Inspired by Card Thief and More

In my previous post, I talked about how Sheeping Around was going well as a tactics like turn based strategy game. However in mid 2017 I would purchase a game on my phone that would not only have me addicted to it, but also change the face of Sheeping Around for the better. That game was Card Thief, designed by TinyTouchTales.

I'm like Hearthstone, but I'm not the biggest fan. Card Thief, however was a solitaire game with a dungeon theme. Its game mechanics and progression amazed me. I was surprised how moving around nine cards on the screen could offer so much variety.

I thought about making Sheeping Around a solitaire card game. I took a couple visiting cards and wrote card names at the back and tried a few runs, but the mechanic didn't fit quite fit in. Tried a couple variations in the design but no avail.

I played more digital card games, notably Miracle Merchant, Card Crawl (other games by TinyTouchTales), and Exploding Kittens, Jaipur and Onirim. After much thought, I decided to go multiplayer. I was reluctant at first, since multiplayer usually requires more cost and effort on the programming side, but went ahead anyway.

I prototyped an initial version of the game, on the back of some visiting cards initially, and played with friends and family. The feedback was fairly positive. When the gameplay was fairly final, I designed a handmade deck:

The concept was simple: Each player needs to graze or lure sheep by attaching graze / lure cards to the sheep. The first person to take home or steal two of the three sheep wins. You began with 5 cards and drew a card every turn. There were also bonus cards that you could play as many as you liked per turn. Mixing and matching various elements of the gameplay surprisingly resulted in a variety of variations, giving players a new experience in every game.

After the physical test, I began prototyping the digital version and thinking about its design. It began on paper, and I thought of some UI design ideas in Sketch.

Eventually, I did a quick prototype using Node.js as the backend and Angular.js on the frontend, which you can play here in your web / mobile browser. It looked something like below:

I shared the prototype with couple of people and from the play tests, it looked quite addictive. I began looking for artists and their portfolios for a suitable art style that could fit this game. One of my friends Rashi keeps sharing her art on Instagram and Facebook from time to time and saw the below post, which I found to be really impressive:

I contacted her and talked about the game idea, and she came in as the game artist for this game. With the art coming in place, the game has been coming together in better shape.

This is what the journey has been so far for Sheeping Around. In the follow up posts, I will talk about the development, content, and more updates.