Sunday 27 September 2015

Before the Dawn






Looking at the front page of my website and the news section I saw that the last post I made was two years ago, have I been doing nothing newsworthy for the last two years? 

In this apparently silent time I have been working on a project I didn’t want to talk about much until it was at a stage where I felt it would best show the work done. I now feel it is time to start showing some of this project as you may have seen recently if you are a viewer of my Facebook page.

But before I talk about the current project I should probably talk about another project that is currently on that big development shelf where projects sit until that day they finally get completed or get buried in the dust of forgotten memories.





Towards the end of 2012 I started developing a digital Victorian horror deckbuilding game. A deckbuilding game, for those who don’t know, is a card game where you start with a deck of cards that are initially weak and during the game you buy additional more powerful cards to make your deck stronger. You then draw a hand of cards each turn and use these to gain more cards or defeat various hazards. 

After a few months I had a good portion of the Victorian game working and a lot of the card art done, but the theme looked like it might be a bit dark for a wide audience.

I then decided to do a game with a less dark theme and made VludKin Clanz, a lighter card game, although that theme didn’t seem to appeal to a wide audience either, but I still had this deckbuilding engine from the Victorian game I wanted to develop. After finishing VludKin Clanz I decided I would try and do a new deckbuilding game that was a bit simpler than the Victorian game, and also hopefully with a more appealing theme.





Developing the Victorian game I came up with a number of ideas and mechanics that formed the foundation for what I now call the Lore Deckbuilding Engine, a card game system designed for the single player, which I could hopefully use for several games using these core mechanics.

I decided on a future military idea for the new game as that seems a popular setting and quickly started developing the game that would become Siberian Dawn, although it has turned out to be a much more intricate and strategic game than first planned.





Now, two years later, the game is nearing completion. Siberian Dawn is working, the art is being completed, and all the elements are coming together. So now after explaining what I have been up to the last few years I want to start sharing details about the game and talk about what makes it an evolution of deckbuilding ahead of its release on Android and Pc. 

In future blogs I hope to cover the world of Siberian Dawn and also some of the elements of the Lore Deckbuilding Engine so please keep an eye here and on Facebook and Twitter for more news and updates as I reveal the secrets of Siberian Dawn.






- Winterflood -