I'm working on a Creative Card Game, a card game in the tradition of Magic: the
Gathering, but one that is managed and created by its community of players.
Players create the physical cards, including the art and themes and every other
aspect of a card's physical form.
The mechanical aspects of cards, for example their rules text etc. are generated
by a program called the Rules Engine. Players can download a copy of the Rules
Engine and ask it to generate cards, then they can choose the cards they want to
make physical copies of. The game is played with the player-created physical
copies of the cards generated by the rules engine. The Rules Engine is a free
download and the total cost of playing the game is the cost of the materials for
the physical cards. There is no possibility for anything like microtransactions.
Players can "register" cards generated by the Rules Engine with the community of
players. Once a card is registered, it can be used for "official" games.
Official games count towards players' standing, a karma-like metric that
measures their influence on the game. Players also gain standing when their card
designs (i.e. the art they create for physical cards) is appreciated by other
players. Standing is calculated so that being good at the game and creating
beautiful art for physical cards increase a player's standing by equal measures.
Players with higher standing can eventually make decisions about the nature of
the game, e.g. they can change rules, change or ban cards, change the amount of
standing earned for various reasons and so on. The only person who is allowed to
change the code of the Rules Engine is, well, me. As the creator of the game I
have veto power over any decision I think will harm the game. On the other hand,
I have no power to make any decisions on my own- I can't change rules, ban
cards, etc. I am only the Maintainer of the Engine.
The source of the Rules Engine is kept under a proprietary license, to make it
harder for people dissatisfied with decisions of high-standing players (or the
Maintainer) from endlessly forking the project, causing the community to
fragment into camps playing mutually incompatible clone-games, a situation that
I believe would be detrimental to the game. Players remain free to create
whatever physical cards they like without invoking the Rules Engine and to play
a game with whomever accepts to play with them. However, the intention is to
have a "core" game that is the same for all.
The game is associated with a decentralised online marketplace where players can
sell their card designs in exchange for standing, or real money.
This is a long-term project. I've been working on and off on this idea for a few
years now.
Oh and I'm also doing some research for my PhD of course. But that's of no
interest to anyone :)