Playtesting An Original Card Game
What does it take to playtest an original card game? As The Canis moves from simulation testing to physical prototypes, the next challenge is finding the people willing to play it, break it and tell us what doesn't work.
The past couple of weeks has been an all-out sprint to get the game completed and simulation tested. I’ve started art, though I wish I had a clone I could force to draw for eight hours while I work on everything from socials to funding.
The Canis card game is moving from simulation to physical playtesting. Prototype decks are coming.
Finding your people
Mongrel Logic has always been for people like me. Who can just as easily be found listening to metal as they can opera. Who love science and science fiction, who love words, worlds and fantasy. The more blurred the genre, the better. Intelligent topics but not to the exclusion of “Destination F****d.”
People who love fashion as much as they do cosplay and make-up and the holey sweatshirt they have lived in for the past twenty years. People who care about what is going on in the world, would quite like to, you know... well, you know. But we're also determined to see it fixed.
We don’t really fit in the boxes. We exist across genres, places, cultures.
How do you find playtesters?
Ideally, you find your people.
Well, that strategy is unfolding. In all the areas hinted at above.
What do the playtesters do?
We're selecting a small group to receive a prototype deck and booklet before launch.
Play it. Break it. Tell us what doesn't work.
Selected testers will receive a Mongrel Logic organic cotton T-shirt as thanks.
When is this happening?
Over the coming weeks, as I complete the artwork, I’m selecting a small group of people to playtest the first Canis card game before launch. Register your interest in playtesting if you’d like to be a part of this.
I still need to name the card game. The Canis blank as it stands. Might just be the card game, spade a spade.
Designing The Canis Game
I built the world until it became playable. After months of worldbuilding, card design and simulation testing, The Canis game is approaching its final stage. Now I just have to draw…everything.
Designing The Canis Game
The final stage of building the Mongrel Logic alternate reality streetwear game is approaching.
The comic is written. The card game has been designed, and I’ve just completed simulation testing. I roughly built the deck out of paper, played and…
I lost but there we are.
I will be naming the card game, but right now, The Canis game is close enough.
How did I build the game?
You are not going to like the answer.
Backwards. I spent months upon months since I launched the first T-Shirt designs using my old teenage art; they were characters I had drawn and started developing over 20 years ago, trying to figure out how I was going to tell a story that started there.
I built the world first, played with character ideas and concepts and eventually turned that internal logic into a game. I built a world until it became playable.
Rudimentary Canis Game card deck, used for testing
From 18 Characters down to 4
Over the past week I have trimmed back over forty different concepts, built sequences, and run days of simulation testing. The deck is playable, there are no dead hands, the sequences all work and are well balanced.
My brain has run a marathon.
Sun Eater is coming; it’ll soon be up to you.
Art can start
There is a Kerryn shaped hole in the door.
What comes next?
Sustainable comics and cards. You will finally be able to see The Canis in its true form.
Plus, our newsletter; I am working on making this valuable, different. I know some wonderful people have subscribed, and I will be getting this done soon.
To infinity and be..oh no wait that’s the wrong thing.
The Canis Game
What exactly is The Canis? After days of trying to define the world I was building, I finally realised the answer was staring me in the face. This behind-the-scenes journal explores the game, the comics, the cards, AI, and a painting from my teens that somehow predicted it all.
It’s hard to articulate how many things I hold in my head on any given day. Building this game out is fun and terrifying in equal measure. I’m sure you can guess why. But in case you can’t, its fun because I get to play for a significant portion of my time, making up star maggots and mapping their evolution.
It’s terrifying because it’s early. Literally no one but me asked for this.
Kinda rule number one of business.
I have a habit of approaching things from a different angle.
It is so actively in development, that I have been asking myself the question, what is ‘The Canis’, is it a world, a universe? Yes me, the builder of it. This has been going on for days.
And only just landed on the right words, roughly sixty seconds ago.
It’s a game. Duh.
Really, I blame my to do list. It wraps around the planet at this point.
Designing the cards
I can’t be an expert in everything and believe me, I am not. I have enough background to build this without feinting each day, but I have gaps.
One rather amusing one, was realising how integrated the cards and comics are. To anyone who has been building games for centuries, I salute you. It was only when I sat down to write the comic that I realised I had to design the cards first.
We haven’t even got to the art yet.
The art
While recording for socials this week, I have been talking about AI. Love or hate it, its here. I only use my own art to generate our AI reels.
It’s how I can test personalities, ideas, concepts, styles, formats without spending 14 weeks trapped in an art cycle that I can’t maintain.
I draw all the hoodie designs, characters, and worlds. I am drawing all the comics, cards and I write the blog, my website and my world. This is not an AI world.
It seems like it has been living in my head a very long time; I found a photo of an old painting I did, and thematically, it’s eery how it is kinda all there without it knowing what it was yet. This was painted sometime in the 2000s.
Eyeballs, weird trees, random entity. That giant sun. Spooky.
Now, I started this all with art from my teens, but finding this photo with all those elements was nuts. This painting has now inspired another world and characters.
I use AI to help research, SEO, editing, project management, and images.
I dream of the day that I can hire writers and artist etc.
The thing that bothers me most about AI, is sustainability. With it being the backbone of everything I build, coupled with no data and warranted suspicion, it remains to be seen how we deal with that, globally as well as individually. This blog is not long enough for the rest of the arguments so moving on.
A painting (and photo) from the 2000s. Looking back, it's strange how many themes that became The Canis were already there.
When are the comics coming?
Now-now. Over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing progress and taking you along for the ride.
And the cards?
Just-now.
Official terminology…
It’s happening now. I have already started. The world is coherent, the game is playable, the system is working, the world is growing faster than I can keep up. I just need to build all the other parts you can play with.
No pressure. When I start licking the chalk I will let you know.