Prototyping/Playtesting

The earliest prototype for The Theatre was simply a deck of cards with bonus things drawn on them in sharpie. The print system wasn't implemented, there were no abilities, and there were only 4 suits, but the concept could be played. It was surprisingly engaging for lacking a lot of mechanics, although it didn't have quite the appeal needed for more than a game or two.

Adding a fifth suit and the suit die brought in randomness - not enough to be relied on but enough to stage comebacks and upsets. This made the game really playable, and that's when I had to really start thinking outside of just a plain deck of cards.

Abilities came next and balancing was at the front of my mind when implementing them. I wanted to keep numbers small so all of them only added a point or two. Boost and Sap were the first and they were originally tied to suit, but that made the game a bit more focused on one element than I wanted. Combo and Finisher were quick additions that added a brand new strategy around play order (more-so than Boost and Sap).

Adding the Print for cards truly fleshed out the core system, and let Boost and Sap be free from a single suit. Once all these elements had been added, a basic deck of cards were far from adequate for the game's purposes. The next prototypes were simple cut out cardstock with hundreds of variations of power, suit, type, and cost. Everything stayed simple with numbers for power and letters for types. This actually let the deckbuilding prototyping begin.

Once mechanics had been tested enough it was time to digitize things. The Tabletop Simulator mod was an easy jump since I had experience with it, and after that card art really ramped up. The theme had always been The Theatre, but it didn't really come into play during most of the first steps.

At the point of writing this, the art is around 25% fully complete with a steady cadence through the rest. Next protoyping efforts will be around Print and Play for those who want to try it out physically, as well as adding more cards and art to the TTS mod. I'm excited to be back at it after the holidays and look forward to sharing more soon!

-Telsie