Hello,
My name is John Pace and I am new to these Forums. I am 34 years old and I have been designing games for many years though I have just recently started getting serious with it. Early on I would design table top RPG's for fun to play with my friends, recently I have dabbing in video game and board game creation. I love to design games more than I love to play games it seems sometimes, I get very excited when I plot out new details or rules to a game.
My most recent project is what has lead me here to find this wonderful community. Some of my projects I have tried to force it too much or starting working on a project in hopes of making money off it, which is not the right reason for me. I decided to get back into things and create a game for the love of creating it.
The game is call Horde and "Heroes" and it is a parody treasure defense card game. The game pits two or more people against each other and either pick the Horde or the "Heroes". The Horde, made up of mostly Orc's, are trying to defend their treasure while the "Heroes" are trying to take it. The Horde team then designs a path using path cards, which can include forks in the path or loops as well. The "Heroes" team then have to run down the path and try to take the treasure and get back out, all within 10 rounds or the Horde wins. Both sides have their own deck to draw from, and the sides do not have to be equal.
The game is designed to be rules light so it is easy to jump into, but still be flexible to allow for many different play styles. The game is still early in the prototype phase, though I have had a few play tests so far. I have at least the basic rules laid out and the cards themselves will have any special rules that override the normal rules. I am working with my artist I have found to create cards as the play testing goes along, I have attached a couple concepts designs.
The idea for Horde and "Heroes" comes from a video game I was designing but had to be put on the back burner for now. The video game is a tower defense style game being told by the Hordes side and not the Hero's point of view, in it you control the Horde and place them along the path then the wave of heroes comes down the path. It is designed to be a parody of the silly video game logic in both RPG's and tower defense games. The Heroes are in quotes because to the Horde they are not Heroes at all, just people coming to take their treasure.
After a while I realized that the video game was going to take a lot of resources and expertise I did not have so my smart Wife suggested I create a card based game. After a while I was able to formulate the rough draft and started creating what I have so far. I liked the name so much I decided to keep it for the card game as well.
The question about the artwork is a good one and it ties back into the video game. Normally I would not commission artwork so early, nor even think about the art until much later in the process. I was talking to the Artist I had found for the video game about the card game and he offered to continue working on the card game as he like the idea of the game and he enjoys working on the Horde characters. Some of the artwork is stock work already paid for, like the grunt pic I posted. Other work will be newer for the card game, like the warg rider. It helps me by getting a picture to the cards and it helps him by giving him some more experience in drawing. Since no money is changing hands at this point I figured it was not a bad deal.
I hope that helps explain a bit about my thought process and the the name of the game. I welcome any question, and thank you for the warm welcome.