Cyborg Battle Concept and Design

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
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Khan Sweetman
Gat 210 - Spring 2014
Instructor: Jeremy Holcomb
Concept and Design: Project #2: Strategy Game: Cyborg Battle
Khan Sweetman
GAT210 - Spring 2014
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Initial Concept and Design:

My biggest goal for the this assignment was to make a game that I felt proud of making.
While I did most of what I set out to accomplish for my first project, I didnt feel any satisfaction
upon handing it in, and I wasnt terribly surprised when I got a C+ on the assignment.
Harnessing this frustration, I set out to make a game of quality for the second assignment.
Most of the games that I tested for my peers that I enjoyed and looked towards as goals
were card games. With that and the expression, Good ones borrow, great ones steal, I felt
rather unabashed about designing a Trading Card Game that drew a slew of direct inspirations
from other games.
That isnt to say that my original goals and inspirations for Cyborg Duel were centered
around making a critical hit of a game at any cost. I had other goals too, and I had several ideas
floating around my head that I wanted to try out when making the game. One of my other goals
was to make a game that enabled no-risk, medium-risk and crazy-train playstyles. This goal
came from one of Professor Holcombs lectures, where he explained how good games enabled
a variety of playstyles with a variety of risks. During the lecture, he mentioned how one of his
friends tended to walk away from poker night up or down 300 dollars, while another friend
walked away up or down twenty, and both of them enjoyed the way they played, and neither of
their playstyles was better than the others. This idea that such variety in play style was capable
within a single game seemed, for the lack of a better term, cool to me.
While it wasnt originally a huge desire of mine, I also wanted to make a game with a
strong, consistent theme that meshed well with the mechanics and enhanced the experience
rather than detract from it. Part of this was that I neglected the theme of one of my previous
games rather heavily, and got negative feedback for it. While the feedback wasnt harsh at all, it
did make me think about the way that a theme can alter the experience of the player. This tied
in with a discussion that I had with one of my peers about game design. During the discussion,
he explained that his design process often started with thinking about the kind of experience
that he wanted to convey to the player. These ideas meshed together and made me realize that
having a good theme, or at least a good enough theme, could make the game much better than
it would otherwise be by immersing the player in a world I constructed, as well as by giving the
game direction and theme.
Many of the mechanics for Cyborg Duel come from card games I have played
previously. I needed replay value for my game, and I also needed a way for there to be variety
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in what players could throw at each other, so I went with the tried and true method of giving the
player a hand of cards to play with and a deck to draw from. Card decks fulfilled the criteria I
desired because of their intrinsic qualities. Card decks are randomized every time you shuffle
the deck so each play is a different experience, and players are unlikely to have the same hand,
even if they have the same deck, which they always did to make balancing easier. This meant
that there was a large variety of potential scenarios within each game, as well as with every
subsequent game. Having a hand of cards that changed every turn gave players a new situation
to react to every turn of the game gave them new decisions and choices to make every time
they drew new cards.
Making a generalized ruleset for the overall game, then having specialized information
on each card enabled several other things that I wanted to do. It enabled me to keep the overall
ruleset simple, so that there would be a low barrier for getting into the game. The generalized
ruleset also gave cohesion to the game, and kept the players on solid ground, even if they
ended up lost in regards to how to most effectively play the game. Having specialized
information on each card allowed for me to design each card as a different experience to use
and play with. It also allowed me to introduce many different, possibly complex rules and
mechanics just by changing around the effects on a few cards.
The general order of the phases was taken from other TCGs. Drawing first thing every
turn allows the player to have new cards to use and play with. It also gives progression to the
game and forces player choice into the game. It gives progression because it means that
players start with only a small portion of their deck at the start of every game, then they
gradually get to access the rest of their deck as the game progresses. Having some sort of
phase where cards are played after drawing new cards just seemed natural, as cards have to
be played if any sort of play is to occur. The order of Innovation before Construction was slightly
arbitrary, as I wanted players to place cards down before they did anything with them, and
playing Technology cards before constructing Robots seemed as good as the other way around.
Since there was no cost to playing cards at this point, I implemented a limit to how many
cards there could be on the field, so players would have a resource to manage, and players
would not just play as many cards as they could. This was also the reason why there was limit
to how many Technology and Robot cards could be constructed each turn.
I did not know how much health each player should start out with, so I started player
health off at forty, and figured that I would stop the game once twenty-five or so minutes had
passed. Then, I would record how much damage each player had taken, average that, and set
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that to how much health players should start out with in future tests. Given the attack values for
the cards at the time, I found it unlikely that the game would end before twenty-five minutes if
both players started at forty health. This ended up being more of an approximation than an
exact number though, due to much time being taken to explain rules, think up rules for
unexpected situations and discuss the game while it was going on.
The original ruleset is below.
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Robot Duel: Rules v1.0

