Exhibit Work
At a young age, I was always fascinated with card games, mostly Yu-Gi-Oh. I liked collecting the cards because the monsters were unique and fun to collect. As a child who mostly watched the show, there was no given explanation on how the game was played. A child wasn’t going to sit down and read the instructions and spent hours to just get confused at the end. I was always left confused and eventually gave up on the game entirely. As I grew older, I’ve noticed that every year new games come out and disappear in an instant. Games today try and replicate what existing games already achieved or make an entirely new mechanic that overwhelms players. I tried getting into some of these games, but the learning curve is too similar to one game or too much to comprehend. There always have to be a “gimmick” with these types of games, but it should be simple and easy to learn. Card Games should be easy to understand and able to play in a few minutes after explanation and as soon as you buy it.
I created Spirit Call to take elements from games I played and enjoyed and create a game that feels similar but also different. It’s an easy to learn game that would take little to no time to fully understand. In some games the Attack and Defense Stats are small and overlooked, I wanted my game to have the Stats clear and easy to view. In other games, the Effects are long winded text that feels like a novel or too short that it becomes vague. In Spirit Call, the Effects are straight to the point, “What you need to activate the Effect” and “What the Effect does.” Players like to collect cards, but it defeats the purpose when the game is hard to pick up and learn. Eventually it becomes another type of Sports Cards. There is a sense of strategy and trying to get the best creatures to build an optimal deck. I wanted to show that my design, I didn’t want to flood the cards with art, text, or small details. I wanted to make things to be clear and enjoyable to look at. I would like players to see the cards and say “Oh, cool, that looks like something I would play!” I like card games; I want to share my passion with other people and I want to inspire people to make their own games too, one day.
