TenCap

TenCap

TenCap is a tabletop strategy game for 2-4 players. The object of TenCap is to capture the opponent’s 10 card. 

To play TenCap, all you need is a deck of playing cards, some dice, and a playing field, which is a 5x5 grid, each space roughly the size of a playing card. I made this playing field by simply taping two 8.5x11 pieces of copier paper together and drawing the grid on with a marker. 

To set up TenCap, first divide your playing cards up by suit. Each player gets one suit. For this demonstration, I’ll be doing a 1v1 game of Diamonds vs Spades. 

CHARACTERS

Each player has 3 characters, Jack, Queen, and King, which are represented by the 3 face cards. Each character has 2 abilities. Each ability can be used once throughout the entire game.

Jack’s two abilities are Mimic and Flee. Mimic allows Jack to swap one of his attribute cards with one of his opponent’s. Flee allows Jack to move two spaces after finishing a battle. 

Queen’s two abilities are Aura and Resurrect. Aura allows Queen to roll two defense rolls on her next defending roll. Resurrect allows Queen to revive a fallen character on her team.

King’s two abilities are Fury and Counter. Fury allows King to roll two attack rolls on his next attack roll. Counter allows King to deal back any blocked damage to the attacker on his next defense roll. 

Each character gets 3 attribute cards. The attribute cards are distributed by the player to each character. 

Cards 1-3 determine base the characters’ attack power. Cards 4-6 determine the characters’ ability number. Cards 7-9 determine the characters’ hit points. Each character gets one of each type of card. 

The ten card is given  to one character to hold. This character must hold the ten card until killed. 

Attribute cards, as well as the ten card, are displayed openly for everyone to see. 

MOVEMENT

To start the game each player places their character cards anywhere in the row closest to them on the playing field. Player roll to see who moves first. 

Each player has three moves per turn, which can be divided up among their characters as they choose. Player may choose to not use all three moves in a turn. 

When a player has used all three moves, they may initiate battles. Once a player has initiated a battle, they may not move their characters again until their next turn (unless using the Jack’s Flee ability).

BATTLE

A player can initiate a battle when their character card is in a space vertically adjacent to an opponent’s character card. Only one battle may be initiated per turn. 

When battling, both players roll a die. The value of the attacking character’s Attack Card, plus the value rolled is the attacking character’s damage dealt. Attack rolls are valued as Base 3*, defense rolls are valued at Full Value**. The value rolled by the defending player is subtracted from the damage dealt. The resulting value is subtracted from the defending character’s health.

When a player’s attack roll is the same as their Ability Card value, the player may use one of the attacking character’s Abilities. Abilities take effect after the battle has finished. Any change in attribute values or extra rolls go into effect at the start of the next player’s turn. 

A character is killed when it runs out of health. When a character is killed, the card is flipped face down in the space it was killed in. The card remains in that space until it is resurrected, or until the game ends. If the character holding the 10 card is killed, it can punt. 

To punt, the punting player first must roll a die. The value of the roll determines the number of spaces the 10 card can move. The 10 card can be punted diagonally, horizontally, or vertically a distance less than or equal to the value rolled. If the player has a character within range, they may “pass” the 10 card to that character. If the 10 card is passed to another character, it must be laid with that character’s attribute cards. If the 10 card is punted to an open space on the field, it is placed on the field in that space. 

VICTORY

To achieve victory, a player must move one of their character cards to the same space the opponent’s 10 card. 

*Base 3 rolls can only have a value as high as 3. (1&4 = 1; 2&5 = 2; 3&6 = 3)

** Full Value rolls are valued as shown on the dice. (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=4, 5=5, 6=6)

created by Mike Westfall

Link’s Awakening Fan-Made Remake Falls Short

Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is my favorite game. I’ve got a pretty long history with Link’s Awakening, which has garnered a love for it that is unmatched by any other game. So, naturally, when I recently discovered a fan-made remake of the title, I got pretty excited.

The remake utilizes graphical elements from other 2D Zelda games, like the Link character model and environment pieces from Link to the Past and Minish Cap. The more detailed graphics look nice, but can also clash if you’ve had enough exposure to the games they’re originally from. 

I finally got a chance to play the remake last night, and, I have to say, it was disappointing. I was expecting a simple re-skin of the original game, but much of the gameplay has been redesigned as well, and for the worst. 

