HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Indexodus Era (December 2009 - December 2010)

Spell Saga is created by Todd Michael Rogers & his cousin, Lauren Rogers.

Because Spell Saga grew out of the circumstances of my life, it is nearly impossible to separate the game’s design history from some of my more personal moments.

On December 6th 2009, the seeds of a solitaire card game were born on a scrap of paper at a cubicle in Nashville, Tennessee. After a week of sketches, the game was titled "Spell Saga". The earliest notes show ideas for several numerical generations of the game, and strange packaging options—such as boxes rigged to blow confetti the first time they were opened, or raise cards attached to tiny pennants as a recording of trumpets played. The game was designed from the beginning as both “an experience” and “impossible to create”.

For the story, I decided on a Lonely bard named "Exodus", and a sex-worker named Abilene. The earliest ideas were discovered by driving through the cold and listening to music from Japan & Scotland.

Hiding from an unfinished novel, I chose to spend the month of December pursuing ideas for the game system. The first iteration of the game was based on a vision of a reel-to-reel cassette tape. In essence, two decks of cards which would progress into one another like the reel of a film. Because of this, I decided to make a double-sided prototype.

During the 2009 Christmas holiday in St. Charles Missouri, I sat down with a stack of blank index cards, my notes for the game, and the rough knowledge of how it should feel. Over the course of two hours I created several cards as he played through the blank deck. These included a lost pixie to befriend (or eat to gain Armor), a haunted revolver from another story of mine called WHYLC, and a crumbling tower—all of which are still present in the finished game. Between each session he would write his friends and tell them of his adventures. Plans grew to start a gaming company, like they had envisioned as young adults.

After the holidays, I spent the rest of December compiling notes for the game and working on ideas for the story and its gaming system. By the end of the month, I even had a name for our fledgling game company: French Toast. The last thing I did before putting the game away was meet with my friends, Sakroka & Paxson of Ashgarden, to explain the plan.

A year passed.

In the Winter of 2010, as the end-of-the-year holidays grew closer, I put the manuscript away once more, and dug out my notes for Spell Saga.

Another month of development commenced. This time, the goal was to make a simpler gaming system. Pieces of Deck 2: The Forest were also thought up at this time. These included a male wizard who became a fox during the day, and a full grown man at night. There was originally going to be a dream sequence/sex scene between the protagonist and the wizard but this idea was dropped in later versions of the game.

Spell Saga was growing, and Deck One ~ The Highlands was building itself further with each play through. The biggest impediment was the fact that I was the only person who could play the game, as the scribbles and pictures on the index cards were barely legible.

In order to move forward with development, and to share the game with others, I used a very crude knowledge of Photoshop to make minimalistic black and white cards. In this version, card types were designated by using different shapes and designs. I also shrunk the cards down to fit in standard plastic sleeves.

With another month of development and a more playable game. I put everything away to return to my novel, choosing to finish it before devoting any more time to Spell Saga.

 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Gen Con Era (May 2011 - August 2011)

I finished the first draft of my novel in April of 2011. And without a project to finish, the monotony of a low paying job and failing marriage began to infiltrate my reality. Within two weeks of putting the manuscript away I was focusing once again on Spell Saga.

But even if the game was finished, I would still need a publisher with distribution channels. To this regard, I contacted Peter Adkison, after guessing his email on the sixth try. Adkison was a legend in the tabletop world, as both the founder of Wizards of The Coast (publisher of Magic: The Gathering) and owner of Gen Con (a gaming convention started by Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons).

After telling him I had “the next big thing in gaming”, Adkison agreed to meet with me. Plans were set to demo the game in private at the 44th Gen Con in August of 2011. The only problem was Spell Saga didn’t “work”. The idea had no art, no rules, and was essentially a stack of useless cards.

It was May of 2011, and I had three months to create a solid & enticing playable prototype of the game.

I set up shop in my living room, using a dining table as my workspace. On the wall facing me were tacked a copious amount of notes, and a homemade calendar which was increasingly covered in sharpie colored X's.

Wanting to make the game look as finished as possible, I began emailing family and friends, asking anyone who could hold a pencil to help out with artwork. I also began sketching ideas for the packaging, including how the rulebook might look.

I had met Weshoyot Alvitre on myspace in 2005. Since she was already drawing pictures for another game of mine, it made sense to have her draw a portrait for the hero, who was now called The Last Minstrel.

