Topic: [MAGS] Hubris - A Popular Pub Pastime (new version 1.0.1)

[Ghost]

Welcome to Anderwynn's Alehouse, where farmers and merchants alike meet and play HUBRIS day and night.

You never heard about HUBRIS? Why, it's a fantasy strategy card game, easy to learn, hard to master, and quite a bit of fun.

In Hubris, two players (as powerful wizards) lay siege to their opponent's tower, trying to overcome his defenses by means of magic, tactics, and beasts. With a set of 102 unique cards to deal damage, increase their resource pool, summon monsters or manipulate the turn rules, Hubris is the best  Arcomage remake the flexible AGS engine has ever produced.
It's also the only one.

Features:
* single-player game against "random AI"
* 12 different sets of "starting/winning conditions", from small, short games to epic fights to the death
* 102 unique cards, carefully sprited and with the occasional cameo
* three winning conditions
* er... an... animated... cursor?

Made for MAGS January: "In The Pub", so if you like Hubris, why not vote for it over at the MAGS page?

Update: New version available
Changes in 1.0.1.
======================================================================
* fixed all wins counting as "Warmonger" - stats now list all three winning types
* fixed message notification displaying 0 damage against destroyed walls - this is now silenced
* fixed "Rogue" card-  effect calulation tweaked to steal at least 1 unit of a non-zero resource, and otherwise remain silent
* added messages to all non-direct card effects (wall swapping etc)
* corrected typo in intro message
* added custom game and setup icons
* animated cursor is still an animated cursor, only more so

Get your copy right here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1541


Wizards are vain. Each tower's clearly there to compensate for something.


Get a load off, get a drink. Fancy a game? We got a spare deck for you!


Your tools: Acid Slimes, playful faeries and NUNS WITHOUT A FACE. (and 99 more)

[WHAM]

A new game for me to Let's Play? Why, Ghost, you shouldn't have! *blushes*

On a more serious note: This looks great and I love the idea! Will report back after I've played.

[Tabata]

Sorry, but I feel obligated to give you a little warning!
It is strongly recommended to send a little note and pic of yourself to your partner/family before starting this game.

                                   

They won't hear from you that soon again!

               

[Perkele2012]

Wow! looks great! love the graphics gotta try this one!

looks like im gonna spend many hours playing hubris now

[Ghost]

A new game for me to Let's Play? Why, Ghost, you shouldn't have! *blushes*

I'd love a Let's Play of Hubris! I would be baffled and flustered! Let's Play! Yay!
Make sure to play a Knight card every now and then It wouldn't be a Ghost game without some small cameos!

[NickyNyce]

I was a huge Magic The Gathering fan from way back in the day, this brought back some fun times. Very cool and addicting gameplay, It was a pleasure to give this baby a test ride. Congrats Ghost, very well made, fun and entertaining!

Well done in the art department too, the cards look really good, they bring the game to life.

I already want the expansion set of cards...    

[Victor6]

Ah, Arcomage. I haven't played this since I picked up M&M 8 (or was it 7? - it was the one with all the elemental nonsense.) from a bargain bin.

I enjoyed it then, more than the rest of the game, and it's just as fun now. Nicely done Ghost.

[Ekeko]

And Ghost did it again! Awesome game! 
Sa'r Uman? Hmmm... That's kinda familiar... 

[Radiant]

Heh, the computer keeps playing Wipeout on himself 

[Ghost]

Thanks a lot, good to seee the game's fun!

Ekeko- Not just Saruman. There's several little cameos in the names  

Heh, the computer keeps playing Wipeout on himself  

Yes, there is absolutely no AI in the game. The computer obeys all rules, but he merely picks a random valid card to play. Sometimes this results in pretty convincing "strategies". Sometimes... not so much  

I really want to extend on this, and enemy AI defenitely is top of the list. Multiplayer would be cool too, but I have zero knowledge about that one.

[Akatosh]

Arcomage! Back in my distant youth, I borrowed Might and Magic VIII from a friend and refused to give it back for months just so I could play that minigame. I'm going to play the hell out of this as soon as I get the opportunity.

[Radiant]

I really want to extend on this, and enemy AI defenitely is top of the list.

I'd be happy to help you with that if you need it; I have written several game AIs in the past.