Used as Strategy Game with Randomness assignment
Objectives:
Each player starts out with 40 health points.
The first player to reduce his opponents health to 0 wins.
Starting Out and the First Turn:
Determine who goes first.
Each player draws 5 cards and keeps them in his hand
The player that goes first cannot deal damage on his first turn.
Each Turn After the First:
Draw Phase:
Draw one card from the top of your deck and add it to your hand.
Innovation Phase:
Play up to 2 technology cards.
Construction Phase:
Construct up to 1 robot.
Constructed robots are played face up in the field.
Action Phase:
Perform up to 1 action with each robot Robot in the field.
Robots can use attacking abilities on opposing Robots or directly against the
opposing player unless stated otherwise.
Deconstruction Phase:
If the player desires, he may remove any of his cards from the playing field and
place them in the discard pile.
The Playing Field:
Each player may have up to 3 Robot cards active on his side of the field.
Each player may have up to 3 Technology - Permanent cards active on his side of the
field.
Technology - Single Use cards can be played regardless of how many other cards are in
play.
Other Rules:
Robots directly attack the opposing player, not other robots.
After using a Technology - Single Use card, that card goes into the players discard pile.
There is no limit to how many cards the players can have in their hand at a time.
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The following cards were introduced in v1.0:
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Revisions for v1.1

