Duamutef's Game Cartovore tips and advices

[Maexam2]

Alright, I don't know how many play Cartovore, or how many people even know the game exists.

But I'm creating this topic so that those who DO know about it can ask for and/or share tips and/or advice on how to defeat certain opponents, ideas for decks and just to talk about it in general.

With that being said, I believe I shall ask the first question, any advice or tip to defeat the enemy "Fallen"?

[Kastaa]

Was a really long time ago I played Cartovore, though I remember quite a lot.

I've never beaten Fallen myself, and I've got no clue if there's anything after defeating her.
I was close to defeating her once though.. The strategy I used against her was to lower the costs on ALL weapons, so I could just spam them on her, just like she does on us.

Though, Alas. I lost interest in the game since it's time consuming if you really want to defeat Fallen.

[Maexam2]

I see. Thank you, I'll try that. And, according to the game's data, there is two or three more enemies after Fallen.

[Bright]

Is this cartovore 1 or 2?

[Erecant]

Looks to be for 2.

As for hoe to beat Fallen, and the 2 enemies after her . . . I cheated.

I cheated HARD.

Drop their hp to 1 in the game files and open with a weapon level of cheating.

Take all of the cards out of their decks and replace them with Rachel level of cheating.

That was probably one of the best things about Duam's games. You could crack them open, learn how they were stitched together (often with bubblegum and wishes) and make some modest, or not so modest, changes to suit your style.

--Erecant

[Maexam2]

I see. As for which one of the Cartovore's this is about, I only played the first one, but the discussions here can be about either of them. As for the game files, I'm not really sure how to modify them. I'm actually afraid of touching in the wrong place or the wrong thing and screwing the game up.

[Kastaa]

There's two versions? I didn't even know.

Is cartovore 1 a whole different game, or just a beta of the second?

[Maexam2]

How can the first one be the BETA of the second? Anyway, yes. In Duamutef's website there are three games. The first one is an RPG he made. The other two are Cartovore 1 & 2. They have the same concept, but the mechanics are quite different. Different types of cards, rules and situations, including some old and some new foes. However, as far as I could see, he stopped Cartovore 2's production halfway. I do not know why though.

[Maexam2]

On another topic, still on Cartovore, of course, I simply can't find a use for the "Solar" weapon card. The damage it deals is VERY little to none. At least it's always done that to me in the I, II, III and IV levels of the weapon. But when Fallen used "Solar IV" on me once, she wiped me out with that single card!!! Am I using the card wrongly of something?

[Bright]

So is Cartovore 2 possible to run on windows 8.1?

[Maexam2]

Maybe. I don't have Windows 8.1 so I wouldn't know.

On another subject, here's what I found out you can or not do when editing the profiles on Cartovore 1's data. The player profiles to be more specific.

CAN do:

-Go to the desired enemy profile and alter their stats/cards and their card's stats. But, if you do, then you won't gain tokens after the battle;
-Go to your player profile and add copies of cards that you have already unlocked.
-Alter your card's stats, except for leaders.

CAN NOT DO:

-Add cards to your deck if you haven't received them at least once from the Shop;
-Alter your leader's or Player Card stats;

I think that pretty much covers everything one can do on the game's profiles.

Anyone know how to make custom cards on the game? I haven't got the slightest clue.

[RumiBelly]

add a custom player card with high stats and play cards that heal block and absorb damage. the same player card will be used in the next two fights as well. try to set the values to where you can win, but you aren't going to curb stomp everything in your path, you always want the opponent to put up some sort of fight.

[Maexam2]

I meant the terminology. Like, heart cost, armor, gold gen, etc... How do I know the appropriate values? Do I put just any value I want?

[GoddessViolet]

Hm.

So it's been a bajillion years since I've so much as poked my head into this site. Since my laptop is in the shop, though, I broke out the old, old, old external USB hard drive and flipped through to see if there was anything to unbore me.

I found a few things, but mostly just memories. And one of them was Cartovore 2.

