Mr. Card Game: Work is complete on the prototype for Mr. Card Game, a game modeled after the online game Kingdom of Loathing. With both Jason and Graydon on the road to Mesa, AZ to KoLCON and Bino planning to meet up with them on Saturday, Mr. Card Game will get its trial by fire in the belly of the beast. After some key last minute changes, the game feels like it should work. Hopes are high.
Nottingham: Playtesting by Jason and Seth on Wednesday indicate that the game may actually be a little too easy now on basic mode. But, the testing session confirmed that the framework is robust and interesting. It also generate some good ideas regarding how the difficulty can be toggled better, how sabotage can work more effectively into the mechanic and the board can be more complex. Revisions are already underway to update the game in time for Michael’s test this coming Wednesday.
Stacket: Production of Stacket has been greenlighted. The game seems to spark exicitement in everyone who plays it with the possiblity of it having a huge impact in the markets for interesting activities to do with people suffering from Alzheimer’s and kids with fairly severe Autism. Whether we can connect with those markets or not is an open-ended question, but Stacket has the potential to be sold to just about anyone. So, sourcing the pieces has begun.
Assorted: An initial design for the cards for Drug Lords is underway. Unexplored deck-building options in Mr. Card Game have given rise to a design called Legends of Laea. Discussions with the east coast production team indicate that there is groundswell support and technical feasibilities in place now for finally making the GPS RPG happen. A renewed effort is underway to find a writer and concept artist for the Orion’s Arm projects.
Business Model: At the moment, there is a healthy tension between designing original content and trying to model existing IP. Both offer the prospect for some innovative design and theoretical challenges, but it is not clear that either one is ‘better’ than the other. One tends to be more market oriented: find a market and make a game for it. The other tends to arise from the ground up: have an interesting idea and try to find people who like it. As far as immediate, reliable, revenue goes, niche game design appears to have the lead by connecting to someone else’s pre-existing fan base. But, original projects have the potential to build up a fan base for Evertide Games which will keep it running nearly indefinitely. Ultimately, Evertide Games will require both.