The next step was to take all the ideas that worked, and then expand upon them, cutting away anything that carried the wrong feeling. One glaring problem was how the battle system should work. There were enemy cards, and hero cards, and items made for attacking, but the rules of engagement were missing. Like most of Spell Saga’s early design, this problem fixed itself through sheer boredom at my day job—the battle rules appearing all at once on a piece of paper, as if by magic.

With a finished deck of 125 cards, I began to teach myself Photoshop.

Spell Saga ~ Version 3.0 ~

After a month of work, I drove an hour to have Sakroka play the game at his Mom’s dining room table. But within just a few minutes, it was apparent the game was bad. I drove home to nurse a beer. I called Sakroka, who had continued playing the game in my absence. His prognosis was that Spell Saga was clever, but it wasn’t fun. And with only two months left until Gen Con, I was back to square one.

It was apparent the double-sided cards would have to go. In a heightened flurry of design I found himself halfway through another version of Spell Saga before realizing a whole new idea for the game. I scrapped what would have become Spell Saga version 3.5, and began work toward a final version of the game's core mechanics.

I believed in this version so vividly, that I scrapped any plans for play testing before jumping straight into a final version of Photoshopped cards. I even created a 20 card "prelude" deck meant to help teach the player how to play the game. This deck included a rudimentary story of how The Last Minstrel had received his revolver.

~ Version 4.0 ~

A few weeks later, I drove back to Sakroka's house. This time we were joined by his brother-in-law, John Fly. We spread the cards out on a pool table, which would became a sort of hallowed ground of play testing. Play commenced for the next hour or so, and unlike its predecessor, the new 4.0 mechanics were deemed both fun and clever. So much so, that John Fly started playing The Prelude Deck while waiting for Sakroka to finish The Highlands. After two hours of testing, the friends adjourned to the front porch. There they discussed future possibilities of what was now called The French Toast Gaming Company.

With little time left, I received more art from an unexpected source: my 17 year old cousin, Lauren Rogers. The pieces were so good, that I asked her for more. Within a week of late nights emails, Lauren came up with the art style art for the game, and sent me an image which became the main branding of the game.

I set about to finishing the rest of Spell Saga. This included five decks, a new type of rules booklet, instructional play mat, and a box which included a secret compartment and sleeve of silver paper. To construct flip-top packaging for each deck, I took cigarette packs apart and resized them on sheets of the same silver paper. At one point, there was even a microchip that played the game's theme song when the box was opened, but I accidentally snapped this in half during construction.

The rest of the game's story was created from the cobbled notes and ideas I had kept through the last two years. Deck Two was based on just a page or so of notes. Whereas Deck Three, intended to be a massive dungeon crawl filled with too many possibilities for adventure, was built from random scribbles on torn paper and keeping track of ideas made on the fly while Photoshopping.

With only a few days left before the drive to Gen Con, I met Sakroka at his house, and we tested the game. Sakroka took an energy drink and played for five straight hours. By the time he reached the end of Deck 3, both of us were sure the game and its packaging was exciting as possible.

Later that week, we showed the game to our friends, including Paxson of Ashgarden, who had not anything until this final version. With no time left to play through it again, I read them the end of the story.

Everyone hoped the meeting would lead to a production deal and further development. Little did they know, Gen Con would be a disaster.

The following words are taken from Todd’s Journals in August of 2011:

Two days before the con my wife told me she wanted a divorce. I spent the night sleeping across from my finished game, and awoke bawling my eyes out. It was the worst night of my life, until the rest of the week hit.

The next morning, Sakroka and I drove to Indianapolis. On the way up we talked about the terrible night. And we talked of other things too; always circling that dark knowledge.

At the hotel I kept checking the bag to make sure my game was safe and not somehow ripped, or on fire. My meeting was the very next day, at 10 in the morning, so Sakroka and I decided to go ahead and check out the con…get a lay of the land and etc. The best part of the entire day was when he ripped his pants in half during a sword-fight against a bunch of other dudes.

That night he made me drive to the nearest (and I use the term loosely) Wal-Mart just so he could buy what I think he thought was a decent pair of jeans. On the way back we got lost. And so we drove around through the dark of foreign highways, the divorce now at the center of my thoughts. We eventually found a gas station, and a very non-reputable looking (and tasting) commercial chain diner. At this point it was well past midnight. I scarfed down something that looked almost like food, and we retired to our hotel across the street. 

