspiration. Mainly stained glass windows, greek pottery, mayan carvings and architecture and combined those elements with things such as cyberpunk, fantasy, asian folklore and gothic art. This gave us a visually rich playground to create the 4 factions whilst giving a sense of mythology.Once we had decided the visual differences of the divisions and what they're origins and story's were, we could begin to introduce gameplay elements to differentiate them. Depending on the players choice of division, these can include things such as armour choices, stat differences and and interactions with certain npc's.
**Any Stretch Goals if you breach £50k?**
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We have a number of stretch goals after our initial £50k. These include (in order), a new full Division available upon launch (Harlequins), tablet port, market area & expanded character creation options and a huge expansion of the explorable virtual world. We have plenty more planned but those are the nearest ones to our base funding goal.
**One of the stretch goals mentioned is the Harelquin Division, a 5th division from those mentioned earlier. Should we be expecting more divisions in the future if the game takes off? Do you currently have any ideas for additional divisions?**
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We are currently developing 2 new divisions after the latest reveal of the Harlequins, totalling 5 divisions with room to expand an additional 2 upon release date. We're actually writing a goal plan, revolving around the story to add even more as time goes on. Our aim is to create as much diversity with the divisions as possible, catering to a mass appeal whilst staying true to the overall lore of Eminence. Our next division will be revealed just before our Kickstarter ends so watch this space!
**I keep throwing money at the screen by Eminence isn't appearing, how can I help out?**
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Every little helps! Share, pledge or simply give us a shout-out, we're always open to community feedback and are avid members of the eyesonFF creative boards so feel free to drop in and say hello! Check out our Kickstarter or follow us on twitter to keep updated with any news.
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