I've had some time for my ideas to settle now, so I return here, bearing the fruit of improved ideas and new ideas, or clarified ideas. First, I should go over some refresher on what I've plotted out thus far...

A Digital Card game; what this generally implies is ease of playing. If a card has a complex effect, like choosing a random target, then a computer is more easily capable of handling this sort of request than say dice or coins, or eenie-meenie-miny-moe. It also makes tracking complex statistics more easy -- rather than managing sheets of paper for characters Health, etc, the computer can easily manage all of these things.

On to the game itself -- Races & Monsters. So far I've created many different 'types' of cards. Before getting to those, though, the Limits of the Game itself. Each players deck is comprised of X cards -- to achieve Victory, your opponent must run out of Prize cards; a number of cards set aside before every game starts. Whenever one of your 'Characters' dies, you draw a Prize. In this fashion, Losing grants you a bit of Tempo, which makes 'comebacks' theoretically more plausible, or simply 'keeps one in the action of the game'. Because of these conditions, we have to include a couple of rules to ensure that there is at least one Victor/Loser (although it seems entirely plausible that Draws will occur). First, if you don't have a Character on the board at the beginning of play, when it becomes your turn, then you Draw a Prize -- simple enough, no stalling the game by failing to provide an objective. Second, if you no longer have any cards left to draw from your deck, then you Draw a Prize. If, for whatever reason, the game can reach no conclusion -- because both sides are healing to full health every turn, or something -- then there's a way for the game to end. The latter condition, in itself, requires quite a bit of knowledge on how the game actually plays out to understand the full implications of -- healing, for example, could become a massive detriment to the quality of the game at its highest level; as in, it shouldn't ordinarily be a viable strategy to simply never lose any characters, because then the game comes down to who plays, which, whoever that is, loses.

My initial idea for 'drawing cards' is that there's a 'Rotation' of cards -- your Starting Hand, followed by One Card that is drawn at the beginning of every turn. If your 'Rotation-Slide' becomes too full, then the first cards entered begin to 'slip off the face of the queue' and 'burn to death'. I haven't given too much thought to any alternatives, though -- I imagine there are some pretty creative methods for dealing with card draw.

As for card types, I only have the vague-est sense of how I'll handle them all, but so far the two main categories of 'Character' cards are Races, and Monsters. Races have lots of unique attributes, such as being able to Equip Items, while Monsters are vastly different in the sense that they 'choose to act Randomly', as in, you have no control over how a Monster chooses to act, only over what Monsters you want to include in your deck. Some Monsters may be innately very offensive, while others may be most suited to being defensive. Generally, due to the inherent nature of Monsters, I imagine they are stronger than Races. Both types of characters though, have access to Experience Cards, which are capable of granting characters Levels to increase their function & strength.

Things like Experience cards, though, bring up some questions for me -- if there are various amounts of Experience, then there must be some kind of 'Resource' system in place, so that having a card that says 'Grant 5 Experience' is fundamentally different or preferable to a card that says 'Grant 15 Experience', or else why not simply call the card 'Level Up'. Another option is that Experience cards represent a Random amount of Experience, making them somewhat of a Risk to play. On top of these questions, though, there is the question of 'how much Experience does it take to level up?', or if opting to go with a Level Up card instead of an Experience card, "what kinds of strengths should a character be capable of achieving upong leveling up?"

Other kinds of cards that I'm considering are Equipment Cards & Class Cards. Equipment can be attached to a character, I'm initially thinking, for the cost of Gold -- an innate attribute of either Races, or, perhaps Classes. A Thief, for example, ideally possesses more starting Gold than other classes, or even has the capability of Stealing other characters Gold. Class Cards, I imagine are easy to attach to a character. Initially I had considered choosing a Race & Class at the same time during Deck Creation, but, like many of these ideas, I'm not 100% sure which direction I'm heading with, but, I can cover some of my intentions moving forward.