And then it happened.

Sakroka couldn’t stop snoring. And coughing. Did I mention he was sick? Yep. He looked for the most part like he was about to die at any given moment. I kept telling him he was going to be patient zero at the con. And we would laugh. oh, how we would laugh! No one was laughing anymore. It was 2 AM, my life was falling apart, and I had to get up in five hours for the meeting. This was when I started losing my grip on reality. 

“This isn’t happening. Satan, can you hear me? Strike my friend down with your dark power…”

I woke up with three hours of sleep. At one point, I had tried to sleep in the bathtub, but to no avail. Sakroka said good morning, and I told him I was going to kill him.

In November, I met with Lauren in Florida, & showed her the finished Gen Con box. Then I went home, put Spell Saga away, and did not look at it for another year.

 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Kickstarter Era (November 2012 - November 2013)

In August of 2012 Sakroka and I accidentally met for lunch on the year-to-the-day anniversary of the failed Gen Con meeting. When we realized this, we started discussing the possibility of self publishing the game, including how much capital we might need for a small print run (our projections would be off by about $28,000 dollars). He mentioned using Kickstarter, but I was hesitant. We parted with plans of researching our options.

That December, I brought the Gen Con box to a house party. It was a hit, especially with an old friend named Joshua Rizzo. I called Sakroka the next night and acquiesced: we would Kickstart the game.

Two weeks were spent on research. I would leave work at the end of my day shift, and meet Sakroka across town for his night shift. We spent our evenings looking for cost effective ways to create and ship the game. One early idea was to have the cards printed on uncut sheets, and to cut the cards ourselves. This was eventually deemed unfair to the worth of the game.

Another problem was to figure out how to finish the illustrations. Lauren's art had become the look of the game, but she was in college now, and too busy to take on such a project. I spent weeks trying to find a solution. One night during a long phone call, I told Lauren the entire story of the game, reading her prose from the cards until we reached the ending. Lauren liked it, and agreed to help where she could.

The two of us set up weekly internet meetings, where we used a program called Skype to video conference between Tennessee and Florida. I would act out poses while Lauren shared her screen as she drew. We called these meetings "ArtSkyping". This was in January of 2013. Lauren would stay up late after her classes, and I would trudge through the cold to a neighbor’s home, as I did not have internet at the time. By the end of the first month, it was tentatively agreed Lauren would illustrate the entire game, including pieces for the game's Epilogue.

In the meantime, Sakroka & I began setting up a web presence. I started a design blog on a social media site called Tumblr. This was the first time the game had been seen online. Sakroka set up a Facebook page with the limited amount of art and information we had. The night it went live, Todd panicked and made a quick logo to look more professional. This is the very same logo Spell Saga uses today.

By the end of January, Sakroka notified me that he and his girlfriend were now expecting a baby, and his involvement was likely to suffer. After a night of alcohol inspired deliberation I called Joshua Rizzo and asked him to join the project.

With new art arriving every few nights, and a design blog updated strangers of their progress, it was time to begin redesigning the game for its final release. This meant redoing the graphic design and deciding how to balance out the gameplay. I would also have to rewrite the rules, and come up with a solution for the many cards which had no illustrations (such as STORY & PLACE cards). The goal was to have the Kickstarter no later than 4 months into the year. With that in mind I started work on Deck 1 ~ The Highlands.

~ Spell Saga 5.0 ~

After several false attempts for the look of the cards, I settled on one inspired by illuminated manuscripts. To solve the problem of the Place cards not having illustrations, I borrowed the design of the Story cards, using graphically stylized and poetic descriptions to force the player to imagine where they were visiting. During this time the “falling minstrel” design was invented for use on the Spell-Song cards and overall branding.

In March of 2013, after three months of continual design, version 5.0 was ready for play testing. Joshua and I met with Paxson of Ashgarden at Sakroka's new house to help move furniture and play test game. We found the mechanics to be fun and functional, while the gameplay was deemed strategic and exciting. But the game also felt unwieldy, and I began to doubt some of the design choices.

Meanwhile, Lauren printed her own batch of cards, and began to play test the game in Florida. During this time, she also started her first sketches for Deck 2 ~ The Forest.

The intended launch date for the Kickstarter was May 13, 2013. With two months left, I made two PnP demos of Deck One available to the public. One was a full color version, and the other was a black & white version without backgrounds and textures. Both files were accidentally missing the “Item Eater” ENEMY card. These were available to download on Spell Saga’s first website, which I had coded using a template written by John Fly.

