Who was that famous poet or author who said, “I spent all morning taking a comma out and all afternoon putting it back in.”? That’s how I feel right now.
Originally, the Starter Deck didn’t come with a gaming board. MG3K isn’t a board game in that it doesn’t have a stagnant, preset board and you do work with handheld cards. It’s a CCG (collectible card game) but there’s also this amazing real-life movement aspect to the game play that rocks my world (though not as much as a steaming shot glass of thick Armenian coffee with cinnamon, nutmeg and half a pinch of all spice... Mom? Are you reading this? How about it? Dad? Anyone? Come on! It’s only one in the morning!!). So the board isn’t mandatory but it makes laying out pieces much easier.
Initially, IDP (Immortal Day Publishing, the gaming division of Windstorm) was going to offer Deluxe Gaming Mats (which is what I use—a red and black one) but their only supplier was demanding a starting print run of 15,000 and for a nonessential element that was steep. But the boards printed one at a time are $33!! At my urging, and because the boards are cross compatible with any Cardz2 game (of which there will be quite a few by the end of 2007), IDP listed the Deluxe Boards for $35 at their webcenter (22 x 22 inches, full-color, gloss laminated).
Enter Jeananne. A friend of my editor (Cris DiMarco) and Windstorm’s Art Director, Buster Blue, who is the design lead on MG3K. She played a few hands of MG3K with Cris (Cris beat her every time but she still loved the game) and wanted to send me a thank you for their great evening. She also felt pretty strongly that MG3K can NOT be easily played without a board. As a heretofore non-CCG players, she said it would have been daunting for her to envision the movement aspect of play without the gridlines of the board... but with the board (Cris has a purple and black Deluxe) it was simple. In the mail from Jeananne comes this amazing prototype of a 21 x 21 board that comes in four interlocking pieces – 10.5 x 10.5. Easy to manufacture. Easy to package. Same artwork options as the Deluxe. Love it.
So today...
“I spent all morning talking about making the MG3K Starter Deck package 12 x 12 and all afternoon talking about making the MG3K Starter Deck package 11 x 11.”
Hey, baby, this is the life ;)
E.J.