Now, I joined the fandom too late to actually have any interaction with Duamutef, rest his soul. But I did spend a lot of time with Cartovore 2 in the formative years of my fandom, and now that I'm older, wiser, and endowed with a bunch of free time, I'm very tempted to do two things: finally do some serious learning and study in coding, and (here's the big one) remake Cartovore from scratch, fix the bugs, etc.

Honestly, considering how long it's been since his supposed passing, it's a bit of a surprise to me that nobody really tried this, or at least nobody with enough drive to get off the ground. I mean, it's certainly a massive undertaking, but I would think it'd be one with enough support that a dedicated enough crew would come together and start on it. Well, some poor fool has to be the first one to put the idea out there, and lord knows I'm foolish enough to be that guy...

[Maexam2]

I see. That would be a good and noble goal, I think. But, the thing is that, not only there isn't enough motivation to re-build it, but those FEW that do know about coding, well, most won't do a thing without *ahem*, financial compensation. In other words, pay them, and only then will they do anything. Fortunately, not ALL of them are like that, but those are rare. I wish you luck if you do decide to embark on such a difficult quest Ma'am! On that note, if you need more images for the cards, I would be willing to find them for you. After all, this is a non-profit game, so there would be no problem to use imaged from other already existing characters, right? Like anime, video games, mangas, etc...

[GoddessViolet]

If you're going to source card images, I'd highly recommend only lifting images that you KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt to be free for public use, distribution, and potentially modification. Of all the things that could kill the project, I think getting a butthurt artist with a giant DNP list waving torches and pitchforks is the most embarrassing.

Of course, i ALSO highly doubt that lack of art will be the thing that kills this project. As Erecant said, Duamutef's games are often "stitched together.... with bubblegum and wishes", sooo...

I also have the distinct disadvantage of not actually knowing anything about Duamutef's intended future design goals, so beyond recreating the basic engine, I wouldn't know where to go in terms of new features, bugs that need fixing, card content, etc. I think of all the google-scouring that could be done, that kind of detective work would be the most valuable.

[Maexam2]

Hmmm... I see.

In regards to the images, I was thinking about Dark Magician Gril, Samus, Tifa Lockhart, etc... I know that Duamutef used some, like a picture of a character named Crisis, who belongs to Karbo, who posts art both here and, especially, on Deviant Art. Although he did changed the name to Chibi-chan. I do believe that I have a couple or two of pictures that I created and that I wouldn't mind you using, so long as you give me the credits for them on the cards, like Duamutef did with the cards whose images belonged to someone else. On that note, I don't think you should have troubles in using images from other people here in Eka's or DA. So long as you ask them and give them due credits.

As for Duamutef's wishes, well, I'm afraid that's rather impossible. After all, IF he left instructions to somepony as for how to continue to develop the game, they haven't manifested themselves. So I'd say that you pretty much have "carte blanche" so to speak. My suggestion is that you recreate the engine as you said and make your own version from there.

[Whereaminow27]

Okay, I have Carto 2 with all the expansions including the extra ones that were only available for a little while. Sometimes I end up with Undigestable characters permanetly there. Boobs reached a size that no picture could show since it ran out of sizes

I was hoping someone would fix them all up with new content, but I think this game is very much dead. It was a really good game, maybe there will be a comeback ^^

[Skeiron]

Fallen is by far the hardest of the special boss enemies, I had to cheat to defeat her. The other bosses are winnable without cheating if you have a very specialised deck and maybe get a bit lucky.

As for a reverse-engineering project or complete remake, the game was created in HTML and in principle it is possible to fix all the bugs or make expansions on it. However, from what I remember the source code is quite entangled and not very easy to decypher, not much documentation / commentation, some unintuitive designs etc. You would probably be better off indeed starting from scratch and trying to re-create the current game behaviour instead of going in and attempting to fix. In either case, I wish you good luck with the project and I look forward to what you can make of it

[Maexam2]

I thought that would be the better option as well, as it gives more space for creativity and innovation. Besides, and not to speak ill of the dead, I do not think that Duamutef would be bothered if you used his images. If anything, I think he would rather be glad that someone made good use of his material. Then again, it's your choice, Violet-san. I too wish you good fortune.