A small group of players began to appear online. But as the date of the Fundraiser drew nearer, feedback and self doubt began to have its effect. With only weeks left before the launch, I put a halt to the entire operation, deciding once again to go back and redo everything based on feedback player’s feedback.

It was decided the cards would need to be rewritten for clarity, the rulebook would have to be redesigned from the ground up, and the graphic design would need to be scrapped and rethought from scratch. But the biggest change was yet to come: the entire project had become too important to produce cheaply. I began to research better quality manufacturing, and it became obvious we would need three times the amount of money originally envisioned. The fundraiser was now delayed until August of 2013.

Afraid of losing any momentum, Joshua and I began the process of rewriting the rulebook. During this stage the book were split into two separate entities. A gold rulebook would be used to reference any rules during play, and a silver rulebook would be used as a tutorial.

For the graphic design, a clean look was chosen, with each card receiving a standard new rule of design: “don't cover up the art”. Previously, the look of the game had previously been inspired by fantasy games of the mid 90's. Now it took its cues from the high production value of modern (2010’s) anime.

~ Spell Saga 6.0 ~

The cards also received iconography. A budding fanbase had requested icons to make gameplay easier. Although I was reticent, Joshua was excited by the possibilities. After two weeks of design, it was decided iconography would push the feel of everything away from a novel and too close to a game. In spite of this, we put a card type icon on the top right of every card, as it lent a much needed balance to the new 6.0 graphic design.

During this time, I began to sketch the first ideas out for the Spell Saga ~realmwalker ~ series.

As play testing continued on the game, Lauren discovered a major flaw in the mechanics which led to the creation of both the Hero and the Source Limits. Sakroka's pleas for more meaningful mechanics on the Story cards led to the convention of having each one add or subtract additional rules to the game.

As the Summer continued, the rulebooks became mired in rewrites. It was now July, and with less than a month to go until the Kickstarter, Joshua and I realized we would have to delay the fundraiser yet again. This time, no date would be scheduled. The game would be ready when it was ready.

This seemed to the final blow to everyone's spirits. After eight months of working nights and weekends, the group, held together only by me driving, Skyping, or inviting people over, began to disperse. Even I wanted to quit. Several small breakdowns followed over the rest of the Summer. People became unreachable. Sakroka regretfully quit the project until I told him he wasn’t allowed to.

Things only changed when Lauren came to visit that August. I spent an afternoon talking with her above our Aunt’s garage. We talked about Spell Saga and what we hoped to achieve with the game. This led to a renewed fervor toward their goal.

Soon after this, Sakroka solved the problem of the rulebook. After deciding to stay on with the project, he and I made plans to meet weekly during his night shift, just as we had at the beginning of the project. During the first of such meetings, Sakroka suggested the game was missing an “order of operations”. He split this group of operations into two categories: named Mandatory Actions & Free Actions. With this idea, the rulebook was finished after four months of toil.

Additional help came from an unexpected source: In hopes of getting the game professionally reviewed, Josh and I reached out to as many reviewers as we could find. One of the only to respond was Jonathan H. Liu. After sending them an embarrassing list of typos and reworded phrases, he agreed to review the game online.

Spell Saga was now had a very small but dedicated online following. One of the chief concerns of this new populace was a web presence for the game. Now that it was on its way to becoming a much larger project (complete with Chinese manufacturing a Kickstarter price tag of $30,000 dollars) the need for a professional website became apparent. Much of my time spent not writing a rulebook or play testing was used in learning how to produce an attractive website from scratch.

French Toast Gaming Co. set the date of the Kickstarter. Lauren finished ten months of illustrations and Joshua and I began shooting presentation videos. I also constructed a working music box, as proof-of-concept toward the game’s proposed special edition.

With everything in place, the Kickstarter was launched on October 21, 2013 with an intended goal of $35,000. And as per the rules of Kickstarter, FTGco. would have to reach that lofty number in exactly one month, or they wouldn't receive anything.

The funding rose rapidly, growing over $5,000 in the first twelve hours. Very quickly a community began to spring up in the Kickstarter's comments. People began to share pictures of their printed cards, and describe the stories of their games in long detailed comments.

