Working on suite icons

So when I started working on invoke I never thought that I would have to create different suits. Turns out that I have already done so naturally.. Objects, actions, targets etc. during feedback on one of the playtesting sessions one of the players mentioned that it was difficult to tell "what was what". So I began to think about icons to show a clear difference between suits.

First concern was copyright. I wanted to ensure that all the icons were entirely of my design. Not that I mind paying for the rights to use someone else's hard work but I am a broke man.. So what does an artist do.. He designs his own.

I started by doodling as many concept sketches as I could on a single sheet of paper the idea was to get my brain out of any ruts. I must have drew over 50 different sketches. I did not spend too much time on anyone sketch because at this point all I was doing fishing for ideas.

I wanted to keep up with the magic theme. I researched magical symbols throughout history (discovering most websites on Viking runes are full of shit as none of them agree on the meanings).. The main problem was because i kept encountering conflicting meanings or designs that were directly related to an active religion. Out of respect to those who may still practice those religions I am going to avoid those symbols.

Examples of just some of the variations I created while working on the logo designs

After all that research and sketching I came up with a few designs that I think I liked. The next problem was they looked to amature like someone had sketched them on a piece of paper or something.

Knowing that I could not make the lines straight enough I chose not to paint these by hand.I opened up software I teach for presentations. The vectored graphics on this software will suit my needs nicely. Because these icons are going to end up the size of a thumbnail (or smaller) I really needed them to be sharp and easy to read. Black and white are the colors of choice for this design.

After creating the designs, I added them into gimp as a custom brush. Now I can add them to the existing cards easily.

For the target cards.. At some point, I was thinking about painting custom designs for the target cards however that is very time consuming and opens up the possibility for confusion. My current design uses the target in question suit as the primary artwork. This way just looking at the card you can see what suit is targeted by that card.

My next problem is that the factored graphics are very sharp and shows and inconstancy of design. This is fine for the suit icons in the upper left hand corner but not ok for the target cards as the icons look inorganic in comparison to the hand painted designs of the rest of the deck. My challenge is to alter the designs of the target cards enough to give the impression these images were painted by hand. I am currently researching other techniques to achieve this.

Knowing that I do have a tendency to try different designs that may be incompatible I have kept all the designs as layers making the previous design "invisible" . This allows me to go back to the a previous design at any point. 

Spellcasting Basics!

Great combinations for Invoke! 

I know that I have not even posted the print and play version of the game and I am already posting strategies .. That is because I want the resorces to be out there early and read for when you start playing. This is not the instructions on how to play but just the key concepts in creating spells (the full instructions will have they own page on Spellbook Page ) 

Invoke Key concepts!

Make a sentence!! 

So unlike other spell dulling games Invoke requires you to design your own spell on the fly. (For those who play D&D consider Invoke more of a sorcerer vs a wizard.) This means that the game provides the parts and the frameworks for the spells all you have to do is make the combination make sence. The best analogy I have is a sentence. 

Target + Action + Modifier = spell 

Let's talk about targets 

So most spells are going to require a target. It's safe to assume that if you want to move or destroy something you must have a target card. This would be like "target lifestones" or "Target creature" . So to attack a creature you would need the following cards

Target creature + sling + fire = a fireball that will kill most creatures. 

So if someone has a nasty book that is filled with cards and this is starting I cause problems for you. You would need a target object card to effect them. 

It's important to note that many action cards have built in target cards. Such as sling (a card that may be renamed to cast) 

Thaumaturgy 

This is the clasifacation for  Invoke cards that do something more direct.

For example "Sling + earth = flying bolder" . 

These are the most common combinations played. When playing these cards it is assumed you don't have much accuracy. So the previous mentioned bolder can stike any player but cannot choose what lifestone gets destroyed nore can they attack objects , creatures or sustained spells. 

• Sling : built in target any player 
• Move left , move right : built in target any object you possess. To move someone else's item it will require a target card. 
• Shield.  There is going to be entire blog post dedicated to the shield card and how you need to play that early! 

Objects ,Creatures ,Elements 

Object are Books , Wands and Rings. These can be played by themselves ..and stay in play for the rest of the game until they are distorted. lucky for you other players cannot effect your items without a target card. 

Creatures : These are cards that can be very powerful. read the description of the creatures.. These are effectively the same as Objects. 

Elements : This is the building block for most spells .. the ammo for Slings .. and the structure of shields.. .. More on elements in another post 

Modifier cards 

These are the cards that can really change the game. These cards will change how long a spell lasts to its power. It's recommended to try new ways of placing these cards . 

