In the beginning...

During Lucky Draw’s first weeks of our game development class, I think we’d all agree we really hit the ground running. Most of our team members had at least a slight familiarity with game design from prior classes, although none of us had ever quite dabbled in the “card-stock” side of things; that is to say, built an entire card game from the ground up, with just a theme and a basic premise to go off of. 

Our first class, we got to meet the man himself, Mr. Matthew Tarulli of ODAM Publishing, and from there the ball was rolling. The team was introduced to the concepts behind game design, and what really makes a “worker placement”; the hierarchy of characters, portraits vs placeholder pieces, subtle art design, these were all things we may have noticed playing games in the past, but were now holding new meaning about what it truly meant in a game: In this case, The Lords of Waterdeep. Some game play decisions were obvious, sending your soldiers to different towns and stations to accrue materials and resources. Others were not—such as, why do certain characters receive higher attention to detail, and which direction does the hierarchy go? I myself had never truly noticed these choices until it was pointed out.

That first week consisted of brainstorming, spit-balling, team-building, and attempting to create the bones and basic structure from a singular idea: “Combating crunch culture.” 

- Cat the Animation Lead & Epic Scribe (Writer)