My friends and I wouldn’t have time to celebrate. We had their first convention to attend. Nashville’s GMX 2011 had invited us to show off the game. Joshua and Sakroka paid for demo decks and for signage, while I made a looping video of Lauren’s artwork to be played on an old iMac. Both Jesse Paxson and John Fly came to support.

The convention lasted two days, and while not a complete failure, set the tone for the Kickstarter: the game was interesting, but marketed poorly.

By the time the Kickstarter reached its halfway point in November, it was apparent the goal would not be reached. I kept a steady stream of updates on the page. These were received by new international fans, many of whom started to ask what would happen if the Kickstarter failed.

With one week left in the campaign, I wrote myself a “Plan B” for the future of Spell Saga. This included contacting players who had offered to translate the game, researching alternate production methods, and deciding how best to harness a growing fanbase. The most important realization I had was realizing that people were enjoying the game already, through the use of Print & Play files. It was obvious the game had a future if I made the files a priority, that way the game would be available to anyone, regardless of fundraising.

Plan (B)ulletproof
On November 22, 2013, with just a few hours left before the end of the campaign, I wrote one last update. This unveiled the details of the game's future. The news was well received. Fans of the game were invited to join a mailing list with a chance to sign up for our fanclub: “The Weather Guard”. Both Portuguese & Japanese cards were previewed. These foreign language cards went over so well that several other players from around the globe offered to help translate the game into more languages. The Plan B update also promised Print & Play files, expensive printed “zero editions” of the game, a podcast, a new website with forums, and even a few ideas about how to expand the game’s community.

The following words are from the opening statement of Plan (B)ulletproof:

After the campaign ended, all that was left was new. New beginnings, and new friends. New goals and new plans…

Josh, Lauren, Sakroka and I would like the thank everyone of you. As personally a mass email will allow. We did not expect the excitement, love and support you girls and guys all brought to our lives.

We tried to make a lot of money so we could publish a game. Instead we got a community.

I can’t begin to tell you how honestly happy and excited we are to find new friends, new fans, and other people who just want to sit down and play this game we love playing. It was never our intention to do anything except beg people to try our game and not hate us for asking.

Look what we did. And when I say we, I mean you.

Unfunded campaign? That’s fine. I can’t tell you how many messages I received daily from people thanking and begging us to continue doing something we already loved doing.

And we ain’t gonna let you down.

After a year of work, French Toast Gaming Co. had raised $12,000 dollars and failed to fund their campaign. But the game was a success. People enjoyed it. Reviews had been kind. And now they had a new plan, one that would give them another shot at physical production, while making sure the game would have a chance to be enjoyed no matter what happened, with the use of Print & Play files.

 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Bulletproof Era (January 2014 - December 2014)

The first thing that needed to be done for Plan (B)ulletproof was to build a new commercially viable website. This was followed by a second website to carry the game’s many files, sketches and helpful information, called the wikiFAQ. A third site was designed as a forum for the game’s new fans to gather after the demise of the 2013 Kickstarter.

The first three months of the year saw the premiere of the “Work & Play” podcast, the inaugural issue of a newsletter called “The Weather Report” & the announcement of four foreign language editions (half of which would be abandoned by their translators).

Spell Saga was now a known entity among a small pool of international players, and French Toast Gaming Co. was beginning to sound and feel like a real thing. Plans for a second Kickstarter began to take seed. Between the fear of possibly failing in public again, another seemingly insurmountable workload on the horizon, and the reality that I had just turned thirty, I cashed out a meager 401k at my desk job and quit to work on Spell Saga full time.

For me, this seemed necessary, as both Decks Two & Three still needed to be designed. I was surprised to find that in the mad rush to get to the Kickstarter, I had already worked out many of the necessary logistics for Deck 2, writing in pen directly onto the 4.0 Gen Con Box edition.

Deck Two ~ The Forest ~ (version 6.0) took about a month to design in Photoshop, and then another to make it playable. Much of the work at this point went into the STORY cards (which now granted abilities to HERO cards) & The FOLK cards (which were paladins summoned from an out-of-game satellite pile. ENEMY cards also got a facelift, as Lauren and I decided upon a “splattered blood” look.

In May of 2014 the deck was ready. Joshua played through the game with no sleep. The next day I played the game for the first time in months and spent 6 hours getting from Deck One to the end of Deck Two.

Also that month, Joshua, myself, and Paxson of Ashgarden attended another local gaming convention. For our second outing, FTGco were shunted off to a side room away from the public. We would receive no visitors at our makeshift booth. For this reason, I swore off local conventions for good.

