New Game Prototype -- Seeking Play Testers

Medieval Challengers First Full Prototype

Our game prototype has arrived from The Game Crafter. Yay!

After the elation of receiving and playing with the first two army prototypes we received, Kurt went to work prepping the other four armies. We worked out all the back stories, the numbers for the Battle Points, and we made sure there was plenty of humor based on our giggle factor (when we're working on a project, if one or the other of us is giggling, we know we're on to something). We proofed, proofed, and proofed some more. Finally, the next four armies were ready to go to print.

Once we uploaded the files, we had a huge shock -- the price for the full game nearly doubled. We felt like a giant sledgehammer had smacked us down. We had a few weeks of worry and anger and sadness and concern that this project was dead in its tracks. Would this prove to be too big a challenge to overcome?

The problem was all the specialty cuts needed with all the army units and the launcher. The (around) 2 cent charge for specialty cuts was a real killer. So...

We researched, dove into gaming community boards, and explored optimizing the laser cut lines and other ways of laying the units and cut out parts out to minimize the cost. We have managed to bring it to a more reasonable price, and we are still researching the possibilities. In the meantime of learning and discovering more about this world of hobby gaming, we decided to go ahead and create a full prototype with instructions and a basic box.

We are thrilled with the outcome.

We had the initial two armies already (see unpacking) King Norman's Army and Wizard Warriors. The rest of challengers have arrived: Swarmy Army, Samurai Slashers, Ghoulish Horde, and Band of No Gooders. We now have six Medieval Challenger armies from the land of Histeria ready for battle.

All armies have arrived at the caldera for their annual challenge to see who will rule Histeria for the next year. Are you up for the challenge? If so, we'd love to hear from you.

We are now ready for some serious play testing to see if others out in the real world enjoy the game as much as we do. We're starting local and are currently setting up events.
Who out there in the New York City area is up for the Challenge?
Please email us and we'll  provide further details.

Jack McDowall and Kurt Keller

We are hoping to be able to get more prototypes to send for non-local play testing in the future, so if you're interested and you're not local, please email us, follow us, let us know you care, and we'll we'll put you in our files and keep you updated.


Thanks for stopping by. We hope to see you at the gaming table! Don't forget to follow us here and on our FB page.





All images and game design  ©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved. So play nice!

The First Printed Pieces Unpacked

Our knees are shaking with excitement with the special delivery of our first printed armies and launchers. Our prototype launchers and Camp cards are eager to see too. We got these printed through The Game Crafter and overall we are very happy.

The Box

This is our first experience with laser cut parts. We were looking into the results, such as soot and the accuracy of the cuts. We also wanted to see how the two sides of the coins line up and  how accurate the production is.

So, without further ado we present the initial unpacking:

The Packets

 

Everything punched out beautifully without falling out on their own. Our fingers did get a bit dirty and there was a camp fire smell, but, hey, that adds to the battle damage feel and gives the game a more realistic atmosphere. The challenge between the armies of Histeria does take place in a caldera.

King Norman's Army Punch Out

And here are the army units and the launchers in all their glory:

Wizard Warrior Coins and Launchers

The soot wiped away quickly and did not affect the game parts. We did get the UV coating, so that probably helped. The coins feel real solid and are lovely to flip. We're really impressed how our texture reads on all the items.

We had a blast playing with our new game parts and can't wait to get the rest of the armies to have a full challenge.


Let the fun and games begin!

Kurt and Jack play the first print of Medieval Challengers by ITD Games

All images, mechanics, and game design are copyrighted by Imagine That! Design. All rights reserved. So play nice!

The First Step: The Launcher Challenge

Last week we told you about about the beginnings of our game, Medieval Challengers. Now, we begin the journey. . . .

© 2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

With a decision to move forward, we pulled out all our old prototypes and computer files. The first thing we realized is we should’ve saved as tiffs. Some of our old files no longer worked. Most of the PSD files worked, but the AI files didn’t. Lesson learned.

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

The two of us play tested the old game with catapults created from parts and pieces. We also brought in our nephews who had fun playing. We established that we still like the game. We made some decisions and tweaks for going forward. At this point our main problem was the plastic catapult. It was fun to launch the disks into the battle arena with the contraption. So, that lead to us having to decide if the game was feasible for us to make.

Being a small company, we can’t afford to make plastic (or cardboard for that matter) pieces overseas. We needed a way to make a quality product in small numbers or for our own promotion purposes. We costed out materials and parts and researched ways we could possible make a plastic launcher. We came to a conclusion we couldn’t make the catapult out of plastic with springs. A major setback since this is the heart of the game, flipping the units onto the battlefield and hoping they land face up. the coin toss. Without a proper coin flip, there is no game. We spent a couple weeks bummed about this and wracking our brains for ways around our problem.

The seed of an idea was planted when we found and sourced The Game Crafter, a place where we can get cardboard parts made. This is when Traci issued a challenge -- build a launcher out of cardboard parts. I went to work.

I came up with a design that should work. I made a sample, and we tested it. 

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

It worked pretty well but still needed some tweaks. So I designed a new launcher with an ideal mechanism, working heights and angles to get the best launch of the disk as possible.

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

Thrilled with the results, I made one for each army and more play testing ensued.

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

The launchers were a hit. We have a game! Now we felt confident to move forward in earnest. We finished tweaking and updating two of the armies, finalized print files and sent them to The Game Crafters. We were giddy with excitement when the printed pieces arrived. Stay tuned to see the unveiling in our next post.

©2017 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

Are you up for the challenge? If you are interested in play testing our game, please feel free to contact us.