A table tennis (ping pong) digital game

Recently I've been thinking about unique deck games. This genre was apparently introduced by Richard Garfield and Fantasy Flight Games with KeyForge a few years ago. If you aren't familiar, a "unique deck game" is like a collectible card game, except that instead of buying random cards and building your own deck, you buy random, pre-built decks that you can't make changes to.

I have a separate train of thought about unique deck games generally, so I won't go too deep into them here. The relevant background is that I've been thinking about what a digital platform for a unique deck game would look like. But a game platform needs a game first, so I've been kicking around ideas for card games that could be implemented as an online unique deck game.

My latest and most promising game idea is a table tennis game. Each deck represents a single player. Each card in the deck represents a swing at the ball. Players take turns playing one card at a time until someone scores a point. I think the gameplay is probably still too mechanical to be "fun", but I think it has promise.

Inspiration

While developing this, I kept thinking of the game (whose name I don't remember) where both players have an identical set of ranked cards and take turns playing them simultaneously, one at a time. The higher card wins the trick, and whichever player wins the most tricks after all cards have been played wins the game. Players get to choose exactly which cards they play each turn, so it's kind of a rock-paper-scissors mind game about guessing when to play high and when to play low.

Card stats

There are four stats in this game that form a quadrant system. One dimension represents the aggress/respond spectrum. The other dimension represents the speed/control spectrum.

Here are the four stats and how they fit into these quadrants:

Power = Aggress + Speed. This is how fast and hard the ball a player hits the ball.

Aim = Aggress + Control. This is how well a player can direct the ball where they want it to go. In this simplification, a well-aimed ball is harder to hit.

Reflex = Respond + Speed. This is how quickly a player can move to hit an incoming ball.

Finesse = Respond + Control. This is how well a player can hit a difficult-to-hit ball. I don't have a good name for it.

The distinction between Reflex and Finesse is kind of hazy. Both boil down to "can you hit an incoming ball". Maybe I should merge them into a single "Response" stat? So it would be a triangular system instead of a quadrant system? I like the symmetry of the quadrant system, but I feel like it's needlessly complicated. I'll see where the rest of the game ends up.

In my mind, values for each stat range from 1 to something less than ten. Maybe seven? nine? I'm not sure yet.

In general, the total of stats on ecah card adds up to roughly the same amount, say 13 on average. So, a card could be 6-3-2-2 (Power-Aim-Reflex-Finesse) or 1-5-2-5 or maybe 3-3-3-3, but probably never 1-1-1-2 or 5-6-5-6.

In general, I think that cards should weight toward one side of the quadrant. For example, a card might be "Agress-heavy" with high values in Power and Aim, or "Control-heavy" with high values in Aim and Finesse. But, a card should generally not have the two highest values cross the diagonal. For example, I would avoid making a card with highest values in Aim and Reflex.

Card abilities

Each card may also have text that affects the game. I think that card text will usually be a surprise that resolves after the opponent chooses their next card.

Some possible effects:

Topspin X: Increase power by X after your opponent chooses their response card (but before determining success).

Backspin X: Reduce power by X after your opponent chooses their response card (but before revealing). (This could cause them to needlessly over-spend, or maybe under-power a shot, depending on where the game mechanics end up.)

Sidespin X: Increase Aim by X after your opponent chooses but before revealing.

Discard a card (choose before opponent chooses their response) to give this *spin X, where X is equal to a stat on the discarded card.

Discard a random card (after opponent chooses their response) to give this *spin X, where X is a stat on the discarded card.

Pacing(?): Draw an extra card after playing this card.

Return this card to hand after playing it.

Service ability: Some effect that only occurs if the card is played as a serve. (According to wikipedia. service is the hardest hit to return, so it makes sense to give it a consistent boost.)

(But topspin, backspin and sidespin have specific uses in specific contexts in real table tennis, so maybe a more generic name is better.)

Game play

This is a game for exactly two players (or maybe two teams of two, in doubles play). Generally speaking, players take turns playing cards until someone scores a point. A game is played to a few points (maybe 5?).

Players start with some cards in their hand. Probably four or five.

The first player starts by playing a shot card from their hand. The Power and Aim on the card set the threshold for cards that an opponent can play. For example, if the Power is 3, then the opponent must play a card with Reflex of 3 or higher, or else give up a point.

After the opponent chooses a card, any text on the first player's card is revealed and resolved. For example, if the text increases the Power by 1, and the opponent played a 3 Reflex, then the opponent would miss the shot, giving up a point.

