M.A.G.D.A. -THE CARD GAME
M.A.G.D.A. or, Mapping And Galactic Dream Assistant, is a solo card game with a successful campaign premiering on Kickstarter. In the game, you are tasked with traveling the universe in a ship that is powered by your dreams. Your AI has become sentient, however, and wants to thwart you from completing any of your tasks. She will stop at nothing to keep you to yourself, even if it means total annihilation.
The cards are Tarot sized to celebrate both the art but also give the player a sense of prediction, much like going to a psychic for a reading.
VILLAIN PERSONA
To infuse the game with personality, I wanted to integrate the Villain of the story (MAGDA) throughout the campaign. I wanted her to be listening in and then responding by attempting to tempt you, tease you, even flirt with you. The very first paragraph describing the game became a graphic to help make it look like MAGDA was rewriting copy by scratching things out. In the comments section, she even answered certain questions by backers in a cutesy way adding ridiculous ASCI emoji’s in her responses. Her voice in typography would splatter over perfectly fine graphics in blood red to defy the rules. I even had her respond and post media on Instagram as if she had hacked the system and had taken control over the gaming companies account! When I wrote the script for how to play the game (video) I decided to have MAGDA voice the instructions—sometimes she even gave bad advice just to make it interesting.
In the opening paragraph to the game, the antagonist immediately starts crossing things out.
MAGDA, the Antagonist of the story, overrides the kickstarter campaign and starts communicating with customers using syrupy language and cutesy emojis. This was a risk potentially making a mockery of fans comments, so the writing had to be delicate while still being charmingly obnoxious…
The villain’s voice peppers the campaign as much as possible.
Narrative Lore written for the Game
For the Limited Edition version of the games, I wrote a “mini-coffee table” book as lore for the game. It not only gives some back story into how the ship and characters evolve, but it also includes additional illustrations not used in the game. The size of the book was charmingly small but was hardbound with a gold foil cover.
The coffee table book acted as lore for the game to fans excited about playing.
For the physical box, I wrote additional copy for the Antagonist. When you lift the book out, she pleads with you not to read any further so she can redirect you to her own nefarious purposes.