No, really, I promise it’s not over!

So, unfortunately, I never made the time to follow through with that last commitment, and between a few moves (both residences and computers), I got a bit messy in terms of keeping the project organised. This made it so that the project constantly haunted me as a task too daunting to get back to. Today I finally made the time to scan all the cards I have that aren’t currently available in English on the blog. I’ve started the work on making the translated cards, and hopefully I will be keeping the momentum to get the last parts done, at least, over the next few weeks/months.

To reward you for your patience, here’s a little sneak peek at some of the more interesting cards from this batch and some insight into the process behind translating them:

Smoke Gas is a conceal effect, but it’s a bit different from those we had already, in that it actually shuts down Scan effects. A bit niche, but maybe you can find a use for it?

Scout Hand and Scout Arm were strange in that Scout Hand only requires that the part “deals damage,” while Scout Arm requires that the part “deals damage with an attack.” Both parts were released in the same set, so it seems odd that the phrasing would be different, though it certainly just seems like an oversight. I decided to translate them as-is, and we can see if there arise any interactions where the condition makes a difference.

We also get some of the most interesting effects I’ve seen with the Cosmo-Alien parts.

The head goes a control route, shutting down Medarotter cards and Medal cards until the end of the turn. This can be very powerful, blocking your opponent from executing planned combos or disrupting your plays with Medarotter cards. However, it should be used with care, as it’ll also turn off your Medarotter and Medal cards!

The Mute Hand part was a bit tricky, as the effect actually translated as reducing your Medarot’s “discard costs” to zero. It’s been a long while since I translated the rulebook, but I don’t remember any cost specifically being called a “discard cost.” I assume it refers to the cost paid when you replace parts, but i’m just not 100% sure because the cost to be paid in that case is actually that of the new part, so the term doesn’t even seem to be very accurate. I had to make a judgement call here, so I assumed it was just a weird oversight when the rules/card were written. It could also just be a result of the way I translated the rulebook way back. Either way, this re-wording of the effect made the most sense to me, given that Cosmo-Alien is known for being able to randomly transform its parts.

If anyone with better knowledge of the Japanese language than myself (or more experience with the game) reads this, drop some insight in the comments!

More parts incoming…

Sorry for the long silence, but I managed to put some more work into this lately and there are 51 more parts on their way! These will be the last of the parts I can provide – I’m missing the rest.

After this, I will be releasing all the rest of the medals I have, so we will finally be able to play with higher-level medals.

There is no preview today – you’ll just have to hold on a little longer!

Wave 2 is live!

Thank you guys so much for your patience. This project has suffered from lots of commitments outside this hobby as well as some divided attention (more on that later).

The next wave of cards is done and uploaded, and can be found in the Google Drive – the new cards are numbered 150-223, for those who are just adding onto previously downloaded content.

This new wave is especially exciting because we now have everything we need to play our two protagonists:

Please feel free to test it out and send any typos and issues you find – I already noted a few inconsistencies in terminology. I hope to eventually edit the full set once Wave 3 is done and I’ve playtested a bit, to make it more consistent.

As for that other project, for anyone who may be interested… Once I am done with this game, I will be working on Monster Collection by Fujimi Shobo! This game has interested me for a long while. I already have most of the templates done and the rulebook translated, as well as a small selection of cards. Hopefully that project will hit the ground running after Medarot is done. More news on that will be shared here when the time comes and I launch a blog for that game.

Until next time!

Parts, Part 2

Today I finished the first draft of all the parts to be released in Wave 2. These now just need to a quick lookover and to be saved as image files to be uploaded and shared. But for now, here are all the parts required to finally finish your CyanDog! Some very basic parts, one of which bearing stats that should look familiar…

Now I move on to the Rank 2 medals! Once those are complete, you can expect to see the full next wave uploaded and ready for you to play! Thank you again for your continued support!

Support

In celebration of the support you guys have sent me, the fuel that keeps me going on this, I wanted to share a couple Support cards that were part of the lot of cards I translated today. I won’t say much about these interesting effects, as these opposites speak for themselves.

I know some of you will be happy to see a fan favourite finally join us!

Wave 2 in the works

First off, to anyone who tried to contact me and didn’t hear back, I’m sorry about that. I thought I was forwarding e-mails to my personal account, but apparently that wasn’t the case. And then I lost access to the associated account for a while. But now everything is sorted out.