Balancing the cards is one of the big issues I addressed for v1.1. A bigger issue in terms
of the actual design of the game that I tried to address was enabling different play styles with
different levels of risk with the same cards. One idea to allow high risk, medium risk and low risk
playstyles with preconstructed decks was to put a high, medium and low risk ability on each
card. Having all these abilities that feel different would be rather clumsy though, and it was
agreed during discussions with my classmates that this wouldnt feel elegantly designed.
Another big issue that was brought up was player interactions. V1.0 lacked player
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interaction to a large degree, which meant a critical failing in v1.0s quality as a game. At this
point in time, players could not target each others Robots with their own Robots, so players just
ended up bashing each others health to zero, with just about no way to stop the other player
from the doing the same to them. To change this, I changed the attacking mechanic so that
players could use Robots to target each others Robots, and not just each other. This way,
players had the ability to affect each others fields and to prevent damage from being dealt to
them by removing the opponents ability to attack. I also gave the defender the ability to move
their Robot out of the way and take the damage directly. This way, they could weigh the benefits
of taking the damage vs losing a Robot and influence the game accordingly. I also did this for
thematic reasons. I dislike how in many TCGs, monsters, or whatever the equivalent to Robots
are, feel disposable. Allowing the player to take the damage in place of their Robots removes
that feeling a little bit, by making the preservation of your Robots more of a choice. It also
makes it feel more like the Robots are more important, and that they are fighting alongside the
player as comrades, not in front of the player as pawns.
Pacing and v1.0s lack of it was also brought up. V1.0 did not have any cost to construct
Robots, and there was very little resource management, so players were able to construct the
strongest Robots in the game as soon as they drew them, even if they drew them on the first
turn. This denoted a problem with pacing, since the beginning, middle and end of the game all
felt the same because there were no differences between them.
I combined the Innovation and Construction phases for v1.1. This was because
separating when you can play Technology and Robot cards did not make the game more
enjoyable strategic, but it did make it more complicated. Therefore, combining the two phases
increased the overall elegance of the game by reducing its complexity while maintaining the
same degree of strategy.
In order to get some good feedback on how to improve my game, I talked to some of my
classmates about different ways players could choose their playstyles when they couldnt
construct their own deck. These ideas mostly revolved around being able to choose your cards
from the number of cards available one way or another. Derp Rock: The Summoning(a game I
tested during one of the labs) had a mechanic called drafting that enabled players to choose
cards at the beginning of the game in order to tailor a deck that fit their personal preferences.
Dominions deck building mechanic did this as well, but during the actual game.
Eventually, I decided to change the amount of cards drawn from one card per turn to two
in order to reach the goal of giving players more choice in the cards they were able to use. I also
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gave players the ability to redraw their hand instead of drawing new cards. Doing this also
increased the amount of viable play strategies, since players were able to pick and choose the
cards that matched their preferred play style more easily.
I did not have much of an idea of how to do meaningful math for the game at this point. I
figured that it would be a good idea to set a baseline for how much a certain amount of
Construction Points could get you though, so I would be able to balance how much each card
cost. I decided to make the baseline to work from two Construction Points. I decided on two
points so that I could potentially make very weak cards that cost only one point in the future.
Also, players started out with three factories at this point, which meant that they could Construct
one Robot and use one weak Technology on their first turn, which I figured would be a good
place to start out. Two Construction Points would get you a Robot that deal two damage, with a
Special Ability.
In order to make the game easier to understand, I made diagrams which I attached to
the back of the rules. The images shown below only show the cards as I laid them out. I always
ended writing the explanations to everything by hand. These diagrams did not change until
v1.32.
There were several rewordings that I had to do for the v1.1 as well. Since these are not
mechanically relevant or interesting, yet excessively high in number, I will not be covering these
in very much depth.
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Cyborg Battle: Rules v1.1

Used in Lab 7
Objectives:
Each player starts with 5 cards.
Each player starts with three Factory cards on the field.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
Draw two cards from the top of your deck and add them to your hand.
If the player chooses, he may discard his entire hand and redraw to the number
of cards that he previously had instead of drawing new cards.
Construction Phase:
Spend as many or as little construction points you have to build Robots or play
Technology cards.
Constructed Robots and Technology cards are played face up in the field.
Action Phase:
Perform up to 1 action with each Robot in the field.
If a player chooses to attack an opposing Robot, the defending player can either
choose to allow the attack to happen or to move the Robot out of the way and
take the damage directly.
Each Robot has a health stat. If the total damage that the attacking Robot deals
through abilities and other card effects is higher than the defending Robots
health stat, then the defending Robot is destroyed.
The Playing Field:
Each player may have up to 3 Robot cards active on his side of the field.
Other Rules:
Factory cards generate one Construction point each turn. Unspent Construction points
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cannot be carried over from previous turns.
The health of every Robot card is reset every turn. In other words, if a card isnt
destroyed in one turn, its as if they took no damage at all.
After using a Single Use card, that card goes into the players discard pile.
Cards with the Instant type can be played at any time by any player, unless otherwise
stated.
When calculating damages that can change from turn to turn(ex: dealing damage based
on a die roll), calculate the damage before the defending player decides whether or not
to move a defending Robot out of the way.
Example Card:
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Example playing field for one player:
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Revisions for v1.2

