Trickster: Starship and Trickster: Symbiosis now live! (Plus Kickstarter plans!)

 

I'm happy to say the two newest Trickster sets are now live at http://www.smartplaygames.com! Trickster is a series of fun casual strategy card games featuring heroes from many genres and universes. You’re trying to keep those gallant chumps from meddling in your business. Lure them toward your opponents and try to keep them away from you. Whoever has the fewest heroes will be the winner!

Each Trickster set is a standalone game, but you can mix heroes from different sets to customize the play to your group’s tastes.



Trickster: Starship is a fast-paced and competitive set featuring the motley crew of the starship Emphasis as they explore the unknown. Art by Brian Patterson.



Trickster: Symbiosis is a highly strategic set featuring characters from the biopunk setting Symbiosis by Steven Sanders.

Both games are completely compatible with Trickster: Fantasy and Trickster: Tianxia. For more news on the future plans, see below.


Kickstarting Trickster

Yes, it's long overdue, but I'm finally taking the plunge into crowdfunding again! The plan is to fund a print run of 1000 copies of Trickster: Fantasy in a two-part box with a full-color rules sheet. I'll need to raise about $15,000 to make that happen. I'll add more Trickster sets as stretch goals to the campaign at key funding milestones thereafter.

This is a big step for my company and one I've been reluctant to take for a long time. It takes a lot of time and money up front to get into retail channels and I've grown comfortable with my POD model the past few years. But it's become evident that I shouldn't put all my eggs in one basket like that.

I feel strongly about Trickster's potential in the wider market and I'm eager to see what comes of it. I hope I can count on your support as Smart Play Games takes this next step!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more