In the ideal situation, the player will have many options to pick when designing a deck -- one doesn't need to 'strike a balance' between cards, so much, under this ideal circumstance, where instead, they're able to opt for heavy Experience or heavy Equipment kinds of decks. Some things inherently won't be possible unless I think of a solution; Classes for example -- is there a reason to having many of them? Perhaps Classes stack, as in multi-classing is a possibility, but I'm not totally confident with that yet, as ideally everything would appear to be very simple & readable, which isn't really the case with a character who is a Monk Shaman Druid Mage Paladin Warrior, who might possess too many Unique Abilities to fit within their options menu.

There's also the issue of, "how are characters played?" as in, if they don't cost anything, then the idea is that you can just slap them all down at the start without many reprecussions -- also, what are the unique traits of characters, specifically races, that would make one a seemingly better play than another at any given point in the game? In the past I've considered using 'cards from your hand' as resources for playing characters. For example, you can play an Angel and that would require you to put one card from your hand back onto the top of your deck, or you could play a big Monster, that would require you to pick three cards to randomly shuffle three back into your deck. There are lots of options to go this way, but the key element is ensuring that the game provides players with a healthy 'hand economy'.

There are lots of issues, big and small, that I'll have to address eventually -- for now, it appears that I haven't made a whole lot of progress in terms of solidifying the elements of the game, but I may have a better idea of the kinds of problems involved with going forward in terms of game design.

Some of the things that I'd really like to focus on, which begin to involve the technical aspects of creating a game like this, are creating readily apparent graphical cues for things, such as having a 'rotating slide of cards' as your hand -- rather than having those precedures happen instantaneously at the beginning of your turn, for example, which can leave players thinking, "wait, what happened? my cards changed," compared to having an animation which shows your cards sliding, then a new card appearing, and if necessary, a card 'burning'.

Again, how I use the screen space is going to be elemental to how this game is perceived and played. There needs to be space for many, many things -- from having a Hand, to a Deck where you can see how many cards you have remaining, to even having a Graveyard, perhaps, as well as a Board where characters exist, as well as Menus to navigate so that the characters can act, and also some way for cards and components of the game to be displayed in great detail. Any individual character themselves will have various components attributed to them, such as Attack, Health, and then any other things that I think will work out, like Gold or Mana or Elemental/Poison/Buff-Nerf Status.

Alright, so I made a bit of headway, but as expected, it's raised more difficult questions to answer. I've 'roughed up' some stats for the Races and included some ideas to improve the flow of the game. The stats are as follows... Humans, 2/9; Sprites 1/10 (not 100% on this -- could be higher -- depends on Leveling and what-not); Angels, 3/8; Devils, 4/6. The general idea here is kind of strange... Sprites aren't meant to trade with anything, while Humans go even with Devils in three rounds but lose to Angels, and Angels & Devils go even with each other after only two rounds.

I'm still thinking about what kind of functions the characters should serve, but I'm thinking that Angels for example will start with only commands like Block or Protect (Block asserting that an enemy cannot attack anyone but the Blocker while Protect asserting that an enemy cannot attack a target ally, but instead the Protector), while Humans will have access to a command like, "Draw," but I'm thinking about calling it "Quest" instead.

As the characters level, though, I'm considering granting them additional commands or powers -- maybe even including Leveling Trees, although I'm not sure; what I am somewhat sure of, though, is that I'd like characters on the field at the beginning of every turn to gain a random amount of Experience -- 1 to 5, say. Every level requires 10 Experience to advance, and there are a variety of different XP cards: 5 flat XP, 1-10, 2-9, 3-7 & 4-6.

Playing characters on the field is required of play, so I'll have to think more about the mulligan phase, but I do know what the cost of playing characters will be: Sprites are free, Humans require you to shuffle one card from your hand back into your deck, Angels require one card from your hand to be put on the top of your deck, and Devils discard one card from hand to a Graveyard.

I put a little bit of thought into classes, as well; for example, but I'm now having mixed feelings about how I want to approach them. Equipping a class will do a few things; it will give your character additional stats upon leveling up, as well as update your stats from a previous class in the case that you switch. For example, if a Fighter gives +3/+3 for every level and you switch to a Theif who offers +3/+1, and you have 4 levels, then you stats switch from +12/+12 to +12/+4. Classes will also offer Unique abilities or Traits.

