Most probably, you have an old project stashed away somewhere, unfinished. You started out with a lot of enthusiasm, but it ended up fizzling out. I have quite a few of these, myself. This one got pulled from the drawer and finished! It took a total of about twelve years, but I made card game design for my bridge club SBC Dombo.
We started great. Writing rules, collecting photographs, and I created designs for the different card types and I drew icons. A talented club member made some very cool illustrations. We printed a test set, played a couple of rounds with it and had big laughs. We added some ideas for cards, mocked them up and…
We lost focus. The design of a card game this big turned out to require a decent amount of project management, and we were too much hobbyists and we had too many other priorities.
Nostalgia
The project was dead for years. Until Remco, one of the original creators, asked me, nine years later, what it would actually take for the game to make it to print. He took some pragmatic decisions and was able to push just enough for us to finish the project.
It was very weird to review designs I did almost a decade ago, and work with them again. Lots of things I’d do differently now—mainly more efficiently!—but also designs I’m still proud of. And, being a club member, it’s of course very nostalgic to see all those old pictures pass by.
We had the cards printed in a small volume, just enough to make some ten copies of the game. Remco’s experience with homebrewing game cards for role-playing games was very useful here. He even got us a great printer with a good price. Remco also 3D-printed the player pawns himself: little elephants, the club’s mascot.
We ended up presenting the game to a very impressed bridge club.
Games connect
Playing games isn’t just fun, it’s also a way to get people together and tell a story.
I’d love to help you tell your story by way of a game. No matter whether it’s a board or card game, or something in between. I promise to not take nine years. Let’s brainstorm about your idea. Maybe something that your club would like?
Need more ideas? Have a look at the other games I made, or the rest of my portfolio.