Thoughts about a companion app to Duelyst the board game

[boronian]

Copied that from my reddit post:

I am sure you all saw /u/-norrinator- and his efforts to create a physical card game!

Duelyst works great as a card and board game, I am convinced of that. But it is created as a pc game with a lot of RNG effects and huge board states with several dozens of units. This is difficult to handle in a board game, it creates a lot of downtime you need to manage the tokens and RNG.

So I think we need an app for that. And I had some thoughts about that which I want to share with you now and I hope you can improve on my first ideas and also code something because I can’t

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So, let’s start!

Do you know the board game Gloomhaven? Maybe not, it is the #1 game on boardgamegeek.com (by the way I totally recommend it to everyone, who has some committed friends and loves the tactical aspects of Duelyst. And if you have no friends for this kind of board game, the digital version is in early access right now) but I show you some pictures to show you how cluttered that game can look and be and show you an app and how much it helps with that aspect (saving a huge amount of time in setup and management).

Gloomhaven is a 1-4 players (semi)cooperative rpg dungeon crawler (my favorite board game by the way).

The board in the game can look like these examples:

Kinda similar to Duelyst with the board and all the minions on it. And for every enemy on board you have to keep track of the stats. In Gloomhaven it is only health, keywords and status effects (stun, poison, etc.) in Duelyst you also have to keep an eye on attack because of buffs. As you see there are a tons of markers and other stuff you need which clutter the table. I fear the same for Duelyst.

But a board can also look like that:

And people keep track of the health with some (funny but convoluted) work arounds like this:

Have to admit though that this is probably one of the best way to deal with 10 oozes and their health without an app. But this would be the same problem for the Duelyst board game too.

One of the best apps for the game is Gloomhaven Helper. I am sure when you look at the pictures you will be confused not knowing the game but I’ll try to show you some and explain what’s so great about it. A lot of the things it offers we don’t need anyways because except for battle pets the players control every action on the board.

We use a tablet, I’d love such a big screen though because it is easier to see for everyone But also look how much less cluttered their table looks. The app does so much of the admin stuff one person needs to do otherwise (making a HUGE amount of tokens / markers obsolete). It is an amazing time saver and I am so glad we found it very early on in our Gloomhaven campaign.

This picture also shows what I imagine and hope for. In Gloomhaven you have to draw an attack card for every enemy type on board and determing their initiative to know who acts when. This can be a lot of manual work taking time to do.

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For Duelyst we need only a fraction of that: An overview of all minions and the general on board, their stats and keywords. For that to work the minions on board need numbers (1-3 is enough for most cards except tokens and cards like Flawless Reflection, Mirrorrim, etc. which can create more of the same type).

And we need a RNG generator for Grimes’ pulls and similar things. BBS spawns (Lilithe and Zirix) and other random positioning stuff could be interesting. Maybe the app shows a board on which you have to mark the tiles which are occupied before the app does its RNG work (for e.g. Chrysalis Burst or Ash Mephyt).

For many cases we just need a number generator. As an example: Which dervish gets transformed into Ka after it dies? You just give every dervish a number (you count from left to right, from the bottom up, takes no time at all) then you get as an example 10 dervishes, so you tell the app to give you a random number between 1-10.
Same works pretty well for Ox’ Destiny I think.

These are just some ideas and thoughts I had right now, I am sure other people could chime in and improve on it!

[anjosustrakr]

I really like this idea! I think the biggest challenges with a physical Duelyst, though, would be keeping track of minion attack/health (it would have to be on the app, but then to move a minion you’d have to move it physically and virtually, and to play the game you’d have to be looking primary at the app – which kind of defeats the purpose) and dealing with the complexity of interactions (I suppose, though, if Magic players can do it, then so can physical Duelyst players).

What would be really cool is if the app could scan the board and use image recognition to put everything in its proper place and automatically assign attack/health values to them (keeping modified values when moving/playing more minions would be problematic though).

Here’s the most exciting idea to me, though: designing a new TCG that works like Duelyst in many ways and uses such an app to keep track of things. This way, instead of just being a fan replica of Duelyst, it would be its own game that could actually be sold. Some aspects of Duelyst could be streamlined to better fit a board game, and there are many mechanics you can add to a physical card game that can’t easily be added to a virtual one (and vice versa, of course). This is like the Duelyst 2.0 idea (which I really want to help on when I get a chance) but more feasible.

[boronian]

Minions can be numbered. Stormmetal Golem 1 to 3. The apps keep track of their stats. A quick look tells you what is what.

It is difficult with tokens like Wraithlings. Easiest solution is to limit the maximum number of tokens. E.g. 15 Wraithlings.

[anjosustrakr]

Wait, were you not thinking there would be a board on the app?

Because if there’s a board there’s no problem from the number of anything.

Oh wait you mean the physical cards would be numbered?

[isbee]

If I remember correctly, the concept of Duelyst started as a physical game.

[boronian]

No, I don’t want a board on the app, only to choose tiles. Otherwise it distracts too much.

Yes the physical cards are numbered and then the app tells you which number has what stats.

[miguelosz]

I’d play the physical version just to finally be able to kill an untransformed Mind-Cage Oni with a Ritual Banishing

[anjosustrakr]

No, no, that interaction would be specifically written into the rules. Gotta be historically accurate!

[excogitator]

The replace mechanic also poses a bit of a problem to physical Duelyst. Right now, every time you replace you functionally shuffle that card back into your deck. However, shuffling a deck every turn seems like a hassle. Additionally, things like obelisks and Bloodmoon might need many many RNG roles in a single turn, dragging the game out pretty long. Maybe a quick fix would be to make the player choose where to summon things at the cost of a stats nerf.

[boronian]

Shuffling your deck gives you something to do while your opponent does their turn.

The app could do the RNG easily.