Destined Legends TCG

Character Creation

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:45:00 -0400

Receiving really amazing art is definitely one of the most exciting parts of developing Destined Legends. Arguably, the art is what gives this universe its life and overall identity.

Last week we revealed the first piece of official artwork for the game, the main character of Destined Legends, Roslynn. She is a runaway princess that is now making her living as a hired hand. The circumstances of her exodus begin to catch up to her as she is suspected of being chosen by the Dragon guardians to be Legend of the elements: A chosen few, bestowed with the powers of the elements to guide and protect humanity.

I began my conversation with the artist Scott Ferguson with a few sentences similar in gist to the above. I also provided him with some ideas about her general appearance and figure. Here is an excerpt from the initial email I sent him.

*****
Roslynn

Age: 22
Eyes: Light Blue
Hair: Brown, wavy, down to torso.
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 110 lbs.
Bust: 30 C
Build: Medium, toned.
Complexion: Mediterranean/Olive

Character: Positioned in the left half of the painting. Full body shot. Standing upright, 3/4, body pointed towards right of the image. Free-flowing hair caught in the breeze. Few strands of hair across face. Stern look, looking off into the horizon towards the right side of the image. Slight smirk. Right hand on hip, left hand over the hilt of a cutlass, sheathed on her left side. Black nails (if you draw them).

Garb: Remnants of her previous social status are obvious. Royal Crimson colored under-bust corset with gold trims. Corset has pockets. Golden chain of pocket watch hanging across front of corset. Corset is over white long-sleeve blouse. Buttons open to reveal cleavage. Tight brown leather pants and burgundy long boots. [Slight steam punk influence.]
*****

Looking at the final, I Think you’d agree that Scott pretty much nailed it. After receiving this email he began working on some thumbnails. Here are the 4 thumbnails he delivered based off the description I gave.

Needless to say I was pretty blow away with these sketches. My favorites were the two on the left. I essentially asked him to combine the pose of the upper left with the younger look of the bottom left. And i also liked how that one showed her in more of an action pose. He took my response and ran with it. He followed up with some close to final line art as shown below.

It was exactly what I wanted. I could just imagine what it would look like once he incorporated color, lighting, and texture (Scott’s trademark strongsuits.) soon enough I received the final piece as you have already seen and shown below.

Now it is important to know that this isn’t final card art, as hopefully made evident from a lack of a background. This is simply a preliminary piece to introduce the visual look of the universe, as well as to provide a face to Destined Legends.

Scott and I are now in talks about the character cards and what the other characters should look like. While I may not have much more finished pieces before our Kickstarter fundraiser campaign, at least we’ll try to get some sketches for you. And not to mention, we have a whole other artist, Cari Corene, working on some pretty epic pieces of her own…

I know many of you have been wondering about DL’s...

Mon, 07 May 2012 01:22:00 -0400

I know many of you have been wondering about DL’s gameplay. Well wonder no more. In this video documentary we outline the basic concepts of gameplay for Destined Legends. Hopefully this proves to give you a better idea of how the game works in a general sense.

Here is the first official character for Destined Legends. Her...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:38:00 -0400

Here is the first official character for Destined Legends. Her name is Roslynn and she is a Legend of the Dark Element. Not only that, but also the main character of the franchise.

This is the first piece for our game done by Scott ferguson of Nerf This and Scout Crossing. He is slated to do all of our character (Legend) cards. I can’t wait to show you more of our art.

We also threw it on the main Decobot site. This is pretty exciting for us because the game finally has a visual identity… and a pretty amazing one at that!

Our water deck: “Cohesion” is pretty rad so far....

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:07:47 -0400

Our water deck: “Cohesion” is pretty rad so far. #games #fun #ipad #design #art #cards #gallery

Combustion Battle Deck

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:37:43 -0400

The Fire Deck: Combustion will officially be a launch deck for Destined Legends, replacing the Light Deck: Benediction, and joining the Dark Deck: Eradication. So our launch product is now officially Combustion v. Eradication Intro Battle Set.

This came to be in February. We decided it after experimenting with the Fire Deck for 3 reasons.