Example 

Target lifestone + move left = moves the lifestone chosen to the player on their left 

Target lifestone (with power +1 over it ) + move left = moves two life stones left one player 

Target lifestone + move left (with power +1over it) = will move that stone two places to the left. 

The point is to be creative with the ways you place those modifier cards.

How many combinations are possible in Invoke? 

So I have a good buddy of mine who teaches programming and Bio Informatics for a local university.. he's crunching the numbers for me because Its way beyond me! So suffice to say ... a lot of combinations are possible ! 

Trying to explain Invoke to someone who speaks English as a second language.

Some things that you never think about till you have to explain it to someone who English is not their first lanugage.

So I have a very good friend of mine from Japan named Maaya. Later on when we start working on more video you will see more of her. (Well you are going to see a lot of her work... she does video editing) .. So we were talking about the video project today and she had asked to play Invoke because it will give her a better idea how she wants to set up the various shots. We started to play..  I want to mention that her English is really good.. But there are some words and phrases that slip through the cracks now and then.. So explaining a game like Invoke can be a bit of a challenge. During the process, I started to have to really think about how I explained the game. I really had to take a step by step and explain the "Why" you do something and not so much if the how you do it. Then I started to think, at what point is this different from having to explain to someone who has never played before.. What is a better way of expressing the concepts of the game... So I took some notes

• The why you do something is harder to explain then how to do something 
• Clearer and constant terms are needed .. such as subject vs target .
• Colours of the cards are a huge help. 
• Images on the cards are priceless. 
• A well written manual is helpful no matter how good you are at explaining a game. 
• Playing through 4-5 hands showing all the possibilities with out actually competing is also helpful . 
• Sometimes its better to have a group so they can watch the others play. 

So it was not long before she started to understand some of the more complex parts of the game. Once i described the game as a sentence it started to make sense. (Though the use of target cards needed some better explanation on my part) 

So there you have it.. what I learned from trying to teach someone how to play Invoke. 

Yes this means Invoke will be translated into Japanese soon ! (once the english version is working correctly) 

Things only play testing will tell you.

The things that only playtesting will tell you.
So one of the key things about playtesting is to look at things in actual game play.. Sometimes you have an idea of "Hey this would be an awesome card... there should be three of them in the deck" . What happens during playtesting is that you find that the card you thought should have been 3 in every deck really should be only one because it changes the game play.

So yesterday my good buddy Mike came over to pay test Invoke. We must have played 6 games.. Something that we discovered was that the deck was too small with 108 cards. Mainly because those 108 cards have been split up into the three decks. The result was that we had to shuffle the discard pile often. Now that is not too bad, but when you consider that the game is best played with 3-5 players each with 7 cards in their hands.. With additional 2-30 cards in play at any given moment. That does not leave a lot in decks... and that is only one round.. Sp I am going to have to make more cards types.. And increase the number of the cards.

From a game design point of view what this does be making the game harder to ship mainly because it's larger.. The printing cost also goes up. ... So it's all about testing different amounts of cards and comparing the price.

The Print-N-Play version 

So the Print & Play version of Invoke is still on its way. I'm thinking that I want to get that out as soon as possible. With the understanding that the rules are going to be located on the website. (make the printing of the rules option) because there are going to be lots of changes over the next few months. I have also decided that I'm going to wait a bit longer for the kickstarter.. Though I have had some success with the cards so far I and really wanting to have more momentum in the social media area first.

Backing a project .. First hand experience!

So As you know I'm working on this card game called "Invoke" , and I'm planning on starting a Kickstarter campaign sometime in the near future. I'm sure that I'm going to be able to get the funding that I need to finish the game but.. I only have one shot to do this correctly on Kickstarter

So the first thing I did was find all the podcasts I could find on the subject. Lucky for me there was a podcast called "Funding the Dream" That actually is about funding board games on Kickstarter.. How lucky am I that such a podcast exists.? Now being an experienced podcaster myself I realise that all the good podcasts are independent. So I gave it a shot!! I learned TONS!! So if you are thinking about starting a Kickstarter project, you need to listen to this first..

Here are some things that I learned

Plan plan... Look at all the aspects of what you want to do the marketing, Design, Manufacturing and how you plan to deliver what your backers so rightfully deserve!

Get social media revved up early!! I'm starting now... and if you are reading this then something is working!

Back someone else's project...

So that is exactly what I did today.. I booked three projects! Kingdom, Earthdawn 4E, and Japanese the game!