At this point in Cyborg Duels history, most of my effort was still directed at making
Cyborg Duel into a complete, playable game with little bugs in it. As such, most of the changes
made from v1.1 to v1.2 were minute changes made in the cards themselves, or small changes
in the rules made for clarification purposes.
During playtests, I observed that players really enjoyed figuring out different ways that
cards synergized with each other. Combinations such as Death Bot and his abilities that
require sacrificing your own Robots with Armored Carrier and its ability to generate weak
tokens that Death Bot could sacrifice were fun for players to discover and use. Designing and
implementing different combinations became more of a focus when adding new cards or
changing existing cards effects after this point.
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Used in playtests 3 and 4(Spencer and Sarah, Spencer and Eduardo)
Objectives:
If a player has no remaining cards in their deck, hand or field, they lose.
Each player starts with 5 cards.
Each player starts with three Factory cards on the field.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
Construction Phase:
Technology cards. Robots cannot perform actions on the turn they are
constructed. Factories do not generate Construction points on the turn they are
constructed.
Action Phase:
Other Rules:
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cannot be carried over from previous turns. Factories do not generate Construction
points on the turn they are constructed.
stated.
on a die roll), the attacker must declare their target before damages are calculated. After
damages are calculated, the defender decides whether or not to move the Robot out of
the way.
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Example Card:
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The following cards were added for v1.2:
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Revisions for v1.3

In between v1.2 and v1.3, there was v1.21. This version was identical to v1.2, but
Secret Weapon Unleashed(Secret Weapon Unleashed! was a card that cost ten points to
Construct, had ten health, and could deal thirty unblockable damage. In other words,
successfully Constructing it more or less meant that you won the game.) was removed from
both decks because the game tended to revolve around it whenever it entered either players
hand. Removing this card changed the game significantly. Many more strategies and card
combinations were tried out. The end of the game didnt feel hollow or shallow for either player.
Players paid more attention to more of their cards too. When one card isnt clearly marked as
better than the rest, players began to look at all of their cards and how to defeat their opponent
with what they had. For this reason, Secret Weapon Unleashed! was weakened significantly,
to bring it down to the level of other cards. Unfortunately, it still did not playtest well.
Secret Weapon Unleashed! was changed significantly, from a card that cost ten
Construction Points to summon, with ten health points and an attack that instantly won the
game to a card that had the same cost, but dealt twelve damage and had eight health. As it
turned out, it was still a very hard card to deal with. There are many cards in the game that allow
players to Construct Secret Weapon Unleashed! without first fielding all ten Factories present
in their deck. When he was constructed, he tended to become the center of the game. Play
revolved around killing him as fast as possible, and he only ended up dead during playtesting
because both players had managed to Construct him.
During playtesting, a valid point was brought up through observation and from one of the
players themselves. He pointed out that players will almost never target each others Robots,
just each other. To change this, I made it so that Robots could only attack the opposing player
directly once all Robots in the opponents field were destroyed. This change was also made to
force players to interact with each other more and to pay attention to their opponents field more.
Another change for v1.3 was that I made several cards for the game. Among them were
the Energizing Bunny-Bot, a card that generated Construction Points in a manner similar to
Factories and the Industrial Super Factory, an improved version of Factory that generated
two Construction Points per turn but cost three to Construct. Also, the Scrap Titan, a high
value card that generated tokens(one damage, one health) when it killed other Robots and
could consume allied Robots and tokens to get a permanent damage buff. And finally, The Tiny
Robot That Could, a mid-level Robot that dealt increased damage to other Robots.
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Objectives:
...3 Factory cards on the field. These Factories get to generate Construction
points on the first turn.
...5 cards.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
Construction Phase:
constructed.
Action Phase:
Attacking Robots can target other Robots. Attacking Robots can only choose to
directly attack the opposing player once all opposing Robots have been
destroyed, unless otherwise stated.
Robots attack in the order that the attacker desires. Robots can only attack one
at a time.
Other Rules:
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stated.
Technology cards that are equipped must be equipped on the turn they are constructed.
Equipped cards are destroyed when the Robot they are equipped to is destroyed.
on a die roll), the attacker must declare their target before damages are calculated. After
damages are calculated, the defender decides whether or not to move the Robot out of
the way.
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Example Card:
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The following cards were added in v1.3:
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Revisions made for v1.31