Originally I conceived of an idea that if you switch Classes then you keep all of your old stats, which allowed me to do something really cool, which was give the Paladin class a condition like, "You forfeit all of your class benefits if you ever kill an Angel or a Sprite," so I'm thinking about sticking with that approach, so that you keep your old stats, and then when you equip a new class, you simply build up from there if you can continue to advance.

At some point, though, characters must cease to advance; I'm considering a level cap of 9 to keep things brief, and as well I'm considering limiting the game to one game-mode, as in one selection-size of prize pool cards. Perhaps stats cap at 99, which would go along with a previous idea of mine, that being a 'god-like' state which may yield some additional benefit for a character and act as a sort of 'game-ender' tool. Contrary to that idea, though, I really liked the idea of seeing each different Class have a different kind of 'Max Stat', so you could look at a particular character with stats that are, just for example, 35/70 and know that was an Archer and it would trade uniquely with other classes rather than having the possibility of boring, predictable trades between characters with maxed out stats -- but, I digress, because there is a process to the whole thing and it should be quite dynamic and difficult to achieve such Maxed-out states.

Anyhow... I've still got quite a lot of thinking to do... I'm wondering what I can do to make Monsters a more engaging element to the game, if they don't do many of the things that Races do, such as equip Items or Classes, but instead only gain Experience... Again, I'll have to keep thinking about it, because it wouldn't make for a very interesting game if they were too linear in nature and totally out of your control... So, maybe Monsters can equip certain Classes to give them access to new commands. I'll... think about it.

15 Experience, 10-20 Experience, 5-25 Experience, 0-30 Experience ; here are new values I've come up with in considereation for the concept that a Card is worth a Card in Value. Sacrificing a Card slot should theoretically grant enough value to compensate, for what I'm suggesting to be average here, a Level & a half, on the /10 Experience curve, maxing at 9 Levels.

An Action called Flee; causes your Character to enter back into the Front of the Hand. So, clarification, the idea is that there's a "Scrolling Hand of Cards" that sends cards off to the left of it into the Graveyard, a "Mysterious Place" which as of now serves no function other than to account for 'Lost Cards', which can be sorted in groups by player. Cards can only be drawn by characters using the Quest action, and new cards are placed into the Right-Most slot of the Hand-Scroll, pushing all other cards towards the Left.

Here's a nifty idea- a Treasure Bag. It's Two Random Items placed in one card. As of now I'm considering giving ordinary Characters Random Starting Gold- it's sort of like an Attribute/Value. Like Attack, Health- or something else I've been considering more often, something called Element. Also, Gold is a type of Card; there are Gold cards that say things like, gain 5, 1-10, 2-9, 3-7 & 4-6 Gold. Things will be expensive in terms of Gold Costs- so Races might have custom gold Values. Like Humans might have say 1-10, and I'll just consider that an average for now.

I'm considering giving Professions/Classes a starting amount of Gold. Maybe a Class can be identified as receiving Starting Gold, where as a Profession is known for their 'gold yield'. Or maybe nah, just have Classes comprise the games 'Profession' stock; although, I'm unsure if Angels & Demons choose to use Gold at all. Maybe Sprites can opt not to use Gold at all- what do I know.

I do think that... Magic should be a commonly available option. Anything with capability to ...Magic... should be able to gain access to new spells by equipping a Spell Book. A Sprite might have a Racial Spell called Hide, though- that kinda idea- just, like, in Pokemon, imagine Protect. Perhaps Angels start with Magic, but Humans & Demons have to acquire it through somehow else. In terms of the meta-game, what I'm seeing happening here is some cards amounting to a 'choice' because giving Magic to a character early on might supersuceed them somehow naturally acquiring it later on.I'm not sure of which options are best around this area.

