This is what you’d call an unorthodox indie game . Galactic Council is a sci-fi card game based around its website, where the game is played online, player vs. player. I was interested so I contacted the creator of the game to learn more.

Do you mind telling us about yourself, Sam (Minnis)?

Sure thing. I’m a freelance web developer living in Virginia Beach, VA. I have a passion for gaming; games bring people together, give them goals to work towards competitively and/or cooperatively, and keeps folks learning. I’ve always wanted to make a game; the game development community has given me so much and I feel it’s now my turn to contribute back.

I’ve been learning all kinds of aspects of software development off-and-on during the past 12 years, I suppose waiting for this very opportunity that I carved out for myself in the past year. With the advent of HTML5/other accessible web technologies, a game concept I can get behind 110%, and the professional freedom to pursue the project, the Galactic Council website was born. All you really need to know about me is inherent to the project. My love for science fiction stories, collectible card games, data-driven solutions, games with absurd replayability, awe-inspiring fantastical art, reverence for adaptability, and well… a functioning democracy are all represented in the Galactic Council system. What’s missing from that list is my love for music and I cannot WAIT for the day when I get to work on the Galactic Council “soundtrack.”

What can you tell us about Galactic Council?

Galactic Council is my passion project, a culmination of all my education over the past 12 years. There are facets of statistics, psychology, programming/web design and, of course, game design intricately laced together to form a concept that just doesn’t exist out there yet. The “end goals” of the project are to foster my “3 C’s” – Creativity, Community, and Content. Starting there and working my way back has allowed me to structure the entire project around these 3 central pillars.

I want Galactic Council packed to the brim with content. To me, each card in a card game represents an opportunity to tell a story. A card is a “meme” of sorts, a boiled-down single-serving aspect of the game universe you’re romping about in – the smallest building block that players then recombine to form the narrative of a typical game. From that standpoint, more cards means more opportunities for a rich, deliciously complex lore that dictates the skeletal game experience. One of the questions I asked myself while developing Galactic Council was, “Why limit the number of cards?” I came up with a few good reasons, mostly organization, balance, and parsimony, but for each problem I came up with I could envision a reasonable technical solution. So I decided to keep the available card pool “unlimited” by allowing players to experiment with card and game rules, ensuring that my goal of near-endless content was a possibility.

A game’s community can make or break it. Good games take this into account and work at supporting the game’s community, great games push the existing boundaries of community interaction. I want to leverage web technology to build a much more community-driven game. What I’m aiming for is to give each community member the feeling that they are truly a co-creator of the Galactic Council experience. Each member will be encouraged to add their own “stamp” to the game in a myriad of ways. Since the game belongs to the community, I’m counting on each member to pitch in as much as they’d like. But don’t worry – I’m going to make this “pitch in” process easy, fun, and rewarding (both in game and out.)

One of my major reasons for developing this game is to give players a “creative workspace.” A portion of the Galactic Council experience is, by its very nature, an experimental space where players and content-developers can test out what works and what doesn’t. Before I began development on this project, I had an itch to write some science fiction short stories. I shopped around for an online space that would make the “growth” process easier – by granting a diverse readership who’s willing and able to provide constructive criticism. While those sites exist, none of those sites really “put the content in motion” by attaching the work to some greater lore. Galactic Council is my answer to that need. Community members can and will be able to hone their creative talents through performance, feedback and revision (hooray for the processes of science!) all within the Galactic Council game system. Again, each card is an opportunity for the creator to write, draw, and design content for other members to experience and critique.

There’s an intersection between these three design philosophies; they form a symbiotic (dare I say, “triforce”) relationship that allows for something quite special. Through forming a robust and supportive community, by allowing endless user generated content, and by designing creativity-engendering software components, what emerges is a game environment like no other. An adaptive, organic, badass experience that will forever change our expectations of gaming systems and the player’s role within them.

How do the rules work?

