We've always been a big fan of trading card games. Being able to customize your deck based on what kind of strategy you prefer and what kind of style you like is something that has always appealed to us, and trading card games are a fantastic outlet for that.
In fact, we love trading card games so much that we always thought it would be very cool to make our own cards. Unfortunately, that's not an option in most games; after all, how can you allow players to make their own cards and prevent them from playing low-cost cards that just say "you win the game when this spell is cast"?
Well, we found a way to make this dream a reality in this game, Keeper of the Cards. Here's how: instead of making effects, powers, and costs of cards arbitrary, as they are in most trading card games, Keeper of the Cards defines a set of rules for how all cards are to be constructed, and what it should cost to play them. So it's a bit like a jigsaw puzzle; you have a set number of "pieces" to choose from, but you can configure them basically in any way you want to create virtually any kind of card within those limitations.
But what good is that if the game is no good? That's why Keeper of the Cards is also designed to be a very fun game, incorporating ideas from several other trading card games. Its particular influences are the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game and the Duel Masters Trading Card Game, plus a small amount of influence from another libre trading card game, Arcmage. In short, the rules are designed to minimize luck-based victories, keep the rules relatively simple, and create an engaging, dynamic, and tense play experience.
This directory contains the Keeper of the Cards starter set, designed to get you started playing Keeper of the Cards!
Rules for the game can be found in this directory as "rulebook.html". For creating cards, a card building guide ("cardbuilding.html") and a card template ("card.xcf") are also included. The template can be opened and edited with the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Photoshop, or any other graphics software that supports the XCF format.
To start playing, you can find starter decks which you can print in the "decks" directory. These starter decks are built using cards found in the "cards" directory. The "decks" directory also includes a printable set of "tip cards" which you can use to help introduce the game to others.
For custom deck building, feel free to use LibreOffice Draw or any other program which supports the ODG format to edit the existing deck files, or alternatively, you might consider sending the individual card images to a card printing service.
Cards found under the "cards" directory are under their own licenses (usually CC BY, CC BY-SA, or CC0), indicated by the text below the images.
Python scripts found under the "tools" directory are licensed under the Apache License.
All other files in this directory and its sub-directories are dedicated to the public domain via CC0.