The beginning...

I just got signed to Victory Point Games to publish my new game.

I've been an instructor of game design on many levels. I've worked in the game industry as many roles. I have always wanted to create a card game as that is my favorite genre of game; it's wholly constructed, but beautifully random.

But I wanted to do it right. As many of us on this website, I too have many Word files of games that I've started to think and design, but have never completed. I actually succumbed to the notion that I wouldn't be able to create a game in my lifetime. I think it was because I didn't think I had a mechanic I could call my own...I was always borrowing from others, which isn't bad, it just never felt right and I always hit walls as many of us did.

But the answer was sitting under my nose this whole time.

Every quarter, I teach my game design students about conflict resolution. Every quarter I teach about ways to use dice...to-hit rolls, chart methods, modifiers...using cards...show-and-tell, random comparisons...and I teach about the lottery method...

The lottery method...video games use it. Popular games like Dominoes, Scrabble, Neruoshima Hex, incorporate it. Hell, even Bingo uses it...and of course, the lottery. It's a random pulling of a result from a stack of outcomes.

Every quarter I tell my students, "It would be cool if someone made a card game using this method", I never knew it would be me.

Hence the beginnings of what would be known as Conquest at Kismet.

In order for me to do this, I'd have to completely break any conceptions I've had with playing card games over 20+ years. For a game to "pull" a result from outcomes given by two players, I have to stop thinking of this game as something both players can come in with custom sleeved decks. I'd have to think of a more creative way to accomplish that.

But it was not enough. Something else had to be added. I was playing around with creating my own "Click" system while playing Netrunner. I mean, how do you use the click card and the token? It was never really spelled out. So I tried to create a card which I put a click number on each side and you tapped the card to indicate when you used a click. Both sides could use it as the Corporation's first move was really "draw a card".

I know it sounds like mumbo jumbo, but I had something. I put it on the back burner. But I wanted to do something with it.

Fast forward to 3 months ago. My focus with this new game was not about making it fit in the card game universe, I just wanted to make a game using the lottery method; I wanted it to be fun. I mean, what fun is, "Ok, I got a creature doing X damage, deal with it or eat it"?

So I put this...Card clicking thing and this...lottery thing and I tried to think about what kind of game genre could fit this.

Sci-Fi. Perfect.

My game uses these two mechanics in a weird marriage. The Click thing became the Time Mechanic, and the Lottery Method became the Combat Stack. The result was something brilliant: It was a card game that gives BOTH players a chance to win at a conflict without having to have a specific card in your hand. A losing player could essentially come back out of pure luck without breaking the game. It created a small footprint, which many games strive for, but complexity breeds more parts, more parts breeds more space needed. When I play tested the game, a play session had definitive stages in its play. Pro Magic players had never seen it before and thought it was fun. It allowed me to take more control of how I expand the game...AND I account for customizable decks at a time when I'm comfortable with it.

And now I got signed. I'm not looking to be super rich, I just want to publish a game that I made...check it off of my bucket list. It's coming true. All my experience in the video game, board game, and card game industry all led up to this.

This game has been play tested...a lot. There's already plans for expansion and the game isn't out yet. It is not your average card game.

Fingers crossed.