Unofficial Endless Space 2 Card Game by Helmniir
Many of you love the Endless universe the worldbuilding and lore that goes into the Amplitude games, to the point that you are looking for ways to engage with the universe outside of our 4X games. We often see our community suggest that we should branch out with the Endless universe: Real-time strategy games, computer or Pen and Paper RPGs, (Visual) novels, shooters… the list of genres you want to see combined with the Endless universe has no end. One of our fans in particular took it into their own hands and created a card game.
Designed for 2 to 4 players, Helmniir’s Unofficial Endless Space 2 Card Game (currently only available as a Tabletop Simulator module) focuses on an encounter between rival Behemoths, rather than the empire building of our 4X games. Nonetheless, you will still need to balance your military action with your economic development, while dealing with the strengths and weaknesses of the different factions and the cards you are dealt.
During a typical turn of the game, you will harvest Industry, Dust, and Science, build or upgrade modules of your Behemoth, and recruit troops to go to battle against your enemy, supported by a variety of orders. With 8 different factions to supply your troops, 16 different modules to build on your Behemoth (only 8 of which will be used in any given game), and three decks of a dozen orders each, the game offers a good amount of content and you are unlikely to see the game play out the same way twice.
While I have not been able to test the game as much as I would like, I feel the basic design is solid. Limiting most of the random elements to the game setup rather than the resolution of player actions, the game emphasizes planning ahead. At the same time, the different factions you can recruit (two in any given game) offer some asymmetry in in their strengths, abilities, and cost. The random selection of Support Modules available in any given game further influences your strategy and keeps you from repeating the same steps every game. Between these modules, the different faction abilities, and the variety of orders, I can see potential for synergies, but also different strategies on how to develop your resources and military.
The card layouts are clearly inspired by Endless Space 2's user interface, and they are generally very easy to read once you have familiarized yourself with the icons. However, the quality of these assets does mean that the first time you load the module may take some time, as it imports the high resolution images. Finally, while the simultaneous resolution of all players' economic actions speeds up gameplay, this is not a game that you can quickly play in half an hour, and especially the first few matches may take some time as you become familiarwith the rules, so plan accordingly when you get together with some friends to try it out.
As always, you can find an interview with the person behind this project below.
Interview with Helmniir
Could you introduce yourself to the rest of the community?
Hi, my name is Maksim Strakhov and I’m from Russia, 26 y.o. You can also find me as Helmniir on G2G forums.
How long have you been part of the Amplitude Community? Which of our games did you play and which one is your favorite?
I’ve started to come often to G2G forums somewhere around Tempest release, but I’ve played EL even before it, maybe since Guardians? Probably so. I’ve played ES1 and ES2, Endless Legend and Dungeon of the Endless. All DLC’s except Awakening and mushroom one for EL – still don’t have them. The favorite one is a tough question – there some exact things that I like in all of those games, but the most is probably DoE – little fun game, that I’ve beat just once because it kicked my ass too hard.
When did you decide to work on this project, and what inspired you to do it?
Was this your first project like this, or had you worked on games before?
The story of this project is a long one.
Before ES 2 CG I had almost no experience in game development. It was started around 3 (or maybe even 4, can’t say exactly) years ago. I like to play card and board games and it was a matter of time before I’ve tried to make my own one.
It was not as ES card game as it is now, but a completely different one with its own setting (EL inspired though). It was a game about flying fortresses and their lords tried to destroy each other. Mechanically it was really similar to current game but with a lot of nuances, exceptions, some additions and so on. It took me around half a year to complete its first edition – base mechanics, base design, rules, assembling in Tabletop Simulator. I worked on my breaks so I that’s why it took so long.
After that there was about 2-3 months of playtesting in TTS. And then I’ve tried to show it to our local publishers. It was denied because of many reasons that I can summarize as “Nothing new”. Well thing happens. But I was REALLY frustrated when one week later those guys published another clone of their already published game, and REALLY confused after their printing of “Munchkin without pictures”.
I’ve dropped development of my card game for quite some time after that, but about year ago I’ve decided: I won’t let all my work die in vain, I want show it to people. It was not too far from Supremacy DLC release, so I’ve decided to make a redesign with ES2 in mind. 2 or 3 months later I’ve released it in Steam Workshop for TTS.
What was the greatest problem you faced creating this game? What part of the game do you like best?
The greatest problem was to find time and enough energy to actually work on game – it takes A LOT of time only to count things, not to mention the design part where every single piece and card must be created and adjusted. Also the problem was my lack of gamedesign knowledge when I’ve first started to make it – in process of redesign I’ve changed a lot of mechanics altogether, and it became much better, but right now I think, that if I’ve started development of this game now, right from scratch, it would be totally different game – I’ve read a lot of books and articles, analyzed many games and so on, I’ve improved.
The thing that I like about that game is that it is quite nice and interesting strategy game overall – random is minimal, decision making and planning are crucial. You can experiment with different playstyles, setups, you can play in teams and so on. I like the core of the game. It’s unpolished, has some weak points, but decent. Can’t say that I’m proud, but not disappointed in myself.
And… I love the design. YES, It based on Amplitude’s arts and Icons, but still I find it rather nice (a moment of narcissism).
Do you have any other cool projects that you would like to tell us about?
I have a lot of data about ES 2 card game ADD-ONS (with different new mechanics and also buildings, orders and so on), some Print-aNd-Play edition schemes and other things, but I see that interest from the community itself is low, so I don’t know if I would work on them. BUT I’ve worked for a long time on EL Card Game. It’s a PvPvE RPG-like game in Endless Legend setting with really interesting relationship system. You can find more and screenshots info in the thread. It needs slight adjustments in terms of mechanics and few more playtests but it’s almost done. That game is totally different from ES2 one and supports from 2 up to 6 players. I really like what it became and there are also a lot of ideas for add-ons for it. But it’s still unfinished. Aaaand it’s in this state about 2 months already. There are few reasons.
First - I don’t have enough time and energy - working from 11 to 20 with 1,5 hours getting to and from job really drains me. And the second is that I’ve started another project with totally different setting in mind – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. one. There are A LOT of data and even some card prototypes done already. It is enormous project with a single purpose of making an ultimate card game-based roleplaying experience. I even want to involve stalker game community to create story campaigns, events and so on. Right now I’m trying to make contact and get support from GSC (well, simply just permission to make game and create a Patreon page for it). Regardless of whether I get permission or not, I’ll finish EL CG anyway, probably I will work hard in the beginning of January, on holydays so maybe February become a release date. Can’t be sure.
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