Sorry for disappearing!
Continuing on from my previous post, I’ve continued work on my new card game Total Blast. What is it?
“Soon to be the world’s best two-player card battle game — strategic, fast-paced, and packed with stunning artwork. Easy to learn, endlessly replayable, and designed for those who crave the perfect mix of skill and excitement!”
I had a goal: to a single handily create the game entirely from scratch- from concept to creation.
I’m no stranger to creating bigger projects on my own. For example, my How-to-Draw books were solo projects for the most part, other than the occasional check-in with my publisher’s editor and graphic designer. Of course, the main benefit of my book projects was not personally needing to worry about sales and marketing. This was something the publisher handled.
However, I soon realised, tackling even a relatively small-scale game like this on my own was not going to be a quick to complete task. In fact, I pretty much went silent on the project for 2 years! I’m sorry for that. I think the whole thing just overwhelmed me, so I put it on the back-burner.
But, I have news! I’ve been making slow, steady progress over recent months. I’m determined as ever to make the project into a tangible product. It would be a travesty to not get such a fun game out into the world for players to enjoy. Not to mention, I’d feel horrible if having to throw out all the work put in to it thus far.
Latest prototype now completed and game is being tested and enjoyed 🙂
Progress
It took around 7 months before making the previous Development diary #4. Then a further 2 years to get to this one – diary #5. In that time lots of jobs are now completed:
- The Rule book jumped from being on version 2.5 to 3.3. That basically means it’s now more or less complete, including an initial interior layout design.
- I printed out a new prototype with upgraded card arts.
- The game has now been play tested dozens of times.
- Character artwork all finished (which was the biggest task, art-wise)
- Promo Flyers were printed and handed out.
- Today I crafted the initial Cover artwork.
Updates are also being posted on the Total Blast Facebook group. If you’d like to follow along there, be my guest 🙂
Total Blast Flyer- this was handed out at shows I’d attended over the last year
Art Development Overview
As I mentioned in my last update, I wanted to add characters into the mix. Initially I thought about using a fun, chibi style like this little knight:
For some reason, which I can’t even remember now, I decided to scrap the cute, chibi style and instead make the characters a little more bad-ass! Characters now included are: Thief, Ninja (below), Mage, Merchant, Spy, King, Alien. One representing each of the cannon types in the game. Plus, I’ve included a special, secret one I’ll reveal later! Here’s a little demo showing how I went from sketch to something a little more refined:
What’s next?
- I need to figure out how much this game will cost to produce. I will begin gathering a few quotes- both to print here in the UK and in China.
- I’ll also look into fulfilment centres. I want to find out if it’s worth getting copies of the game sent straight to foreign countries rather than ship out games from here in England.
- Create a Box / packaging mock-up.
- Find ways to promote the game. Ultimately everything will hinge on this! I’d like to order 500-1000 copies manufactured minimum. Yet right now, I’ve got no more than half a dozen potential customers interested!
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