For now, the rules follow a typical deck-building game type. For those unfamiliar with the genre, it is a card game where both players start the game with identical decks of cards. Players then augment their deck with additional cards they purchase with in-game currency, choosing certain strategies and card combinations to reach one of two victory conditions. There is a working prototype available on the game’s website ready to play right now, no download required (just an up to date browser): http://www.samthewebsiteguy.com/galacticcouncil/onepage/ Also at the site is a tutorial section with a text-driven tutorial and a solo solitare-type game. You can also see a video of me playing and explaining the game rules here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt0SSv4oG-s (It’s also pre-icon days, so you can see a bit of the project’s progress.)

The deck-building format is a relatively new player on the CCG scene – and I love it. Making the deck in any CCG was one of my favourite parts of the game experience. Deck-building games take that aspect and crams it into the actual game itself – you have to balance your deck while directly dealing with your opponent’s choices and strategies. You have to decide, “do I want to pad my deck out with cards that slow my opponent, or do I want to take actions that get me closer to victory?” The format is ripe with opportunity; early strategies, mid-game transitions, and punishing late-game card combos.

Lastly here, I’d like to point out that what I have available right now at my site is simply a starting point. I have tons of ideas in motion to make Galactic Council your one-stop card-game spot. I am really excited to begin “hybridizing” the rules, where I add something like a hex-board component or a pre-built deck component. The “experimental” aspect of user card-creation extends to rule tinkering as well. Players will be able to decide the exact kind of card game they’d like to play by selecting their “rule loadout.” I personally can’t wait to see a hex-board/pre-built deck/deck-building variant.

What can you say about the user-generated aspect? How is it run?

I think this question is best answered with some universe lore. In this universe, an ancient race died off and left behind its crowning technological achievement: Nanons. Nanons are sentient Nanomachines, tiny molecular builders that roam around the universe in colonies looking for organic “hosts” to form a symbiotic relationship with. They give their hosts unparalleled ability to alter the very fabric of reality, and each player represents one of these Nanon hosts. All hosts are expected to join the Galactic Council, a ruling body responsible for policing its own almost-too-powerful members. Council members are about one thing above all else: collecting more Nanons to enhance their already considerable abilities.

When two members are fighting over contested Nanon colonies, their power struggle is refereed by the Galactic Council. By sending off portions of the harvested Nanons to the Council, members gain influence through which equipment and contracts are “purchased.” This list of available equipment and contracts is compiled by the Council, each item having an influence cost that’s voted on by the Council members.

Now, to actually answer the question, each card represents a contract or piece of equipment that players can request from the Galactic Council during their battle against other players. So, when a player participates in one of several user-generated features, in game-lore terms they are performing one of their Council duties – participating in setting the parameters and conditions of combat over Nanons.

I have a quick short story that I wrote here: http://www.samthewebsiteguy.com/galacticcouncil/promo_content/story1.php, where I introduce a few of these concepts in a more story-like setting.

Where did the idea come from?

I was showing an online deck-building game to a friend, and he asked, “you could make something like that, right?” He knew that I was a fairly capable web developer and gaming enthusiast, and as soon as he said it I began to envision how I would go about constructing a deck-building game/website. My answer was “Yeah, I could make something like that”, but the thought exercise didn’t stop there. I gave myself full permission to come up with my “dream game experience”: a web space where I could see myself hunkering down and playing for a long time – without getting bored. I wanted a site that I felt some measure of ownership over, like if there was some card or card-combo that I loathed playing against, I could take steps to address the perceived imbalance. Steps like coming up with a more balanced solution that I debate with the game’s community, coming up with a new counter-combo, or even avoiding games with that card altogether. (OK – I have to throw out here that the specific card I’m thinking of is the Umezawa’s Jitte from M:tG) If I got bored with the game, I could experiment with adding in and/or subtracting out rules to breathe new life into the format. Even better – I could suggest some of my own rules and have the development team implement them if I could get enough votes/support from my fellow community members. New rules that add a twist to the familiar, like a Texas Hold ‘em variant game type.