[DoorKnobHandle]

I just gave this a try having never played Arcomage or M&M 8. I had no problems understanding the game, your presentation is extremely polished (especially since it's a MAGS release, wow!) and the game is fun. My only complaint is that, in my first game (first parameters, very short) there was actually no strategy involved whatsoever. I assume this is better in longer games but I literally just clicked the card that seemed best and I could afford. I had two cards which increased my tower HP so I decided to end the game by reaching 30 on that. Checked my cards for tower increases, clicked the one that gave me the best, rinse and repeat. Part of the problem is that what cards you get is so absolutely random. Now, if you could customize a, say, 60 card deck out of all cards, then you could decide to play an economy late game by selecting a deck which increases your income a lot, or play a 'turtle' game with lots of defense buffs or be super aggressive and so on and so forth. Still an excellent release, I will definitely play some more rounds!

EDIT: My Vanity wins are also recorded as Warmonger victories in the statistics!

[cianty]

Wow, this was some great fun, and funrtunatel I didn't even know about the original. The only lacking point is that I think right now it is near impossible to lose if you think just a bit. Or you get the worst cards possible. As an ex magic player I obviously desperately neeeed to configure my own deck (parsing a simple text file? Plz??!!) - that would be awesome. Anyway, this is a very very fine relase. Thanks for the good time!

(I am regularly blown away by what incredible releases the MAGS breeds. Amazing.)

[Akatosh]

Had a chance to play it now. Good fun! I've experienced the same bug as dkh in that every victory seems to count as Warmonger victory (which may very well be a little hint on the game's part ), but otherwise, it's all nice and polished.

I'd like to chime in with what the much wiser posters above me said, in that some customisation would be nice. Unfortunately, Hubris inherits Arcomage's flaws, such as they were; there's not all that much strategic depth, ressource management becomes a total non-issue after the first 10 turns or so (because only a handful of cards even have costs in the double-digit range) and you're more or less at the mercy of the Random Number God. If you're willing to move away a little from the basic game, this might be a few areas that could be improved (post-MAGS). Otherwise, it's a pretty great remake and I've had a lot of fun before noticing that whoops, it's midnight.

[Ghost]

dkh, Akatosh: Oh man, I missed one if clause! I will upload a corrected version tomorrow (there's another glitch where some cards display animations for dealing damge to a 0-wall, and a typo in the pub intro box  ), thanks for reporting!
I'll throw in custom game icons too, just to make the re-download worth the time.

cianti: I do not think that the relatively small card pool allows for much customization; Magic MUST have custom decks obviously, but the main idea of Arcomage and Hubris is to make the best out of a random hand. I thought about a card editor, though.

Radiant: Thanks a lot! I sent you a PM.

Everyone: There's going to be a "house rules" edition of the game. I already wanted to include "custom settings" but ran a bit out of time (I entered MAGS the 13th, and without the extension to the deadline I clearly wouldn't have made it!). Then there are additional card effects like dropping multiple cards, skipping turns and so on. The core rules are very simple, and I am sure an extended version will need much more time and testing, but the framework's already there.
Consider Hubris as the "vanilla remake" and a proof of concept for improvements, and if you got any more suggestions and ideas, I will note them all!

[DoorKnobHandle]

I've played 28 games now (21W 7L) and while I do enjoy myself (otherwise I wouldn't play, it's definitely addictive) I really start to think that, in the long run, the randomness of the cards that you get is a big problem. Once you get used to the game, whenever you start a new round it kind of feels like I'm just waiting for the output of a random number generator to tell me if I win or lose the round. I think there are lots of ways to reduce that problem for an extended version, if you don't want customizable decks of cards, why not make it so that you are guaranteed to always have 2 blue, 2 red and 2 green cards? I've been stuck on 50 freaking gems for example with nothing but red cards in my hand for round after round after round.

It's crazy how you managed to make and polish a game up to this level in a MAGS, especially considering you entered on the 13th, hats off! Oh and I also wish the tower and walls would actually change their look based on their health.

[selmiak]

Oh and I also wish the tower and walls would actually change their look based on their health.

And a small animation for wallswap

and the 2 of each kind is interesting. A bit more balance would be cool, but less random. In one game I had the enemy down to 3 tower and then got no attack card any more. I could just watch how his gems were growing and growing and also couldn't take away from them but managed to win a vanity victory and the enemy had like 13W 25T even though I had him down to 3T once.

so, this is a cool+addictive game but needs more enemy AI, for example in the last mode where you start with 100T and need 120T to win vanity victory, the enemy goes for walls and not tower.

[cianty]

Do the player and enemy draw cards from the same deck?

A very very simple way of creating an enemy AI would be to just provide the enemy with custom decks so that even with a randomly chosen cards there is some kind of strategy because of the card pool.

[selmiak]

ahaha, in 1 hp tower version the enemy just destroyed mine and his tower. And so I saw draws are also not counted.