I also apologize for the long period since I last posted new content. I began work today on the next wave of cards to translate and release for you guys. Depending how fast I can get through them, it will either be the second of three waves, or will just be the rest of the card I own. I will at some point also put up a list of cards I’m missing in case anyone has access to them and can help out.

To whet the appetite, here is one of the cards I worked on today. Keep in mind the translation/wording may still change before it’s added to the general collection.

And finally, thank you so much to all who reached out to let me know they got to play because of this translation! It means so much more to me than you know and keeps me coming back to continue work on this, even if it’s just a handful of fans.

We’re back and ready to start playtesting

I’ve really been sleeping on this. I finished translating everything necessary to play and then never bothered to polish things up real nice and post them here. Today, I’m righting half those wrongs.

Presented HERE are all the cards I have translated and ready so far, if you wish to print them out and stick them in sleeves to play with your friends. I’ve also made a mod available on the Tabletop Simulator community workshop (HERE), which needs a lot of cleaning up as well.

Learn how to play with THIS early version of the Learn to Play document.

Please let me know if you end up using any of this. I’m not even looking for credit, I just want to hear that people are enjoying, and know about any ways we can make this better for everyone.

In the future, I hope to make it easy for people to order these cards from online printers, as well as make later card sets available to expand the card pool. Who knows, maybe one day we can even make new cards featuring ‘bots from later series!

I look forward to hearing from all my fellow niche card robottlers!

Energy + Effect+ Evasion

The cards for the first set are all done and now I’m just working on completing the “Learn To Play” document before I release everything. (Note that all cards may be changed after some play, to better reflect their original text or the exact opposite – to balance/clarify effect text.)

Today, I’d like to share the foundations of the game – the cards that will be present in virtually every deck. Medarot Card Robottle has players tap “energy cards” to fill the matching “charge costs” on parts cards or Medarotter cards when you use them (e.g. tapping a “Fighting Energy” card to pay the cost of a “Strike” or “Berserk” part). If you’ve ever played Magic the Gathering or Pokemon TCG, these concepts should be familiar to you. What differs in this game is that you can use two of any energy cards to create “substitute energy”, meaning if you’re not drawing the energy cards you need, you still stand a chance!

In addition to energy cards, we have Evasion Cards, which will bail you out – they reduce the damage of an incoming attack to zero! Unlike the various energy cards, which have no limits, you may only have 4 Evasion Cards in your deck.

The last card we’ll talk about today is also limited to 4 copies per deck. This is the Effect Card, which is required to trigger the special effects of certain parts. For example, if you use the “Virus” right arm part to successfully deal damage, you may attach an effect card to the attacking Medarot to activate that part’s “Flux” ability, which will weaken the defending Medarot’s parts. With only 4 Effect Cards in the deck, you need to know when to trigger your abilities to secure the upper hand.

Eliminating Systems

The original Medarot card game was a bit clunky, to say the least. The rulebook, while the dimensions of a playing card, is a whopping 74 pages full of text that reads more like a technical manual that game instructions.

One change I’ve opted to make is to eliminate the grouping of certain cards into “systems”. The game classifies “strike” and “berserk” cards as fighting system parts, “shoot” and “snipe” as shooting system parts, etc. The idea behind this is to presumably let them refer to both types of cards with one term. But saying “shooting system parts” rather than “shoot or snipe parts” doesn’t save much space or breath. Perhaps it’s simply due to the transition from kanji to a roman alphabet, but it seemed better to just leave this confusing grouping behind. The cards have their type (i.e. shoot, snipe, etc.) printed right on the card, so it’s a lot more intuitive to just refer to that text.

The translated cards for all of set 1 (excepting the few cards I cant get my hands on) are nearly done and I’m now working on putting together an easy-to-read English instruction manual. This game is coming very soon, for anyone who happens to be waiting.

Here are some more card previews in the meantime:

Piercing and a change of terminology

Since my last post, I’ve already changed my position on the plurals and have opted for the “Legs part card(s)” option. What changed my mind was constantly having to work around the inability to refer to a part without it being plural.

I also came across what I think is something pretty typical in writing game rules – trying to write a rule in a way that is indisputable and very clear in rulings questions, but also just plain easy to read. Not always easy, and often very difficult to get everyone to agree on.

Attached today are a pair of cards in its current form that have brought up both these things. The translation of its ability is also really important because it’s found on the head part of our protagonist – Metabee’s Missiles!