Huh, more than TWO WEEKS since the last post… It was a uniquely heavy period in work, I have had time for nothing apparently.
But also, yesterday they’ve cut my first “draft-figures” out from plywood and I’m super excited*, as this is the last big puzzle piece before we could start the intense playtesting period.
Now… let’s get back to early 2022.
*And terrified, as I don’t know yet, how much money will they cost if I would order all of the ~150 pieces from them.
My creative process – at the beginning of a new project – always starts with opening up a blank notebook, and doing THE first page. It has to be perfect. (And it never is, obviously.) This isn’t the best process, you could tell, putting on some unnecessary weight, but if I get over with this first, very, VERY serious task (just kidding, it’s very very very very serious in real) – then it’s easier to get things rolling. So after the initial idea of making a game, I jumped into that first page. No matured ideas, just the two animals with the sci-fi/fantasy aspect and the desire to make a strategy board game, mainly inspired by Root and Dune.
I just started to draw bears. (After looking at pictures of bears.) Sometimes with laser eyes.
During this very early period, I tried to lay down the foundations for the project. At that time I didn’t articulate it, but from here – looking back, I just wanted my game to be:
- deep in lore
- competitive
- funny
- epic
- conflict oriented
- asymmetric
- wargame-ish
- unexpected
I didn’t form these exact words, but my idea was roughly something like this. An image started to take shape in my head, or rather say, some wishes and desires.
So – as I usually do with every project – I started to note these wishes, tried to connect them with little sketches, and just write down everything that came into my mind (and I saw promise in it, or at least what I liked). My notebook’s pages filled quickly this way, and foundations started to form.