This problem I'm considering, might have something to do with an Idea that I otherwise have; Element: a number ( a natural number, so to speak, that can be found by looking at the 'card' ) that represents a "Damage/Shield'-in-One trait. Attacking characters test for Attack, and Element, to factor in the "Damage" either character deals to the other. So, a character with 1 Element vs. a character with 2 Element, both having 0 Attack, the first would take 1 damage to their Health. If you were to look at the traits they would look like, Element, Attack, Health, Gold- but, Element also possesses some other kind of 'Attribute', which is either Fire, Ice or Lightning, and also counts as a "Mana" when casting a Spell. ( Or, costs an Element to cast ). I'm thinking Element might give any character the Magic Action, and 3-6, 1-8, or 4-5 Element -- where, since there's three outcomes there, I think 4-5 could be Fire, 1-8 be Lightning, and 3-6 be Ice.  Maybe a 2-7 Earth Element. Yeah. Definitely.

The effects of the Element itself I decided were best described in very simple terms.  Fire, deal 1 Extra Damage Now, and, Grant Opponent Burning (from Attacker, with 3 total 'stacks'), Deal 1 damage at the start ( to the receptor of the Attack ) of your Next Turn, for the Next Two Turns. Attack, deals 1 Fire Element Damage, then at the start of your next turn 1, and on that Turn if you attack again, 1 Fire Element Damage, and on the start of your next turn, they take 2. I take it, this effect lingers, after a characters fatality. 

Ice, any character with this Elements attack will Freeze a character for a Turn. There could be such cool interactions as Fire Melting the Ice of Frozen units- but another idea I'll include too- when a character becomes Frozen it gains Armor", a thing which causes units not to take damage after an Attack Value has exceeded this number; Armor can be attacked, in place of a Character.

Numbers here... Thinking... 8 Armor. This effect alone may be capable of 'slowing the meta-game'. Last; Lightning, which... Really, I think should be a little Random. I'd like to give it an effort to diversify the randomness, though, so that the numbers do more managable things... Let's say, Lightning Element will take 7 damage, and in some manner, split the number of targets on your enemies side of the board, then split that 7 damage among all of them... That would be sick... Also important to note here, that Attacking causes you to take Attack value back- or so far as I've planned.

One last thing I'd like to clarify about making "Elemental Attacks" is that it should definitely cost One Element; I had previously considered not including Earth Elementals and instead opting to give them a 'Cards From Hand' cost- instead I'd rather find some mix in variable- to give Elements a cost in terms of "Element Cards" or, perhaps "Cards from Hand". 

What lies below here are just crazy notes:

There's still... So much to think about, that I've never thought about. I have, I think 0 Monsters. Because, I have no concept of what they can do. I've only thought of Monster Elements, like Earth Elemental, Lightning Elemental, Ice Elemental, Fire Elemental. From here I've conjured some weird numbers, which are based around the premise that Earth Element accompanies quite a many "Resistances" as in total Immunities to other kinds of Element based effects... Because of that I've crafted some dramatic ideas, and I am thinking that these cards may have a hefty unique-price. Traditionally I've seen card price as "Something Removed from the Hand" - as in, a card required that you "Scatter a Card From your Hand" ( in some cases being reshuffled, placed on the top or bottom of the deck, or sent to the Graveyard ) ... Elementals cannot Have Gold... Elements are Immune to themselves.

Elementals cost 3 Cards From the Hand to be Assymilated into it. Every Element it consumes will grant it Element, equal to 0 to 7 for Earth Element, 0 to 5 for every Earth Element, 3 to 6 for every Ice Element, and 4 to 5 for every Lightning Element. For Every other card it consumes it will gaint +0/+2/+4... The Element it Assumes will be the Highest Element it was. So far, the Element, which becomes an Earth, Fire, Ice or Lightning Elemental, or...

Maybe... Here, considering that Elementals are Elements played from the Hand, or rather... Elements absorbing other elements... Hm... Alright- so, if this could be a process, then, I'd like to see An Element, choosing another Element, then becoming that Element type. Or Hm, I did like the idea about it gaining that Randomly.... so, perhaps, Two Elements can be combined, but one taking a Primary, not there being any mixing of what that element is... Or...