As the name implies, the differences between v1.3 and v1.31 were minimal. The main
differences were to the cards themselves. The were mostly rewording cards for clarity, to
prevent unintended game states, and tweaking card stats for balance. The biggest change that I
wanted to test with this set of rules was a change in the attacking mechanic.
The attacking mechanic was changed so that players could no longer attack each other
directly unless they had first destroyed all of each others Robots. I also took out the defending
players ability to move Robots out of the way. This change happened as a combination of
suggestions from playtesters, and because it legitimately seemed like it could vastly improve the
game. This does make sense, as this one line change in the rules completely changed how
players had to prioritize targets, and it also changed which strategies were viable. Robots that
could stand up under strong attacks would become much more coveted. These things would
require some degree of balancing if the change were to be kept in the final version, but it seems
silly to not test something because of a fear of work that I could avoid just by reverting Cyborg
Duel to a previous version and moving in a different, less work-intensive direction from there.
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Objectives:
points on the first turn.
...5 cards.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
Construction Phase:
constructed.
Action Phase:
destroyed, unless otherwise stated.
at a time.
Other Rules:
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stated.
on a die roll), the attacker must declare their target before damages are calculated.
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Example Card:
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Revisions for v1.32

While it hasnt been a problem yet, I figure that if Cyborg Duel were to be actually
released into the wilds of game stores everywhere, somewhere, someone will not know to turn
Factories sideways to keep track of which Factories have been spent and which have not. As
such I will be changing the example diagram of how to set up a playing field so that players will
be given an example of spent Factory cards turned sideways. Hopefully, this will be enough to
get non-Magic players to learn how to efficiently keep track of spent Factories.
The wording in certain places in the rules is still ambiguous in the eyes of the players.
Since time is short at this point, stamping out these bugs in the rules is going to be a focus from
this point on, so as to make sure that the submitted version of Cyborg Battle will be completely
and easily playable without me there to guide the players. This is especially important because
playtests have shown that while previous players of TCGs pick up on the rules and mechanics
of Cyborg Duel fairly quickly, people who have played TCGs in the past often get very lost, very
quickly. Sometimes, people just look at the cards and prepare to get beaten by the sheer
complexity of the rules. Luckily, most playtesters dont feel that way by the end of the game, and
many players have actually remarked that the game is surprisingly simple.
The playtesters both remarked that they didnt pick up on the existence of Special
Abilities because they assumed that they were just flavor text because they were in italics. They
picked up on their existence around a third of the way through the game. Im not sure how I
would make the existence of special abilities more noticeable. To be honest, I didnt think that
simply having text in italics would make people ignore it.
The attacking mechanic implemented in v1.31 was poor, so for v1.32 I reverted the
attacking mechanic to the way it was in v1.3 In other words, I just made it so that players could
move their Robots out of the way again. This mechanic didnt end up being noticed too much
until v1.4 though, as the game ended up broken because of reasons I discuss in the next
iteration.
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Objectives:
Points on the first turn.
...5 cards.
The player that goes first cannot attack on his first turn.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
Construction Phase:
Spend Construction Points to build Robots or play Technology cards. Robots can
perform actions on the turn they are constructed. Factories do not generate
Construction Points on the turn they are constructed.
Action Phase:
destroyed, unless otherwise stated. The defender may choose to move his
Robots out of the way of attacking Robots and take the damage directly.
at a time.
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Other Rules:
Factory cards generate one Construction Point each turn. Unspent Construction Points
Points on the turn they are constructed.
stated.
on a die roll), the attacker must declare their target before damages are calculated.
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Example Card:
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Revisions for v1.4:

For v1.4 of Cyborg Duel, I changed a lot of cards. Almost all of them in fact. This is
mostly because I finally got the attacking mechanic to where I wanted it to be, and so I needed
to tweak the numbers on many of the cards to fit the way the game is played in v1.4. Many of
the game breaking states encountered previously were states where one player was completely
unable to even damage the other player without the use of highly specific cards. As such, many
of the balances made for v1.4 were changes that made it easier to kill each others Robots.
After many playtest struggling to balance a card that is overwhelmingly more powerful
than every other card but that is also much greater in cost, I have finally learned my lesson.
These cards, while cool in concept, are often toxic to the rest of the experience. It was with
great sorrow that I was forced to bid farewell to The Tyrant King, the latest iteration of Secret
Weapon Unleashed!. In keeping with the lore that I have mentally concocted around this card,
he is not being removed from the game because he breaks it every time he appears without
exception, he is being forcibly ejected from the world of Cyborg Duel through the combined
efforts of many skilled Robot commanders and the grandest technologies concocted by the
most brilliant minds of the world of Cyborg Duel. Their efforts can only do so much though, as
The Tyrant King cannot be so easily stopped, only temporarily set back until he finds a way
back to his favorite stomping grounds on the war torn world of Cyborg Duel.
Dice were removed as a necessary component. I decided that having dice involved with
some of the cards did not enhance the experience enough to justify requiring dice. Destroyer
Mech had its Action changed from Roll 1d4. If the result is between 2-4, deal that much
damage. If the result is a 1, destroy this card and take 1 damage to Deal 4 damage. Take 1
damage to your health. I felt that dealing high damage at the expense of taking recoil damage
preserved the highly offensive, highly risky feel that I was going for when I originally designed
this card. The effect of Time Bomb was changed from Roll 1d6. If the result is odd, destroy all
your opponents Robots. If its even, destroy all of your own Robots. to Destroy all Robots on
the field, both friend and foe. This changed the effect of the card from what I originally designed
it to be to what I most recently wanted it to be. It went from a high-risk, high-return card, to a
card used to make a comeback if your opponent has many Robots on the field and you need a
way to get rid of them quickly. Portable Time Machine was removed completely since its effect
was Re-roll any die roll immediately after it has been rolled.
Force Field combined with either Magnetic Field or the Special Ability Magnet Pull
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proved to be an overpowered, game breaking combination in not just one, but two different
games across two different versions of Force Field. Magnetic Field and Magnet Pull are
both things that allow a player to redirect attacks aimed at one of their other Robots to the
magnetic Robot. Force Field increased a Robots health by three. Both situations were
situations where one player could force another to attack an unkillable Robot every turn,
effectively preventing them from doing any damage. Magnetic Field was only broken when
played with Force Field, so I decided that it was Force Field that needed to be changed. I
changed it so that instead of increasing a Robots health, it simply added three counters onto a
Robot that each blocked one damage then was destroyed. I did this because the health of
Robots regenerate at the end of each turn, so stacking defensive abilities on a Robot with high
health would force the other player to be able to deal improbably large amounts of damage just
to be able to attack other Robots. Having temporary health though, means that players can
gradually wear a tanky Robot down, until they can manage to take it down in one turn from the
attacks of several Robots or through a combination of Technology cards and Robots.
I added a component for keeping track of each players health. It is simply a combination
of a sheet of paper with the numbers 0-30 with a red token to place on it.
Mathematically speaking, the damage that many of the weaker cards could deal was
zero. Since many of them could only deal one damage, and since even the weakest Robots had
