SITREP #7: cards, city lore, panels (Patreon)

CARD SYSTEM 

Reading in VR isn't there yet and I really want for Æternum to be awesome and fun to play in VR but to also have tons of depth. I also want to actually get it done and to get it done fast and efficiently for that matter. My solution to all of these is the Card System:

goal
- a straight-forward approach to finding information related to a specific item. Instead of having to go through lots and menus and reading through the lines of lots of information, and figuring out why an effect is happening, how rare is it, how long does it last, how to get rid of it or improve it, this is just a more centralized way of doing it. I think it has both a fast learning-curve and also allows lots of mechanics.
- fun rewarding experience, there are going to be packs in the game as rewards to minigames from which you'll get cards (and maybe citizens for your court? sort of like FUT)
- future modability. Instead of hardcoding stuff like for example an "Elite Boxer" trait, I'll just add a card like that that will have effects like increased agility, strength. Or a "Sick" card that will decrease health, happiness. Adding other traits then is as simple as creating the cards, no coding required. This will allow to add a lot of depth to the game very quickly and also allow to make it moddable in the future

some features:

card color based on rarity:
-red=unique, gold=legendary, .., grey=common

card score 1-100 (top right):
- percentile of rarity within that rarity group, 100 grey would be the rarest of the common cards; this will also help in creating the price for the cards for the ones you can sell or trade with the AI

card types (top left icon):
- city cards - can be added to your city, some will act as perks you can add to improve your city, some will act as temporary effects like results of events (e.g. population unrest -1 devotion for 10 turns)
- ruler cards - will be added to the player character and influence your stats and stuff related to your court. AI rulers will have some too
- citizen cards - traits and effects for the citizens
- building cards - will improve and enable features for some buildings

PANELS

VAM isn't exactly the right tool for lots of dynamic UI stuff, it would have taken ages to make composite graphics directly in vam, like each card, place stuff,etc etc. To speed things up I created and prepared some local tools that allow me to create similar content faster. This was essential for the card system and it works now but I'll expand it to use to some other stuff in the future like story events and most of the panels in the game. I created the first city cards as a test.

LORE, ART DIRECTION & CITY LEGACY CARDS

Each city starts with an unique city card that gives them some perks and penalties dubbed as the legacy card. I tried to balance these effects as much as possible, to keep them in line with the city symbols and started creating upon them the lore of the cities. Howlbourne for example are the equivalent of the vikings of the realm, great warriors with good production when they set their focus on it, but torn apart by internal unrest and lacking the devotion that other cities get. The art direction is going to be somewhat dark vs light, a lot of focus on contrast. I'll use custom graphics made by me to try to keep a constant theme across the game.