How I Designed a Game Around Streetwear
I started with a T-shirt design and no real plan. Somewhere along the way it became a world, a card game and a comic and an alternate reality streetwear game. Here’s how I built a game around streetwear.
Geometric Eye was the first design that I drew for the Teemill store. I had no idea what kind of store I was building, other than sustainable. I knew I wanted it to be different.
At that stage I was cycling between everything from 90s retro symbols to geometric animals with no decisions. I knew I wanted to use my old art.
The first design, the geometric eye sketch and printed version.
Redesigning 20yr old characters
I took some of my old characters, drawings and sketches and put them in the store. I didn’t have a reason why. Some I redesigned slightly, and some I kept the same.
These became Logic, Tenet, Ultraviolet and Sun Eater.
Gradually, as I added more art, illegible to all but to me, the world was emerging.
Their stories were unfolding.
The characters were evolving and before I knew it I had a psychostasia judge, a slightly too experimental planet builder, an intergalactic backpacker who stopped by for the music and bubble wrap and an intergalactic star maggot who is happily munching on dying stars.
Unfortunately, that last one is heading toward ours.
Mapping game to garment
That was really the easy part. I researched different ways games communicate rules, worlds, progression, player behaviour, consequence and more, across wildly different games and media, and then figured out what my existing world could mechanically do.
What happened to sustainability?
I leaned heavily into sustainability messaging those first few months and discovered then that sustainability on its own wasn’t going to move the needle. I had to make it worthwhile. Mean something.
One of the biggest things we do is circularity. And it’s one of the last things we do as people.
So I built recycling into the game twice. In play, Recycle undoes your opponent's last move. Outside the game, the same idea continues through the clothes: scan the QR code in the care label, return the garment when you're finished with it, and it goes back into the system to become something else.
I’m not claiming I’ve solved the problem, but I am trying to make participation part of the thing.
Alternate Reality Streetwear Game
The clothes are the artifacts. The cards are where you play. The comics are where the characters come alive.
Different parts of the same world.
Game to garment
The cards and the artifacts (clothing) are now coherent. The final designs are being added over the next few weeks.
Next, I'll be finishing the cards and working on getting them into the hands of our testers.
If you would like to test the game, you can find out more here.
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.
Building Worlds
Building an original world isn't always about making progress. Sometimes it's about waiting for the next piece of the puzzle to reveal itself. A founder's journal on comics, creativity and building The Canis one step at a time.
The most frustrating thing about building an alternate reality streetwear game and world is that my brain needs rest in between.
The cognitive load of the past week has been brutal.
Letting the puzzle emerge rather than making the pieces fit is honestly annoying.
I don’t often stare at a blank page for very long, or at least if I do, then there is my first clue, I’m barking up the wrong Tenet.
The Comic
As The Canis underwent its own supernova, and exploded in every direction, I have been trying to work out what goes in the comic.
I already had the story, so how hard could it be right?
A week of hardly anything. Small notes, one hour of progress, and then the end of thought, for the day not just that session. And when I say end, I mean end. Of productivity as well, not just comic book text.
That’s been rough, I don’t like slow. Everything is already slower by its nature, independent brand, solo founder, circular fashion.
It feels personal, when it goes even slower because I’m still going a thousand miles an hour.
But the comic has emerged successfully.
Concept artwork exploring Spineless, one of the Conditions spreading throughout The Canis.
Art is next
This is actually what I was most afraid of but having gone through the comic book tunnel and emerged the other end, with game stronger and story stronger, the art has become what I am most looking forward to. I just wish there were two of me.
Kerryn and Nyrrek
Why am I picturing one with a hunchback?
Printing the comic
I’ll be hiding it online first. Once I have done the work that needs to be done, over the coming months, I will see if people want it. You might have noticed hardly anyone knows we exist yet.
I just need to move house, and then that will be my focus. In the meantime, tell someone you know.
Much bigger than me
I’ve quietly built a behemoth.
Does anyone have any biscuits?