My original idea is playing specifically the Monster card, Earth Elemental, and it having stats like... 0/3/12, Fire Elemental... 0/6/4... I don't know. Can't tell what line of thinking I'm on right here. Maybe some Beast-y Monsters should help. A 3/6 Wolf. Attacks, Quests, or Flees. Requires that one Random Card be Shuffled back into your deck. 

Ice Element could... Make a character Immune to being Frozen... cause any damage dealt by an Ice Element to... Freeze a creature, or replace their Burn with a Freeze... Frozen Characters are Frozen for One-Round and Gain 8 "Armor" (I'm simply equating this to the effect of what I haven't even begun to consider to be the Armor Trait from Items) ; if that "Armor" (Actually, let's start calling it Shard Health) "Shard Health" is exceeded, then the character [or space?] that was being Frozen, then the Ice Shard is freed. Also immediately breaks on contact with Fire Element.

Fire Element... Immune to Fire Element... The Effects of Fire Element on Attack- Fire Burns Ice Blocks, or as I was referring to them... Shard Healths... Ice Blocks sounds better... Definitely better... 

Lightning Element... Immune to Lightning Element... Effect of Lightning Element on Attack.

Or, all just Immune to themself? Too much to think about there.

I'm thinking here about how I can gather my ideas into a cleaner space, and how I can give players more choices, etc... Also... Right now I am thinking about giving the players Options for Choosing their Prizes ( which, again, are earned in defeated ). And how, the idea of them, is that it's difficult to come back from defeat. So. Perhaps, make those Prize cards stronger in value, which in itself would have a degree of what is best balanced.

If it gave Races +2/+6 and Monsters +3/+4, and Element +3, Experience +7... Then... Perhaps, I would need to start classifying things like Equipment by Type or Value... Perhaps... Items in general cost 3 but not less than 1 less... Or else Armor +5 or Attack Boost +3 for Weapons... How to you classify a Spell Book... Hmm... Perhaps, Spell Books only offer a Random Assortment of Spells- all Unique. Perhaps... Also... there is a 'blank element' which, perhaps Sprites could start with.

At this point I'm willing to look back into the number from where I started considering this reflection...

BreAK HERE AAANDDD EDit...

Because of what I'm considering... Earth Spells may be some of the most Obtrusive...

Where-as Fire Spells are a bit more Direct in Nature, Lightning a Bit Forked / Random...

Ice trying to be sturdy... I have no great ideas about implementing these as ideas into the game as of now... I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around the idea of using CHRED files for a project like this... A while back I said I should really take a look into the coding behind that program... To see if I could make a program myself that would be capable of fulfilling the needs I desired it to... Because of the work I've done here, I may have an easier time examining the contents behind such an endeavor. The goal here is to make a game that is very clearly understandable. 

Perhaps Spell Books come in a few different varieties- but perhaps they also all come with the same assortment of Randomly Pulled Spells... 4 Spells from each Elemental Categories, as well as either 4 "Gratis/Cantrip" Spells (Spells that can be cast no matter what) or 4 "Cost Any Element" type Spells. 

Considering that Sprites have a "General / Blank Element" Attribute- that has the Element Effect. Original Numbers could be re-reviewed for Races... Back to one of the original Ideas- Swapping Space with Allies, and Only being able to Attack Characters in front of you. I actually like this idea a lot more now. I still don't know what the space on the screen is going to look like, though. I imagine maybe two different Sizes of characters. I'll have to think more on this idea...

-- Alright, lost my place -- , so, just continuing ideas from here- updates, perhaps... 

I still have no considerations for how Leveling should occur. I had considered... Double Stats? Although, I prefer to seek alternatives in the case that none have thus far been sought. So... for now... I may consider this... but, I may prefer to reconsider this in the future.

Golem: 2/14 Quest, Attack, Block, Protect

Gargoyle: 1/31, Quest, Attack, Block, Protect

Demon ( Clarification, Devils are a Race, Demons are a Monster ): 3/5, Magic ( ??? , Demon Magic )

Genie:

Archon:

I think the game could in one sense come down to whether you favor Offense or Defense more.

11/10 needs images.

