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4gxg is an online project with the goal of designing an open source Collectible Card Game. First announced in May 2007, the project is being funded by Ray Liu, and has received the support of many professional CCG designers, many of whom are former employees of Decipher (including Liu himself). The notable difference between the 4gxg project and most commercial efforts to design a CCG is that decisions will be made by popular consensus, instead of a "closed" development process where paid developers make the final decisions.

Timeline

The design of the project is set up to occur over eight phases, leading up to the publication of a commercial CCG. Many phases have been given a set timeline, though some are more open-ended

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Phase
! Description
! Length
|-
| Phase 0: Spread the Word
| Introductory phase meant to gain a large enough membership to complete the goals of the rest of the project (including accounting for attrition of members).
| This phase will end once 500 active members are registered on the site.
|-
| Phase 1: The Story
| Takes place simultaneously with Phase 2
| 8 weeks
|-
| Stage 1: The Setting
| Designing a location and storyline which is interesting enough to draw in new members and has potential for growth
| 2 weeks
|-
| Stage 2: The Characters
| Developing heroes and villains in the winning setting that can be the centerpiece of a storyline, and the card game itself.
| 2 weeks
|-
| Stage 3: The Story
| Developing a storyline based on the setting, location, and characters which have been agreed upon in the last two stages.
| 4 weeks
|-
| Phase 2: The Engine
| Takes place simultaneously with Phase 1
| 8 weeks
|-
| Stage 1: The Mechanics
| Designing primary game mechanics which the CCG will use, such as timing and win conditions.
| 2 weeks
|-
| Stage 2: Set Design
| Designing more concrete portions of the game, such as card types.
| 2 weeks
|-
| Stage 3: The Rules Book
| Writing a comprehensive set of rules to the game, incorporating mechanics from Stages 1 and 2.
| 4 weeks
|-
| Phase 3: Sanity Check
| At this point, the rules of the game and the setting and story for the game have been developed. This is a chance to revise any rules and problems with what has been developed so far; this is an attempt to rectify problems with the Waterfall model.
| 2 weeks
|-
| Phase 4: Card Design
| This portion of the design phase is creating cards that could potentially be printed in the game itself, once it goes into production. This phase assumes that the rules of the game itself are essentially static at this point.
| 6 weeks
|-
| Phase 5: Playtesting
| Of the most well-received cards in Phase 4, this phase will build decks and attempt to play with the designed cards to achieve balance in the game. This phase will also test the rules of the game as a whole to make sure they're consistent and at a professional level of quality.
| 4 weeks
|-
| Phase 6: The Art
| Once cards have been designed and the beginnings of a finish product are available, art for card templates and graphics for card art and the rulebook will be commissioned.
| 4 weeks
|-
| Phase 7: Shuffle Up and Deal
| The game is essentially complete. This phase will have a finished product that can be played and can look into being published commercially.
|
|}

Current Status

The 4GXG project has currently finished all stages through Phase 1: The Setting and Phase 2: The Mechanics. The current stages are now Phase 1: The Characters and Phase 2: Set Design. The setting with the most votes was Conspiracy!, submitted by community member Leverandon. It deals with fictional conspiracies set in the near-future.

Differences from Similar Projects

Many projects of this style have been attempted before. They rarely survive to completion. 4gxg has several advantages over these projects.

It is being operated and has received the support of several professionals in the field, with prior experience designing CCGs and connections to make the base of members large enough to survive a large number of members abandoning the project.

There is significant financial incentive for members to continue working on it. A budget of up to $10,000 (USD) in rewards has been guaranteed already, a budget already significantly above that of most internet-based CCG projects; this money will reward winning contributions in all phases, from $5 to $500 at a time.

External links

Official site