Magic Stones!

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Magic Stones Status

The elevator pitch

You will meet your opponent on a 2D battlefield, playing stones to gather energy and then using that energy to play stones which damage your opponent, heal yourself, or affect the playing field in a variety of other ways. Think Othello + Scrabble + Magic the Gathering.

The play

The playing field at its simplest is an empty NxN space board. At its most complex, it is more akin to a Scrabble board, with special board spaces (e.g. similar to a Double Word Score space) that affect stones placed on or nearby. The initial state of the playing field contains at least one stone already in play.

The simplest stones that can be put into play are energy stones. An energy stone may be placed anywhere on the playing field adjacent to an existing stone in play. There are no costs to putting an energy stone into play.

Placing an energy stone gives the player at least one energy in their energy pool. If the energy stone causes a chain to be formed, then for each stone in the chain an energy point is placed in the player's energy pool. A chain is formed similar to play in Othello.

Each player starts the game with a health bar. When a player's health bar goes to zero, that player loses the game. In order to lower the opposing player's health bar, attack stones need to be played.

Unlike energy stones, attack stones have costs that must be paid in order to be put into play. An attack stone can only be put in play if (1) a valid chain can be formed and (2) the energy costs necessary to play the stone can be paid by the player from their energy pools.

The next type of stone is a healing stone. The rules for putting a healing stone are identical to the rules for putting an attack stone into play. The difference is that the player will receive health from the chain totals instead of causing damage to the opposing player.

Another stone type is the destroyer stone. This is a powerful stone that removes other stones from play. Again, the rules for putting the destroyer stone into play are identical to the rules for putting an attack or healing stone into play. This time the difference is that all stones in the chain(s) are removed from the playing field, including the destroyer stone itself.

The game ends when either one player has no health left, or if the playing field has filled. In the latter case, each player is given one chance to make a play. If neither player can make a play, then whoever has the highest health total wins the game.

Playtest thoughts

• Start with 100 health
• Start with 105-card deck
• Treat deck like an infinite deck as much as possible. Instead of just drawing from deck, separate deck into different card types and roll d100 to determine which type of card to draw. Recycle any played cards into the draw piles.

• 01-32 Energy stone (32 total)
  • Cost nothing to put into play
  • Adds 1 colored energy per stone in chain, or 1 if no chain
    • 01-08 Red
    • 09-16 Black
    • 17-24 Green
    • 25-32 White
• 33-36 Destroyer stone (4 total)
  • Cost 20 colored energy
  • Removes each stone in chain
    • 33 Red
    • 34 Black
    • 35 Green
    • 36 White
• 37-53 Healing stone (16 total)
  • Cost 10 colored energy
  • Heals 1 damage per stone in chain
    • 37-40 Red
    • 41-44 Black
    • 45-49 Green
    • 50-53 White
• 53-85 x1 Attack stone (32 total)
  • Cost 5 colored energy
  • Causes 1 damage per stone in chain
    • 53-60 Red
    • 61-68 Black
    • 69-76 Green
    • 77-85 White
• 86-97 x1+5 Attack stone (12 total)
  • Cost 8 colored energy
  • Causes 1 damage per stone in chain + 5 additional damage
    • 86-88 Red
    • 89-91 Black
    • 92-94 Green
    • 95-97 White
• 98-101 x1+10 Attack stone (4 total)
  • Cost 12 colored energy
  • Causes 1 damage per stone in chain + 10 additional damage
    • 98 Red
    • 99 Black
    • 100 Green
    • 101 White
• 102-105 x2 Attack stone (4 total)
  • Cost 15 colored energy
  • Causes 2 damage per stone in chain
    • 102 Red
    • 103 Black
    • 104 Green
    • 105 White

• Thoughts after simple playtest
  • Need something closer to 50% energy stones
  • Putting stones into play should be using *any* color of energy (colorless vs. colored)

The storm

This is sort of a brainstorm section - the idea is to dump random neural firings here and then sort them out into categories (and later pages) when time permits.

• If we restrict the playing costs of stones to the same as the piece's color, then it might be tough to put pieces in play. However, making everything colorless to put into play might make it too easy.

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