Reason 1 - To ensure the game functions across all elements.

We got to a very comfortable spot with testing Eradication against Benediction. We were tracking one of the remaining issues with the game, its pace. Not its length, but its pace. If a game takes long but all players are actively engaged and things are happening, that is okay. However, if the game is long with slow turns, and long periods of inactivity, there is a problem. Its great for players to take a minute or two to strategize their turn, but if they are stuck keeping track of things, and trying to remember if they are forgetting to address anything, it can get frustrating and unpleasant.

Combustion only helped shed more light on this issue. With two innately fast-paced decks, you would expect an increase in general game pace. With this we realized we need to remove all accessories from the game. What they added to the game was not worth their price of admission. For example, It wasn’t worth remembering to heal 1 HP from your Silver Ring Accessory every turn, and it wasn’t worth the frustration when you realized you forgotten it. The only thing we salvaged was counters. And counters are now built into every weapon, which only helps decrease game length further.

Reason 2 - To apply some other gameplay concepts in real-time testing.

Everything always sounds and looks amazing on paper. It isn’t until you apply them in the real world, when you find your mistakes. That sentiment discribes our entire development process to date, so it amazes me that me never thought to make sure everything we conceptualized actually works.

With Combustion, we discovered that out status effect Berserk needs some more attention. It is definitely not ready to ship. We realized if we discovered this little “gem” of a problem with simply adding one more element in the mix. What other “treasures” await us with the other decks. This is another reason the Kickstarter is delayed. We wanna iron out all the kinks, or as many as humanly possible, before we ship a physical product that can’t be fixed later.

Reason 3 - To make our debut deck a bit more exciting and fast-paced.

Although it would have been really cool to have Dark versus Light as our intro decks, ultimately we decided against it. Each deck has a different play style. Every customer of Destined Legends at our debut will be new to our world and our game. We want to make sure to hook people in. We figure the best way to do that is to deliver a fast-paced and exciting experience. The play styles of Dark and Fire happen to cater best to that idea.

Earth and Light elements are all about building a defense, this may take more time and methodical thinking on the player’s part. Water and Wind are about controlling the pace of battle and slowing down their opponent’s progress. Fire and Dark are mostly about assault and offense. Pitting Fire up against Dark will create a fast, action-packed battle. And we have already seen this in testing. The game is generally more exciting. This is key to win over newcomers.

We’re excited for Combustion and I think most people will generally have a better time playing the game for the first few times, without having to worry about to much strategy.

Developer Update: Kickstarter Delay

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:23:00 -0400

Due to our decision to pull our game out of alpha testing and back into development, we will not be launching our kickstarter fundraising campaign this year. We had a meeting in early March about the progress of the game. We realized our priorities with the game have shifted considerably since we began development early last year.

We have become much more aware of what it takes to drive the business of game development and publishing. During that meeting we discussed our games progress and how the game would function well if released this year, we would be leaving out a huge opportunity to fully future-proof the game as well as tighten the entire experience.

Our decision to delay the game became increasingly obvious when we began to consider some of the other challenges were facing currently with the game such as a lack of official artwork, and a less-that-stellar awareness rate of the game itself. We’re new to this and have much to learn about marketing and releasing a game.

Not to sound dramatic, but How we decide to handle the release could make or break the entire franchise. We’ll be updating with more specific details over the coming weeks. Either way the kickstarter, and the game, will be released in 2013.

The game is definitely getting more exciting with even temporary...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:18:07 -0500

The game is definitely getting more exciting with even temporary artwork! #fun #gallery #cards #iphone #design #tcg (Taken with instagram)

Testing out the new Fire Deck. It will likely replace Light in...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:03:51 -0500

Testing out the new Fire Deck. It will likely replace Light in the debut set.. #gallery

Project Timeline Update

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:04:00 -0500

The project is going very well. As you may have noticed we are now updating the site with more pictures via Instagram (@showkati). You can click on “Instagram Gallery” on the sidebar to view our collection.

Our timeline for the project has been pushed back as we are still in the process of getting ready for the kickstarter. The new timeline is posted below. In the mean, follow us on twitter or facebook via the links on the side and ask us anything you’d like to hear about regarding DL.

sneak peek at the days work.. #gallery #picoftheday...