The game is hard to control, because movement is restricted to a gridded space, so minor movements are impossible. Every tap of a directional key moves link a full square, even when trying to do a change of direction (you can’t turn to face another direction and stay in the same square). This makes combat difficult, because you can’t move away from the enemy and quickly turn around to attack. Doing so simply causes Link to run into the enemy and take damage.

The sword’s hitbox has also changed, only hitting things in front of Link, as opposed to the original, which could hit enemies in front of and to the right of him. Again, this makes combat difficult, because players can’t hit enemies that are standing to the right or left of Link without making a large, circular movement to face them (because of the poor movement). 

Also, Link’s trademark spin attack has been changed. The spin attack was executed in the orignal by holding the attack button until the sword began to flash, and then releasing the button to unleash the attack. In the remake, the spin attack is an attribute tied to one of many Sage Medallions, items players can collect to gain new powers. Sage Medallions are tied to the 0 (zero) key on a keyboard, which is so far from the directional keys used for movement, that it’s nearly impossible to use quickly and effectively. I was also unable to find a way to reassign the controls, so, as far as I know, players can’t change that. 

Lastly, the original’s save feature, accessed by pressing A+B+Select+Start, is gone and has been replaced by statues that act as save points and are placed throughout Koholint Island. 

Despite the remake’s shortcomings, I’m going to attempt to beat the game, simply because I’m interested in how Koholint Island looks with the updated graphics. I could probably browse the image folders that were part of the download to see everything, but I’d rather experience it all in action. Plus, I love the game so much, I’m willing to give this inferior version a real effort. 

Lion Killed My Play, But I’m Still Playing

I upgraded my MacBook Pro to OSX Lion the day it came out, and it made it impossible for me to play For the Frog the Bell Tolls. Lion doesn’t support PowerPC applications, or something, and my Game Boy emulator is one of those unsupported applications. I’m pretty disappointed, because I was enjoying the game quite a bit. However, it leaves me something to look forward to once I get my Compaq laptop back. 

In the meantime, I finally blew the dust out of my copy of Bomberman 64 that I got a week or so ago. It’s actually a pretty difficult game. I can’t decide whether it’s hard because of bad mechanics, or just because I’m not used to how the game works. It’s probably a pretty good mix of both. The more I play, the easier it gets, but I still find myself dying at the hand of my own bombs, because I get caught at the very edge of an explosion. 

I’m happy with my purchase of Bomberman. I bought it at the suggestion of a friend who said it was “very Japanese,” which was enough to convince me to buy it. It plays pretty well, and I’d actually like to see a new Bomberman come out for modern systems, because the gameplay is pretty unique. Also, on a side note, the grammar in the game’s dialogue is fantastic. I was happy to see a variety of complex sentences with perfect punctuation. 

Watching Speed Runs Makes Me Feel Like A CHUMP

I got my Wii hooked up to my Super Station Command Center (desk) and started playing Super Mario Sunshine. I spent a few days watching a Tool-Assisted Speedrun of Sunshine a week or so ago, and a world record speedrun of Mario 64 (recently set this week). Now that I’m actually playing the game, I feel like a fool.

I can’t help but want to do all the cool things done in the videos, but I’m not skilled enough. Then, I feel dumb when I just try to do things the slow and easy way and still die. I actually learned a lot of techniques when watching the speedruns, but I still feel a bit awkward when trying to do anything near an advanced level of play. 

Maybe I should just stick to watching speedruns of games I’m not planning to play soon. That way I won’t feel so stupid for messing up things that take hours and hours of practice to perfect. Oh well, maybe not. 

SHAKE SHAKE!

I picked up a copy of Mischief Makers yesterday. It’s a weird, quirky, very Japanese platformer for the N64. I have a history with this game, and I’ve been meaning to pick it up since I acquired an N64. 

As a kid, I really loved this game, despite not understanding one thing about it. The characters didn’t make any sense; they all looked like robots. Everything in the game had the same strange frowning face, including the blocks that made up the levels. And the game didn’t use the joystick, which meant that I had to hold the controller on the two outside prongs, rather than the middle and right prongs (which actually makes less sense than the two outside ones, but it was standard and felt correct at the time). 

Despite all those oddities, I still really enjoyed the game. I now understand that I just have a soft spot for any kind of quirky Japanese game, and Mischief Makers is the earliest evidence of that. 

The game itself really isn’t too bad. It’s a little on the easy side, but the platforming is decent and it has a ton of charm. Hopefully it’ll keep my attention long enough to finish it, but with Super Mario Sunshine and Bomberman 64 on the way, I’ll have a lot of distractions. 

That’s enough writing for now. I want to play.

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