Magnum Opus, an original card game for iOS. Magnum Opus is a melding, 'anti-deck buider' card game.
Final Class Version 1.3.1 is released!
A meld is a group of cards that either are a run (a sequence of ascending cards e.g. 8♠, 9♥, 10♦ or have the same value (e.g. K♦, K♠, K♥). In Magnum Opus, melds of two cards are known as ‘half-melds’, and melds with three or more cards are ‘full-melds’. In other melding games, such as Rummy, a run is defined as a sequence of ascending cards of the same suit, but there is no such requirement in Magnum Opus. In fact, suit doesn’t matter at all - only value. Melding games have existed for hundreds of years. Mahjong is the most famous example; it is a tile based melding game. Rummy, Canasta and Gin are three examples of card based melding games. Magnum Opus takes a new approach to melding games by incorporating deck building. Each player has half of a full deck (26 cards) to start. At the end of a round, players discard their cards into their own, personal discard pile. At the start of a round, players draw from their own deck. If there aren’t enough cards in the deck, they shuffle their own discard pile and set that as their draw deck. This creates a cycle where cards a player picks up a few rounds ago come back into their hand. To win Magnum Opus, you must draw a fully-melded hand. This means that you have two full melds in your hand, one of size three and the other of size four. You only check to see if you’ve won at the beginning of a round. Below are some example winning hands: A, 2, 3, 4, 7, 7, 7 4, 4, 4, Q, Q, Q, Q 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q At the start of the round, each player draws seven cards from their deck. After checking to see if they’ve won (see ‘Winning The Game’), the players take it in turns to trade melds into the store. Tapping on the card selects it (shown by moving up). When the selected cards make a half or full meld, the store turns from grey to white to show the validity of the selected cards. By tapping on a card from the store, all the selected cards are switched for the tapped card. The tapped card is placed in the player’s hand hand.If a player is happy with the state of their hand, or they can’t trade any more cards, they can hit the pass button. If a player is the first to pass in a round, they will go first next round. Once a player has passed, the other player can make as many trades as they like until they too opt to pass. Once both players have passed, the round ends. The store is discarded and both players discard their hands. Play continues until a player draws a fully melded hand.
These are the cards a player can purchase with melds form their hand. At the start of the round, four cards are placed in the store. When a player spends cards from your hand, they are added to the store. There are a maximum of eight cards in the store. The cards in the store ‘age’, so the oldest is removed if there are more than eight cards. At the end of the round, the store is discarded.Magnum Opus is elegant to play, but understanding some of its mechanics takes a little time. The tutorial we designed takes the player step-by-step through Magnum Opus; we provide an introduction to melding and deck building so that players unfamiliar with these mechanics can understand the core mechanics of the game. Then, we guide the player around the two-player interface, showing them the location of their hand, their opponent’s hand and the store on the screen. It walks players through trading in melds for cards in the store and passing their turn. Animation brings Magnum Opus to life. Not only is it more absorbing to watch, but we also use animation to convey information about the game. The shifting store informs the players whose turn it is. The cards shrink when they’re replaced in the store, telling the user that they are no longer available. Animation was one of the most rewarding parts of this project; we watched our project go from static and visually jarring to flowing and professional-looking. The thirteen cards, values Ace through King, were designed by our resident photoshop guru Nina Demirjian. The designs are based on tarot cards; Nina selected thirteen of the twenty one cards from the major arcana and reinterpreted them into the Magnum Opus theme. Ominous and downright creepy, the style gives Magnum Opus a distinct flavour; many other iOS card games too often default to bland green felt backgrounds and traditional card design.
TODO:
Make this readme nicer.
Sound design: Main Menu: Ambient noise, button pressed sound Two player: Select card sound, ambient?
// Design: Background. Passed icon when a player has passed. // Esitmated time: 1/2hr
Single player: To be implemented
Settings: Volume/Mute, others?
Tutorial: More comprehensive (eg defaulting is not covered in the tutorial). More QA testing. More interaction (aiming to play an entire round)