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:37:29 -0500

sneak peek at the days work.. #gallery #picoftheday #iphoneography #art #iphone #cards #games (Taken with instagram)

Play testing the game with @dcaron and @keepcom #iphoneography...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 02:50:20 -0500

Play testing the game with @dcaron and @keepcom #iphoneography #tcg #gallery (Taken with instagram)

Just some package design for Destined Legends. #iphoneography...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:10:15 -0500

Just some package design for Destined Legends. #iphoneography #tcg #gallery #iphone #Hudson #design #packaging (Taken with instagram)

Done! Can’t wait for the next play test! #gallery #Brannan...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:34:07 -0500

Done! Can’t wait for the next play test! #gallery #Brannan #tcg #fun #iphoneography #picoftheday (Taken with instagram)

Tokens! This is about to happen! #iphoneography #fun #tcg...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:28:36 -0500

Tokens! This is about to happen! #iphoneography #fun #tcg #gallery #Lo-fi (Taken with instagram)

Been working on a special digital rule book for the game on...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:23:42 -0500

Been working on a special digital rule book for the game on iBooks author. Pretty excited about how this is coming out. #tcg #gallery

Newly compiled card for the character “Roslyn”...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:14:09 -0500

Newly compiled card for the character “Roslyn” begging for artwork. #tcg #gallery

Play test with second version of our play-mat (trying a white...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:11:02 -0500

Play test with second version of our play-mat (trying a white design for this one). #tcg #gallery

#gallery #lo-fi #drinking #jimbeam #tcg #fun #series...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:59:12 -0500

#gallery #lo-fi #drinking #jimbeam #tcg #fun #series #iphoneography (Taken with instagram)

Timeline and Product Release [Update]

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:39:00 -0500

As we’re quietly working on all the parts of our game, I thought it would be nice to give an update on our timeline for the project. The dates below are very loose.

The dates illustrated, are goals for us to hit internally, but there are a few factors that can push the release by a couple months. The first factor is the start of the Kickstarter fundraising campaign. Due to the nature of the service, we need to make sure we gain as much momentum as possible before beginning the campaign. The kickstarter will last for 60 days, and according to our current numbers, we need to raise $10,000 in order to produce the first batch of 1000 sets, and pay the artists for their work. The second factor are the artists. We are commissioning 3-4 amazing artists to do the art for the cards. Our current count for unique cards is 81. 81 pieces of art, spread across 3-4 people can take some time. The only trick is that I can’t commission them without us hitting a successful $10,000 first with kickstarter. That severely limits the time we have for the artists to complete all the pieces we need to commission. We’re hoping for them to start on May 1st, and be done by mid-July. That is 2.5 months. Finishing them in July gives us enough time to order the actual cards and finish packing the game boxes.

As we’ve talked about before, there are 7 elements in the world of Destined Legends: Dark, Light, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, and Metal. For this initial release we will be starting with Dark and Light, decks. The other elements will be released in the future, as the game takes off. Below is our roadmap for Destined Legends over the next few years. (The deck names are tentative.)

Since it is a collectible card game at its heart, we will be numbering the individual cards. Thusly, we are considering this initial release of cards to be the “Debut Deck.” When we release Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth next year they will all be part of a 400+ card collection, and the current Dark and Light cards will be rereleased as part of the new number scheme, rendering the first run of 81 cards collectors items.

Here is a breakdown of the tentative contents of the “Benediction v. Eradication Intro Battle Set” as of right now:

Contents:

• 60-Card Benediction Battle Deck (Light Deck)

• 60-Card Eradication Battle Deck (Dark Deck)

• 2x 6-sided Dice

• 1x 12-sided Die.

• 120 HP and Status Effect Tokens.

• How to Play Guide

• Deck Breakdown Guide

• Playmat

• Artist Bio Cards

• Collector’s Box

As you can see from the illustration above, we are looking to price the Intro Battle Set at $29.95. The Battle set will be all you need to begin playing the game with a friend. As of right now the game is 2 player, but it is designed with 3 and 4 player variants in mind. Those will come later on down the road. I’m geting pretty excited for 2012.