The vision in my head just kept building steam. I brought in the sentient Nanomachine concept from some short story work I had done earlier, then tied the game’s content generation features to this Nanon mechanic (and the political body that exists to check this power.) Not only would all this content-generation freedom be available to players, it would be available as a fundamental part of the universe’s lore. When I had about 5 years worth of development work virtually planned out in my head, I knew that the idea was too big to ignore. I didn’t want to wait for another company to develop a product like this, I wanted it as soon as possible. I also didn’t want some watered-down half-assed attempt either; I wanted it exactly as I envisioned it – the game belongs to its community.

What is involved in creating a browser-based online card-based game like this?

It has been tough but very rewarding. The process requires a great deal of guess-and-test programming, learning and creativity. I’ve done everything on my own (except for the game art – thanks, Brian Christensen, Chris Cold and Adrian Gillespie) for the explicit reason of “knowing” the guts of my code backwards and forward. A web-based game is very exploitable if you don’t know what you’re doing, I know this because the very first build of GC was horribly exploitable. Over time I’ve grown to be a much more capable, solutions-driven designer who just won’t take no for an answer. I treat myself like my own client in that regard – the demanding game customer in my head insists upon various features, and the designer in me makes it happen no matter how challenging. It’s a nice partnership that makes me sound a little crazy. 🙂

Any tips to anybody that wants to make their own card games?

Practice, practice, practice. Rome wasn’t built in a day and your game won’t be, either. It’s a steep learning curve and the only way to get to the top is one lesson at a time. Making a game is a laborious and challenging process. Some days the only thing that will get you through is how much YOU want to see it finished and/or play a round or two with a friend. Make tons of mistakes and learn from them. Have fun – if you’re not having fun making your game, chances are neither will your players.

Finally, if you don’t think you’re ready to start making your own game just yet but you have an interest in game development, just get involved. There are products out there that grant certain aspects of game development and are usually a great place to “cut your teeth.” Do the early learning on another developer’s dime rather than your own. I’ve heard of an upcoming sci-fi deck-building game that would be a great place for you to try your hand at game design. 🙂 Seriously though – follow this project. Join the community and leverage the features I’m designing to learn, test, or enhance your game development skills.

Any favorite tabletop games?

Yeah I love me some tabletop action. I really enjoy Dominant Species, a board game about evolving creatures. The concept is pure nerd-joy, and the implementation is amazing. The game is simple when it needs to be, complex in the right places, and highly replayable. I especially enjoy the top-down design of the turn-execution, where players put out their markers at the start of a turn, and the turn sequence is then determined by the logical flow of a “turn-order chart” on the board. It keeps players on track when they show up to your house ½ way drunk already 🙂

I love Twilight Imperium because the political mechanics in that game kick ass. The idea that laws dramatically change the way the game is played and just about every turn has a law come up to vote on…it was a heavy influence on the GC system. Good luck playing the same game twice in TI.

A newer one I picked up is A Few Acres of Snow, a deck-building/board game hybrid that I’m enjoying quite thoroughly. The high replayability factor is there, and I appreciated the seamless blend of the card/board aspects. I really like how the deck-building component fits the theme because the specific war was apparently “fought at the end of a supply line.”

Anything else you wish to say?

I’ve said quite enough already (there’s a lot to say!) – but I would like to take the opportunity to inform interested individuals that the Galactic Council system is not something you have to wait for. The current site is in its infancy, but the primary aspects of the project are represented.

The Nanon collection mechanic is in place, earned after each game against an opponent and modified by a few factors like your number of “content assists” (hint – make some cards!) Players can currently create their own card by recombining card abilities, selecting from a pool of available art, and naming it of course. This card can then be used in every game you play, or you can scrap your card and totally rebuild it after each game. If I see something I like, you’re going to enjoy what happens next. I take your card, make it “canon”, add it to the primary card pool for game rotation (with your name on it as the creator for other players to see), and give your player account in-game goodies for your creation. There’s still a long way to go, but I would definitely say that the game is ready for its community.

Thanks guys! See you all in game 😉

Thank you, and good luck!

Official Site: http://www.samthewebsiteguy.com/galacticcouncil/