What if I wanted to use a spell, but for it to take effect in another turn or something? So I could sacrifice a turn for cool combos, or even better, in anticipation of something my opponent does? ...Are you even using turns?

...I feel like I've said this somewhere before.

I'm glad you've chimed in with a bit of intrepidness. I suppose I have had a concept for turns for some time now and never had explained what was going through my head; my idea was, that at the beginning of each 'Round' a Coin is flipped to decide Who Takes Initiative. It would be like Mulligan into an infinite? series of Rounds. I like your idea, despite that I have hardly any concept yet of what kinds of Spells there could be. The numbers and most of the concepts here so far are quite unwieldy and I have very little coding experience thus far- I may begin to dabble around with Sprites, on my computer most likely- while keeping in mind the dimensions of the DS screen. I had, so far in consideration, thought of very few ideas about how the game develops. One concept that I had is that Devils if upon reaching a certain level gain a benefit, and one of them is like, at Level 5. their Attack is replaced with a version of an Attack which doesn't return damage, but I suppose that might be best suited as a Spell.

What I mean, what I should say, is, I have reason to conclude that Waiting to cast a Spell might have its benefits while being simple in its execution; there could be a menu beyond any particular Spell which gives the player options for manipulating the effects of it.

I could definitely see Burst being taken into account with the concept of a delayed action. With the idea of there being Initiative, though, I suppose there's some desire to want to act right after your opponent as well as acting when you next act. Hmm...

After thinking about it for awhile, I also really like the idea of Character Placement, and defintely two Character Sizes because they're just cards? and in order to move you have to swap positions with another character- which happens at the discrepancy of the character choosing to Switch order- and to attack, a character needs to be direction in front of another character slot. But this whole idea kind of flys in the face of the concept of Block & Protect- at this point, the whole idea does tend to seem very confusing. I suppose there's merit to there only being a "Hold" portion of the idea.

Maybe... There's quite a few different Phases to a Round- I can't name them all, but perhaps, just to look at the game in one way, and not another, or rather than another, every character rolls a seperate Initiative, which essentially separates characters Rounds up into a 'Queue' which players would look at then map out possible paths that it could lead to. This might be strong enough of an idea to give characters enough presence to use Actions like Block or Protect effectively- perhaps preventing movement from happening themselves in a way- like, Block, prevents a character from choosing to Swap places with another character, or Protect is only useful if the characters are still situated next to eachother.  At this point I don't think that's the most simple or elegant idea that I could possibly achieve, so... there's still a lot of thinking to do about how exactly everything should be conducted, or how everything should feel, or operate. What I think will define it the most is simple to-the-point Sprite art on very Neat looking Cards to blend the nostalgia of pixel-art and card-games.

Could call those 'Wait' and 'Hold' commands; Wait is particular in that if you gain the initiative and choose to Wait, then it acts immediately- so, there's also the idea of when Initiative is decided, because if you're first then that command can be eliminated; or you gain two actions at the start of your next turn- while Hold delays an action until your next action. Maybe Wait is all that's needed and it basically does all of those things. If you choose Wait then maybe there's a Phase right before Initiative in every Round where you get what's called a "Free Action"- that doesn't quite set up for the perfect Combo, though, because you can't rely on Initiative. So, that all seems a little clunky to me right at this very moment.

The numbers and most of the concepts here so far are quite unwieldy and I have very little coding experience thus far- I may begin to dabble around with Sprites, on my computer most likely- while keeping in mind the dimensions of the DS screen.

Consider also that you may want to release it on PTC3, with larger sprites and screen size, as well as SPLINK anything "attached" to a card (like damage counters in PokemonTCG). Additionally, there you would have access to proper local communications and XSCREEN 4's "continued screen" mode -- a much nicer environment if you want cards (or whatever else) sliding from one side of the field to the other.

That seems quite interesting Lumage- you seem to have more information about that than I've gathered myself. Part of the reason I haven't delved much further into the concept of coding the game is due to my lack of knowledge on part of how it can work, and therefor I may have to consider some of the compromises that it might suggest I overcome in light of bringing the idea to life. One thing I think would be really neat is the idea of cards being represented in a visual plane. Rather than having an animation of a card turning over, sliding, or rotating, having a series of equations that manipulate the way that a 'plane' is being altered. ...Considering that what I'm making intends only for you to do a certain number of things, though, it could have only a few animations, and in that sense ultimately be very simple.

There could be some advanced options for using Cards in a way of Flipping them, etc, although for this purpose I intend only for cards to be revealed to their users while in their hand, and while they are in play, and that your enemies hand is hidden to you. Previously I questioned the amount of Equipment any given character would be wielding... I'm still somewhat unsure of how I plan on 'flavoring' things like Equipment, because there are various issues to bring up concerning their 'adaptability' to various kinds of cards... For example- a Sprite can't equip a suit of PLATE. A Sprite is basically like a big head with a tiny body- at least, in my imagination it is; if you were to imagine the most nostalgic image of a pixel-art cherub in your mind, that's what I try to think that the Sprite is. Maybe this is because I'm lazy.

I think I may try to work on some more 'cut-out dolls' to use that hopefully leave room for simple functionalities, like equipping simple things that come across as a complete idea. Maybe try to incorperate some design ideas- like, a Platemail essentially always looks the same and fits on the forms of most commonly the Races, Devils, Angels and Humans, although it can fit on things like... maybe Skeletons? Or, you know what- the idea of a Skeleton may just be too many pixels... Perhaps there is some other similar in concept type of creature... Like, a Bone Golem, in essence- but more actually named... Skeleton... In the context of the theme of this game, a Skeleton just means something almost totally different than it does in real life. Maybe even things like Gargoyles could wield it! Those, which are beings made of stone, mind you- not Demons, which are made of flesh, but none-the less deadly looking (and capable of wearing Plate).

I think I may actually add a last race, which Elves- so, Humans, Elves, Sprites, Devils and Angels make up the 5 Races of the world- maybe I should add Dwarves, though- but I'd call them Rooks instead, and they can be, perhaps Monsters made of Mud... I don't even know what I should do- I'm just not sure if there's room to deliminate between Elves, Humans, Sprites & Dwarves- just like, mild differences in their size- or, rather. I may be leaning away from my previous vision of them, to embrace a different kind of aesthetic for this project. Perhaps Elves will be... Similar to Sprites in Size, but of a different Aethstetic. Maybe just rename Humans to Elves? That seems to make sense to me- what's the point of a Human in a world with Devils & Angels?

Maybe I will just make Dwarves Monsters- I'm not trying to be a racist, I'm just claiming that Dwarves are like... some Chaotic Race- wait... Oh gosh, I think I get it now... I'll keep Humans, but make Dwarves & Elves Monsters. That sounds awesome... But, then, am I supposed to make Devils Monsters? Now it definitely seem racist.

Although, Devils were orginally invented more for a specific gameplay reason- I may as well just have a really strange Aethstetic. Demons are already Monsters- kind of the Chaotic variant of the Devil-creature. Devil's are designed to be extraordinarily devious and crafty kinds of Evil creatures. As for character progression, my primary concerns are those of having a convenient enough interface to manage- if you have a character that if leveled up the player needs to choose something for it to do, then it should perhaps be an Action all of its own- the strength of Leveling a character up might be balanced by the Act of Performing it in this regard... I like this change... 

Essentially, Level Up is its own action- but this immediately brings up some issue with characters who by nature act Randomly- Monsters. If Leveling up becomes an Action that they can take while their experience Bar is full (20), then there's no assuring that they'll ever actually be able to Level up... and if they do- the player wouldn't be granted a choice as to how they Level up... One solution to this could be that as soon as a Monster can Level Up it Will. Perhaps the standard of 20 Experience for Monsters shouldn't be the norm across the board. Maybe some Weaker characters should have a very fast Leveling Curve so that they can serve some alternative function to the player.

Ahem- I have written quite a nice summary of where the game is at in its development so far, I think... hopefully I'll have more to consider soon as I continue to parse possibilities of the potential outcomes through my head.