Thoughts?

[Update]

We have updated our production timeline. Please refer to our newer post for the new schedule.

Our First Blind Play-Test

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:17:00 -0500

I didn’t realize how well last Friday’s play-test went, until I was over at my Uncle’ Kevin’s house two days later. We we’re over for dinner, my brother and I. And we were also joined by our cousin. I was really jonesing to play a board game so I took Settlers of Catan, (factually the galaxy’s best game ever,) over with an intent to teach my Uncle and capitalize on the number of game enthusiasts present. It didn’t take me long to explain the rules of the game to Kevin. Luckily my brother and cousin had already been victims of my board game parties so they were able to chime in with the occasional clarification. If anyone reading this is aware, in Catan, you can trade resources with other players and strategize against others. When explaining this concept I merely mentioned the fact that you could trade resources. Whether it was for the sake of time or some other subconscious reason, I didn’t mention the reason to do it or the potential strategy it would add. To my amazement, about 30-40 minutes into the game, he became wise to these strategies on his own, and the game found its outer layer of fun. The game was now being played the way the creators had fully intended, and Kevin genuinely understood the game. During one of his playful quarrels with my brother over how much wheat was worth his ore, it dawned on me that I witnessed this exact same thing, over my game, just two nights before. Whatever satisfaction I had felt after the play-test on Friday was amplified to a whole new level of realization; Destined Legends, (in our amalgamation of concepts and mechanics,) is now officially a game. It still has some bugs for us to work out, but it is still a very satisfying feeling.

Back to Friday. We hosted our first “Blind Play-test.” That means that we took the game itself, the How to Play guide, and the play mat, and presented it to two of our friends Ana and Alec, and let them figure it out and play it. It so happens that neither of them have ever played any other kind of card-based game nor any role-playing videogames. (So bless their hearts for giving this a go.) Our goal was to let them take the How to Play guide and leave them to their own devices. After 10 minutes we had to intervene to catch a couple of my own mistakes with the guide.

Most of our issues were luckily in our How to Play guide. Although some of the issues did stem from their inexperience with RPG concepts. It’s something that I had accounted for, but not to this degree. We are planning on releasing a complete Rulebook online, in addition to the How to Play guide that will be in the box, so I’m not sure how much more in-depth we need to get. I remember that Magic the Gathering and Pokemon both took me several games to completely understand, so it may just be a reality of card games. However our game is relatively simple in execution, but heavier in the conditions and regulations departments.

After reading for a good 20 minutes or so amongst themselves, I recommended that they begin playing, and continue through the rules as they begin, (a method I use when learning a new game.) Denis, my brother Shawn, and I helped explains the rules through their first few turns. They quickly understood the main concepts and the game continued with minimal interjection from the rest of us.

The game utilizes randomized decks of cards, similar to other trading card battle games. Luckily for us, both of them had good shuffles, (card gamers know what I mean by that,) and were building their arsenals nicely. Lo and behold, about an hour into the game they were comfortably using all of the expected RPG lingo. Beyond that, by hour 2, they were using the actual strategy of their respective decks without our help! This blew all of our minds. My experiences two days later with Catan, made me realize all the factors that decide weather or not a game is successful as a game. Everything might look great on paper, but its no good until tested. And luckily everything has seemed to fall nicely into place.

The play-through lasted very long, around 3 hours, although a very large portion of it was their learning of the game itself. We have yet to do a postmortem on the game, but I am very excited about what their reactions were. They did mention that they were excited to play the game again. Their initial reactions were that they had no idea the game would involve this much strategy and “would be this epic.” All music to my ears. I don’t wanna jinx it, but the future looks bright for Destined Legends.

I can confidently announce that game is now in Alpha Testing Phase, keeping us on track for a mid to late summer release. We will be running a Kickstarter campaign to acquire funds that we need to actually produce the game around March, so look out for that. Until then we’ll continue to blog as the game ramps to completion. If you dig what we’re doing please spread the word. You can follow and share us on twitter. Below is a short montage of the Play-test from Friday night.