First thing I noticed was a message from the makers of Kingdom thanking me for my support and all I baked them was $1.. Cool huh.. I think that it's really cool that I get to interact with the people who designed the game. I like their project and I think that the ultimate product is going to be amazing!

So I sent a message saying that I would love to interact with them on twitter and offered my twitter name @artofpaint

and within a few seconds I got a reply from them on my twitter feed.... (wait they just responded to my last tweet)

Ok Back!! Wait.... Another tweet

OK back!! The point is that there is an actual conversation going on there. The guys at Black Locust Games responded to my inquires right a way.. And I'm only a $1 supporter. The conversation was not "Hey give us more money" either.. It was about how passionate and proud they are of their product. At the time that I'm writing this they don't have the funding they need but I'm sure they are going to get it. It was the artist.. How to find the Print-n-Play version of the game that will at least give you an idea of how the game plays so you know if you want to get the full version.

Visit their Kickstarter Page and help them out .. if nothing else let others know about this amazing product.

At this point, I want to mention that I'm not getting paid for this promotion. They did not ask me to write this blog post. But what I am getting out of this is the knowledge of how I want to treat my supporters when it's time for my kickstarter campaign. Thanks guys... If I run into some more money in the next 31 days.. I will up my backing category to something nicer ... If nothing else ... I know where my next disposable bit of income is going :)

Links

http://blacklocustgames.com

http://richardabliss.com/funding-dream-kickstarter-podcast/

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1281146833/kingdom-0

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1374838500/japanese-the-game-a-language-learning-card-game

Sign up for the Invoke newsletter and be the first

I broke the website the last time I tried this... so If you can see this I must be doing something good. Ok So if you want to be part of the Invoke Newsletter you will get the following.

• News about Print-N-Play versions (Including download links)
• First to know when the Retail version is going to be available 
• Information of when the Kicstarter is going to begin.
• News and updates about expansions 

Here is what your NOT going to get 

• Spam about my cat (That is what Facebook is for)
• News about ever single time someone looks at my kickstarter page! 
• Emails ever week about Sales and promos that you don't care about 

Truth be told I hate "Email marketing" so I'm going to make sure that if I do have to send out a newsletter its going to be something you are going to like!

Subscribe to our mailing list

Drawing from three Decks: Invoke !

You come up with some of the most interesting Realization when you are playtesting.. It also helps that when you are playtesting that you have people that who are willing to make suggestions. So this other week we were playtesting the old paper version of Invoke (still called spellslinger at the time) and one of the major things we noted was that we kept having turns where we had absolutely no actions. For a game, this is a major problem.. I can understand having one round where you have no actions at all..But 4 in a row.. It became very clear to me there was something very wrong with the game.. So my good buddy Mike who is also a game designer (Check back to this blog because I will feature his games here) suggests that we change it from one deck system to a three deck system.. The idea was having all the actions in one deck.. All the objects and creatures in a second deck and the third would be all the cards that would modify an existing spell.. At first, I did not like the idea because I was too attached to my own concepts but after some thinking I figured not only was it a good idea but in true Mike form.. Brilliant. So here is how the three deck system works now.. .

Each Player at the beginning of their turn (and only at the beginning of their turn) draws up to seven cards. They may draw as much as three cards from any of the three decks. I have named the decks after magical skills in legends.

The Three Decks 

Thaumaturgy : The act of doing something... this deck is going to have your actions.. Moving left, moving right.. Sling (The card that makes fireballs... but I'm thining of a new name for that card) and the all important Sheild card.. This deck is what you draw from if you want to DO something..

Apportation : The act of summoning something.. This is your objects.. This will most likely be an element as in earth, air, fire & water (there are other elements in the mix for later expansions). There will also be objects like wands, Books, and rings (From expansions) and if you are really lucky there may even be a creature to help you in your quest to win the game. This deck you will draw from if you need ammo or for a spell you have yet to cast

Alteration: This deck allows you to modify or target something . So this where you draw when you have a spell but you would like to have a little more control or have some cool special effect added to it... say.. A fireball that can strike a wand or that burns the opponent for 3 turns.

So I wanted to test the three deck system.. I drew 9 hands.. Before it was possible to have as many as 4 hands where you had no actions possible... not even bad ideas. White of the three deck system all but one of the hands had at least one or two actions (not saying those actions were good ideas ....but at least they were an option) 

So what I learned was good ideas come from your best friends and don't get too attached to an idea! Don't be afraid to make some major changes during the play testing stage of a game.