Forum Flame Wars

Inspiration

In 2011 I was an avid board game player, in an effort to combine the best features of all the card games I started trying to balance the player interactions in a game without having to rely on resources to restrict the player and slow down the game. Since a large amount of my social interactions at the time were in a purely online environment the game started off using place-holder names for cards that made reference to the culture and inside jokes, however once play testing started the place-holder names had stuck and the game became far less serious and aimed to construe circumstances where the player would say seemingly ludicrous sentences. Due to complications in some of the mechanics; the design was shelved for a few years until a solution to produce the game digitally was proposed.

What it does

The game is a platform for a multiplayer collectable card game, where players play short intense games with cards making references to popular internet cultural touchstones, all in the metaphorical scope of a pointless argument.

How I built it

First using paper, I built a prototype to make sure the core game was enjoyable, after a few dozen play-throughs with as many people I could convince to play all the details were wprked out and the shortcommings of a physical medium were quantified. Using Unity 5.1 we built an environment for the games to take place and control the nuanced action between turns

Challenges I ran into

We've been suffering from a talent shortage and will frequently hit bottle necks where we have to build supplementary assets while our main programmer is lent to another team. Another problem is that our lead dev is involved in two projects and has to split his focus and time which can lead to unnecessary delays

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Our team has managed to produce something that was initially thought only possible with a much larger team in a very short time all while splitting our attention between the main production of the game and the follow up Kickstarter campaign.

What I learned

As a producer I mainly learnt what the minimal amount of instruction people need to continue after finishing some work, as a developer the importance of solid and clear documentation. Of our few rookie devs, they got a crash course in keeping up with more work than they can produce.

What's next for Forum Flame Wars

If our Kickstarter bid is successful then we'll ramp up into more and more features and attempt to launch the game in 6 months, if not then we'll still continue to build the game and launch it on a much smaller scale in about 8 months.