Yo, awesome people of SRK,
I’m known on the internet by my over-the-top dA persona, Davy Wagnarok (http://davywagnarok.deviantart.com/). For the last year, I have been working tirelessly to create a retro beat-em-up inspired card game, called “N30N City RUMBLE” (NCR). LINK DROP TIME!!!: It’s quite possibly the world’s first 5-on-5 tag team fighting game! This is only possible because of the medium I chose to market the game: Table Tops.
Creating a fighter videogame of this magnitude would require tons of resources and a robust play-testing crew to manage all of the X-factor that would come up in having 10 fighters kicking ass on the screen simultaneously. I knew going into this that I would be tapping into a “niche” market, what with the retro aesthetic of the game (it’s an homage to 90’s beat-em-up classics like Double Dragon, River City Ransom, and Streets of Rage), and also the unseemly stereotype that board game geeks are not interested in videogames.
This is more than a stereotype. In my opinion it’s a downright fallacy. Especially when one stops to consider the following Pokemon, Magi-Nation, and Yu-Gi-Oh! have (had), each yielding its own slew of videogame spin-offs. Hell, WoW: tTGC was based off a videogame, and now it has Hearthstone, a virtual card game that has origins in both video and analog game mediums. Just sayin’.
Maybe it’s just that they don’t want new card games. Think about it. What’s on the shelf right now besides MtG, Yu-Gi-Oh, WoW:tCG, My Little Pony, Deadpool, Pokemon, and that Buddy-Fight kid thing? Over in the TT area you might find a couple Fantasy Flight-owned card games and then you have Steve Jackson’s Munchkin (my personal favorite). That’s all I ever see when I go to Hastings - though this is slightly skewed by the fact that it’s one of the only retail stores that sells card games in the small desert town I live in.
But I can’t help but think “is this all the card games we’re allowed to have?”
I hope I don’t sound too bitter, jealous, or playing the blame game (I’d go with answer D. All of the above). It’s just that I dedicated HUNDREDS of hours and emptied my savings account (idiot!) into making what I really feel one of the coolest new card games and one of the best-looking Kickstarter pages ever made. We were off to a great start, landing 20% of the goal in two days, and even took a “Staff Pick” achievement while we were at it. But that all changed once a week passed and something like 30 new titles came out, bumping our game down the Popularity queue. As of right now, we are only 54% funded with just 11 days left in the campaign. I just don’t get it.
I thought we were working with liquid gold here. I mean, I still do. I just can’t help but feel like its lack of exposure that’s stifling our Kickstarter campaign. My colleague, Rudy, and I are slaving away at our computers right now; he on creating new content for the page, while I am solely dedicated to shameless self-promotion. We have purchased ads, however, but we have only garnered two new backers from this avenue. I really hope this turns around next week.
I cannot convey enough to the gallons of love and tears and blood and sweat and other extremities that went into the creation of this game. It’s got some tried-and-true game mechanics, while introducing new concepts such as the Pit-Stop, a mid-round “pawn shop” where you can trade for cards using cards you acquired through the previous combat round.
And what other analog game lets you defend using a table as a wall, or eat turkey legs to gain HP, or steal a purse to acquire money, or bash your opponent over the head with a steel pipe? What other game, period, lets you tag five fighters in and out of combat and combine epic super moves to bust up your opponent’s gang of street fighters? What other game has an anthropomorphic assassin Rubik’s cube!? Booyah!
This game was made for me (and what’s wrong with a developer making a game he/she would want to play, right?). It’s a throwback to everything I loved about my 90s childhood: it’s got stretchy frogs, vigilante bros., MechaMan (a washed up otaku Megaman cosplayer), Simone Belmondo (sports a “Dare to Keep Kids Off Blood” jacket), and Smith & Weston (Contra’s Billy and Lance… combined into a mutant Siamese twin). Yes, it’s THAT good.
Please take the time to check out our labor of love. I just know in my heart that it won’t let you down. I’ve played it for hundreds of hours and I still find new surprises and strategies every time I sit down to play-test with my friends.
To the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davywagnarok/n30n-city-rumble
Thank you.
—Davy Wagnarok
