This image pretty much sums up my mental state right now:
No, really. I've made a ton of progress since my last post on the subject. Last July, I had some assistance from a few friends to run a booster draft for The Condemned. My dumb arse didn't take any pictures at the event, which was my loss! We had a 4 man pod, and the people who joined me asked a lot of really good questions. Like, important questions. The kinds of questions that need to be answered.
Armed with that knowledge, I made a ton of updates to the game. And then, oh boy...
I had myself a little bit of a setback. See, my plan all along was to pitch the game to Fantasy Flight to license it. That way, I can work with them on development, they can tap into their network of artists, and I can save my funds. Well, that dream went out the window when I talked to their game acquisition person. He said that they have absolutely ZERO interest in CCGs right now. I tried reaching out to Hasbro, Upper Deck Entertainment, and...I can't remember the fourth company, but it was another publisher. None of them replied or gave me the time of day.
Aaaaand, that took a lot of wind out of my sails. I really didn't want to try and make this game myself. If I had more game design experience, maybe? But I don't have that. I don't know artists, I barely know other game devs, licensing was the path of least resistance to getting The Condemned out and into the world. But, I can't just give up. Thankfully, another opportunity popped up.
I had a little bit of knowledge dropped on my head. Information on how to make booster packs with The Game Crafter. Thanks to the YouTube algorithm, I ran across a whole community of indie game devs making CCGs and self publishing. And they're actually pretty good! Like, surprisingly so! So I took a look at what they had available, and decided now was as good a time as any to dive in and actually do this thing.
So I started by making all new card frames for the cards. Complete rework! TGC has very specific requirements for card images, so I had to make some changes for that. In addition, I switched from the smaller, Yu-Gi-Oh sized cards to the larger, Magic sized cards. Aaand, then I set about getting artwork.
I'm currently negotiating with a handful of artists on Fiverr. The goal is to have a couple artists to work with, each with their own unique art style. I've already paid for one art piece:
All the other cards in the game have placeholder art that I made in Wombo Dream to get my friend to shut up. He kept complaining that the cards didn't have art and it was bugging him. But that also means that I now need art for 104 cards. That's gonna get expensive! Like, really quick. I can do a couple art pieces, but my drawing skills are not nearly up to par with my game design skills.
I found what I believe to be a solution, though: Kickstarter. I'm in the process of setting up a KS campaign to help crowdfund the artwork. I'll make another post here when it's live. But my goal is to get this game printed and published!
And to test that, I had some extra work to do. I made a starter set, with two preconstructed decks. This needs box art, a manual, and cards. I just finished the manual this afternoon, and placed the order! It'll be here next month. I'm so excited! I can't wait for that to get here, so I can show it to everyone!
I'll be testing the starter decks with my printed prototypes on my @vimm channel on Friday, with a friend. You should drop by and say hi! I'd love to get feedback from you guys, too. Feel free to ask questions about The Condemned, the design process, all that awesome stuff.
But yeah, that's where 'm at, what I've been up to, all that fun jazz. I'm really happy that I've made it as far as I have. I can't wait to share The Condemned with the whole world!