After the first player's text is resolved, the card they played is discarded and they draw a new one. Then they choose a card to play in response to their opponent's card.

Play continues until a player misses a shot. Their opponent scores a point, and play starts again with a new serve. The game continues until one player scores enough points to win, whatever that threshold is (probably 5 or so).

"Factions"

Many constructed card games use the idea of "factions": groupings of cards that share some strengths and weaknesses. By placing restrictions on the how factions can be combined in a deck or played during a game, the opponent can begin the game with a rough sense of what cards might be in an opponent's deck. These restrictions can encourage variety within decks and between different match-ups.

In this game, I'm not sure what a "faction" would be. Maybe a "school" or "style", like a reference to classic kung-fu styles? Or maybe just the Grip?

Maybe Grip gives a flat bonus or special ability that can be used during a match? There are a limited number of plausible grips (although one or two more could probably be invented for this game).

Problems

Having two different stat categories makes it difficult to return shots. Like, if the server has a 6-1-2-2, then the opponent must have a X-X-6-X. Having X-X-X-6, 6-X-X-X or X-6-X-X, while all apparently strong cards, would do no good at all and the point would end. It's okay to have some occasional aces like this, but what I really want is long (but fast) volleys.

I considered a "balance meter" system to soften the need for exact answers to every card. Consider a "Power meter" and an "Aim meter". Both meters have zero at the center and an increasing scale on either side, corresponding to each player. For simplicity, I'll use negative numbers for a players "own side" of a meter and positive numbers for their "opponent side".

At a serve, the meter starts slightly in the negative for the server, say -2. When a player plays a card, the value of each Agress stat is added to its meter. For example, a Power 6 would move the Power meter from -2 to +4. In this system, the opponent's Reflex value only needs to match the Power meter, not the Power of the card that was played. The Power on their card is then added to the Power meter and play continues.

If a player's Power fails to push the meter to the opponent's side of the meter at the end of their turn, then their opponent will have an easy response, because any Reflex value will be enough to return the shot. Once a player starts falling behind on a meter, they may have a hard time catching up, because their opponent can lean on Aggress-heavy cards, which will push the meter further against them.

In any case, it feels kind of unsatisfying that there is only one failure condition: your oppenent hits the ball to you and you fail to hit it. In table tennis, you can also hit the ball badly: either into the net or off the table. I'm not sure how to incorporate that without creating more complexity and problems. Maybe it doesn't matter, and the difference is just in the animation (that is, when you fail, you randomly miss the ball, or hit the ball into the net, or hit it off the table, and it doesn't matter which happens).

Alternative: the "response" stats range from, say, 3-7 on average, but the "agress" stats range from -3 to +3 on average (or, say, -2 to +5 or something? lean toward escalation). The meter starts the game at zero and carries over from player to player. The agress stats adjust the meter up, if positive, or down, if negative. For example, if the power meter is at 4 at the start of your turn, and you play a +2 Power card, then the power meter would be 6 at the start of your opponent's turn. If your turn ends with the meter below zero (or at zero?), then you lose the point. If your response value fails to match the power meter (before applying your agress stats), then you lose the point.

As part of a larger game?

As I think about this game system more, it appears to be very limited. Because it is structured as a strict "I play one card, you play one card" mechanic, there aren't a lot of opportunities for card text to interact with the game.

Instead, is it possible to flesh this concept out into a portion of a larger game? For example, maybe the game represents a training season? And there are turns before and after each "volley" that affect the deck? Maybe all cards have both a "volley" portion and a "traning" portion? If played during training, they have one effect, but if played during a volley, they use only their volley stats?

Further, maybe the cards in hand when a volley stars represent your only options during the volley? Therefore the training portion is about sclupting your hand to prepare for a volley. Possibly most cards are discarded when played during a volley, but some cards can return to your hand? Or some draw you random cards from your deck? Or some cards can be played on the table during "training" that allow you to take actions (or be discarded "as if played" instead of a card from ahand?)

Maybe you have an opportunity to play as many cards as you want (maybe secretly?), then your opponent does the same, then you enter a volley with whatever cards you have left. Draw back up and repeat a few times? I like the idea of "win by two points", or the "if you when your serve, you get a point, if you win your opponents serve, you get to serve next".

Conclusion

I'm not convinced that this would be a fun game to play, and I don't think I can make any more progress without building a prototype and actually experimenting with it. I probably won't do that now, but maybe I'll come back to this eventually.

emptyhallway

2020-11-17