Our Tabletop Game Takes a New Direction

Our tabletop game development and design journey leads us on a different path

Sorry for the absence. We've been busy redesigning the game a bit and taking it in a different direction. Kurt is hands on making a new prototype for testing.

Kurt creating new cards for Medieval Challengers

©2017 ITD Games

After we had a few play tests and critique session with some other gamers and game designers we came to a conclusion to turn the unit discs into cards and have one main flipping disc with a cool illustration for heads and tails for each army. Players flip that disc to see if the card they've played is activated, i.e the unit charges into battle weapon ready or faceplants in the mud of the battlefield. This seems to be a less fussy and more understandable playing set up and is more cost effective.

Also, another factor contributing to this change is the knowledge that the cost of paper and cardboard is going up with new regulations being put into place. So, we're looking to reduce the amount of paper and cardboard in our game. Instead of cardboard chits, we're moving to cards, which could be plastic, i.e. Rooster Race cards we designed and illustrated for Roosterfin Games. We could also have the flipping disc be plastic instead, thus reducing the cost of this game greatly.

Thanks for your continued interest. More updates are coming soon, and we encourage you to follow us here and on Facebook so you don't miss a thing.

If you're interested in play testing our light strategy and fun party game, please email us. Or we have  handy dandy form on the right. Give us a shout.

Happy gaming!

In the Beginning...

©2107 Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

You may ask yourself, what is this challenge all about? To answer this question we have to go back a ways to 1994 at the Fashion Institute of Technology where Traci Van Wagoner and Kurt Keller first met in toy design school.

The idea for this game was inspired by a class assignment, but the concept was too big for a school assignment, so we kept it for ourselves. On the sidelines of school and then in our own design studio, we took this idea of a coin toss and ran with it. 

© Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

After graduating in 1996, we banded together and started Imagine That! Design where we started inventing toys and games to show and hopefully sell to the BIG Boys. At the time Pogs was hot, so we developed a version of Medieval Challengers where the winner of each challenge gets to keep the chips they win, thereby collecting the best armies and becoming the best Challenger. We even used Pog makers to make our initial prototypes.



A couple years later in 1998 we redesigned it as a 3D action game, similar to Weapons and Warriors for the BIG Boys.  This is sketch and an early version of the prototype. We had lots of interested, but no purchase.

© Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

© Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

In 2000 we once again redesigned the game as a 4 player tabletop version to show to the top 5, 4, 3, 2 BIG Boys — Hasbro and Mattel.

© Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

This brings us a long stretch of 2000 to 20017 which Imagine That! Design switched directions (needed money), so we worked on other people’s stuff. Over this time we helped develop and design dozens of games and toys for a variety of clients. During this time period the game industry shifted as well. The indie market took off and Kickstarter blasted onto the scene changing everything. We also started this wonderful tradition of game night with our nephews.

After playing numerous different games with our nephews and needing some new games to play, we pulled out our old prototype of Medieval Challengers. Reaction: WOW! This is a good game. You know what, we can really make this happen.

This brings us to June 2017. We opened the Medieval Challengers box and started designing for ourselves again. We found some old AI and PSD files that still work and the challenge began. 

The journey is underway to making this a reality, so stay tuned and follow us on the interwebs to stay on top of the adventure as it unfolds.  Happy gaming!