a minimum of two health, it would take two Robots attacking together to take down an equally
weak Robot. This happened against stronger Robots as well, especially when players were able
to use defensive Technology cards and Special Abilities to prevent their opponent from fully
destroying any of their Robots. Since Robots regenerate all their health at the end of each turn,
these instances were all instances where the total damage of a player and all his Robots
rounded to zero. After looking at many of the Robot cards, I realized that the game was skewed
in such a way that it was nearly impossible to kill one anothers Robots simply because the
average health of Robots tended to be much higher than the average damage. In situations
where players were unable to consistently bring our Robots with damage higher than the
average health of a Robot, they ended up not being able to reliably their opponents Robots.
This would not have been so bad if players were not able to target one Robot with multiple
Robots when attacking. Because of this, one players field tended to end up consistently empty,
while the other players field simply gained more and more Robots. Another factor that created
this one-sidedness was that Robots could not attack on the turn they were constructed. This
prevented players from retaliating since their Robot would end up destroyed before it could do
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anything. These factors created a snowballing effect that needed to be changed. In order to
combat this, I changed the rules so that Robots could perform actions on the turn they are
constructed. This allowed players to retaliate more easily. This would not have been enough by
itself though, so I changed the stats on just about every card so that all Robots would be able to
destroy the weakest Robots without assistance, and changed the attack and health values on
cards so that even weak Robots would be able to threaten the stronger Robots with just a little
bit of assistance.
Many smaller changes were made for v1.4 for balance purposes. Many of these
changes were the changes mentioned earlier made to prevent the snowballing effect. I added in
several duplicate cards that people seemed to enjoy using, I reworded many of the Technology
cards, and made many of them more expensive as well, since they tended to just be played as
soon as they were drawn. The three Super Factory cards in each deck were removed because
they were confusing and did not add anything to the game.
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Objectives:
If a player has no remaining cards in their deck, hand and field, they lose.
If a player has no cards left in their deck, they have no Robots left on the field, and they
cannot construct any Robots, they lose.
Points on the first turn.
...5 cards in their hand.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
Construction Phase:
Spend Construction Points to build Robots or play Technology cards. Robots can
perform actions on the turn they are constructed. Factories do not generate
Action Phase:
destroyed, unless otherwise stated. The defender may choose to move his
Robots out of the way of attacking Robots and take the damage directly.
at a time.
health stat, then the defending Robot is destroyed. Players do not take damage
from their Robots being destroyed.
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Page 42
destroyed in one turn, its as if they took no damage at all
Other Rules:
Factory cards generate one Construction Point each turn. Unspent Construction Points
Points on the turn they are constructed.
Cards with the Instant type can be played at any time, unless otherwise stated.
A Robots Special Ability can be always be used in applicable situations, even if other
cards are preventing the Robot from performing any actions.
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Example Card:
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Khan Sweetman
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Player Life:
30
25
20
15
10
5
Khan Sweetman
29
24
19
14
9
4
28
23
18
13
8
3
27 26
22 21
17 16
12 11
7
6
2
1
Page 46
The following cards were added for v1.4:*
*If cards appear in the deck but never in this document, it is because they are the same as a
card mentioned in this document, but with name or picture that has been changed for copyright
reasons.
Khan Sweetman
Page 47
Revisions for The Final Ruleset:

Version 1.4 of Cyborg Duel worked the way I wanted it to. Players were able to play it
with little help, the players seemed to find the game enjoyable, and the game did not break. It is
because of this, as well as the fact that I have run out of time to further improve my game that I
have decided to not change the game any further, and to submit the game as it is now.
I made several changes to the rules. However, none of the rules were actually changed,
just reworded for clarity purposes. A section titled Key Terms and Other Clarifications was
added for clarity as well. The font was changed to better communicate the theme of Cyborg
Duel and to further immerse the players in the world of Cyborg Duel.
Finally, I added token components to act as tokens if they are generated during the
game.
Khan Sweetman
Page 48
Cyborg Battle: Rules

Objectives:
If a player has no remaining cards in their deck, hand and field, they lose.
If a player has no cards left in their deck, they have no Robots left on the field,
and they cannot construct any Robots, they lose.
Each player starts out with...
...30 health points.
...2 Factory cards on the field. Search through the deck to get these cards.
They are not a part of your opening hand. Shuffle the deck afterwards.
These Factories get to generate Construction Points on the first turn.
and 5 cards in their hand.
Look at the attached diagrams if setting up or the cards themselves are
confusing.
Turn Phases:
Draw Phase:
If the player chooses, he may discard his entire hand and redraw to the
number of cards that he previously had instead of drawing new cards.
If the player desires, he may remove any of his cards from the playing field
and place them in the discard pile.
Construction Phase:
Spend Construction Points to build Robots or play Technology cards.
Robots can perform actions on the turn they are constructed. Factories
do not generate Construction Points on the turn they are constructed.
Action Phase:
Attacking Robots can target other Robots. Attacking Robots can only
choose to directly attack the opposing player once all opposing Robots
have been destroyed, unless otherwise stated. The defender may
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Page 49
choose to move his Robots out of the way of attacking Robots and
Robots attack in the order that the attacker desires. Robots can only
attack one at a time.
Each Robot has a health stat. If the total damage that the attacking
Robot deals through abilities and other card effects is equal to or higher
than the defending Robots health stat, then the defending Robot is
destroyed. Players do not take damage from their Robots being
destroyed.
The health of every Robot card is reset every turn. In other words, if a card
isnt destroyed in one turn, its as if they took no damage at all
Other Rules:
Factory cards generate one Construction Point each turn. Unspent Construction
Points cannot be carried over from previous turns. Factories do not generate
Cards with the Instant type can be played at any time, unless otherwise stated.
Technology cards that are equipped must be equipped on the turn they are
constructed. Equipped cards are destroyed when the Robot they are equipped to
is destroyed.
A Robots Special Ability can be always be used in applicable situations, even if
other cards are preventing the Robot from performing any actions.
Key Terms and Other Clarifications:
Token: These are Robots that can be generated by Technology cards of other
Robots. They behave in exactly the same ways as other Robots. Use tokens from
the components bag to represent them if they come into play.
Special Ability: Passive abilities that do not take up actions when they are used.
Special Abilities are the italicized text at the bottom of some Robot cards. (See
p.3 for an example).
Actions: Robots all have either 1 or two different Actions. Robots can only
perform 1 action per turn, even if they have 2 different Actions. If text is
separated into different sections, they are different Actions. Otherwise, they are
part of the same Action. (See p.3 for an example).
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Example Card:
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Khan Sweetman
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Player Life:
30
25
20
15
10
5
Khan Sweetman
29
24
19
14
9
4
28
23
18
13
8
3
27 26
22 21
17 16
12 11
7
6
2
1
Page 53
Final Deck Composition:

40 Cards Total
10 Factories
16 Robots
3 Security bot
3 Destroyer mech
3 Cyborg Vanguard
1 Enola Gamma
1 Hades Alpha
1 Armored Carrier
1 Gungnir
1 Scrap Titan
2 The Tiny Robot That Could
14 Technologies
2 Force Field
1 Magnetic Field
1 Overdrive
1 Discharge
1 EMP Blast
2 Precision Bombing
1 Junkyard Repairs
1 Quick Swap
1 Time Bomb
2 Additional Arm Cannon
1 Shackles
Every card listed above is present in either deck. The only other version of the cards
included in the physical copy of the Project 2 submission is the initial version of each card in
Cyborg Duel so as to not dilute this document with large numbers of minor, yet necessary
changes.
Khan Sweetman

Cyborg Battle Concept and Design

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2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Concept and Design: Project #2: Strategy Game: Cyborg Battle

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Initial Concept and Design:

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Robot Duel: Rules v1.0

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

The following cards were introduced in v1.0:

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Revisions for v1.1

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Cyborg Battle: Rules v1.1

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Example playing field for one player:

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Revisions for v1.2

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Cyborg Battle: Rules v1.2

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Example playing field for one player:

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

The following cards were added for v1.2:

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Revisions for v1.3

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

Cyborg Battle: Rules v1.3

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology

GAT210 - Spring 2014

2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology