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At this point I’ve been working on rules and cards for approximately eight months, so it would be fair to ask what outputs there are and how I got there (even though this is firmly a less than part time commitment from me). I would categorise things as moving slowly at the initial ideas stage and structure of the deck of cards, to faster when I was drafting and conducting initial tests on rules and now slower again in designing the actual cards. In this post I’ll talk through each of those stages.
An idea and a Why?
Sitting out on a terrace on holiday, my mind was afforded some empty time where I wasn’t thinking about the steady (if sometimes volatile) cadence of daily work and general activity. Not 15 mins prior, I had just finished introducing my kids to Rummy to much enthusiasm (if perhaps not a full comprehension of the rules) and so naturally my mind was filled with games and also Rome (I was reading Kathryn Tempest’s book on Brutus on and off at the time…a light beach read…). In a usual traipse that my brain seems to undertake, the residual dopamine from playing (though not winning) had me thinking about how people come up with games, then saying “I could that,” followed by no immediate action.
It did not end there though, this time. By evening I had downloaded a free version of Rummy on my phone and was playing through variants, thinking constantly about the different rules. What did I like? What was missing? What themes did I like?
The first and third questions were answered with ease – I’ve always preferred games where you build or collect something (hence rummy) and, whilst not the only theme I enjoy, Ancient Rome stuck in my head frequently, stereotypical as that might be for a Western European/American male like myself. What was missing was less obvious.
While I mulled that question I thought about the why. There was the “selfish” reason as you might call it – I’ve always wanted to design a game of some sort, starting in my youth with video games and then progressing to more tabletop type games when I realised I perhaps did not have the artistic or computer science skills to fully realise a video game. Then I thought of what I liked with games now – a chance to connect with family, sometimes friends and to teach my kids. So if I could make this a fun way to learn about Ancient Rome it would be a well rounded game.
Initial design process
Without any experience in game design or the theory behind it, I took a simplistic approach of considering elements that were interesting from other games I knew and stitching it to something like the historical framework of my chosen theme.
My plan of approach was drawn from my day to day work, using the same principles I would for any project:
- What does the project seek to achieve? covered that in my why, it was to blend fun and learning.
- What are the deliverables?
- Cards
- Rulebook
- Box art
- Website
- Other artistic assets(?)
- What resources did I need?
- I was confident in being able to draft an initial list of cards
- I had dabbled in working on cards so I thought I may be able to design templates but equally I might need to find someone to help
- I knew I couldn’t do the artwork myself and I didn’t want to just generate images with AI, so another thing to find an artist for.
- Eventually I would need to figure out how to print the game but I decided to park this.
- Play testers
- I knew there would be more beyond this but it was a good initial list.
- Funding
- I thought about this and considered three angles – I fund myself, I do a kickstarter or I find other external funding.
- This early on it wasn’t clear what made most sense other than that self funding would have to work for the initial stage.
Next time I’ll talk through my early thinking on the deck of cards and rules.