In June of 2014 it became apparent that with another Kickstarter on the way, the cards of Deck One would need to be remade from scratch, all over again. This was to get better backgrounds on the cards, more color in general (“color should not be feared” became my personal motto). Also, more standardized typography was needed for professional printing, and a few of the cards even needed new rules. The result would be Spell Saga 7.0, the standard for all first edition releases.

After the horror of spending a month straight redoing the same cards, I started an ever nastier challenge: through the feedback of the 2013 fundraiser, Joshua and I knew the rulebook would have to be fixed. Our last attempt had taken us four months. This time, riding on a wave of fear, they finished the 2014 rulebook in just four days.

June would also see the premiere of SpellSaga.com version 3.0.

Also that month, it was announced the “zero edition” of the game had evolved: the cards would be plastic; only for FTGco to reverse course the very next month. Issue 2 of the Weather-Report (released in July but cover-dated in May) made public the decision to return to cardboard cards, the use of their previous manufacturer (Panda Game Manufacturing), and to split the game itself into thirds. The upcoming 2014 Kickstarter would be for Deck One alone, though Deck Two was announced as a PnP download for the end of the year.

The pressure of another campaign was mounting, and I was running out of money. I took a part time job working remotely, but signs of a mental breakdown were starting to appear. I began ignoring Spell Saga, choosing to work on other projects. Then I buzzed my head and spent days working on a version of the game called SOURCEROR—the result of which was boiled down to (1) holofoil card.

That August, I drove to California in the midst of what could generously be described as a second failing marriage.

The following text is taken from the my online Spell Saga design journal:

In August I drove to California with the poet Matt Johnstone.

This was the month I cracked, real hard, and was not sure if I wanted to live anymore.

I quit smoking.

I tried to walk through terror shakes, and only spent one day unable to get out of bed.

I spent a lot of August working on the novel, and pulling the last threads of my mind back together.

Whatever doesn’t kill you.

By September, the threads of my life began to tighten back together. During this time Spell Saga began to arrive by email in translated documents. Dual Pistoleiro had completed most of his Portuguese version, and Raimund Ruppel was nearing the end of his German edition. Todd shifted focus to start recreating Deck One for the eighth and ninth time, only now the added challenge was in creating Portuguese letters in a Germanic font, and shifting the card designs to fit the text based needs of a foreign language. The original plan was to launch these editions alongside the 2014 Fundraiser, but as this deadline neared, I decided against it.

The kickstarter was set for October. A year from the attempt in 2013. With the fundraiser a month away, Lauren & I started art-skyping twice a week to get everything ready. September was also the month it was decided that Deck Two just wasn’t working—the numbers on the cards would need to be adjusted.

2014 Fundraiser

The night before the Fundraiser launched, Joshua and I spent nine hours re-filming a video for the Kickstarter page. The only tools we had were two iPhones, an aging iMac, no budget or microphones. Then, on October 17th, 2014, we launched the Fundraiser. This single act was the culmination of so much work that I passed out face-down in bed and woke up shouting in horror when roused for food.

The next day, I drove to meet Sakroka at a small town library. We sat at a children’s sized table as he played through and fixed the latest “renumbered” build of Deck Two. Then I returned home and ran the Kickstarter alone while re-designing Deck Two based on his playthrough.

In just three days, the fundraiser had reached 60% of its funding. On October 20th I posted an update selling prototype editions as high-dollar rewards. This was posted late at night in a garden of the Vanderbilt college campus, where I was stealing the wi-fi. By the time it took for me to relieve himself in a nearby bush, several of the prototypes had been purchased.

The next day, I drove to Sakroka’s house and paced around his front yard, wondering how best to run the Kickstarter. It was becoming obvious the game was likely to be funded. Sakroka urged me to start planning for stretch goals—if we were lucky, the Kickstarter donations would continue to grow, but to do so, FTGco would need more products to entice and reward their backers.

On October 23rd, I awoke to his wife telling me the game was funded—we now had enough money to get printed. It was a fan named Derek Davis who did it, pledging an extravagant amount of money, along with a private letter explaining his reasons.

Armed with the knowledge that Plan (B)ulletproof had worked, and the realization that people actually cared about what I was making, I scrapped all my plans for the day and drove to the parking lot of my former job—the same place I had walked the perimeter for years worrying about how to make Spell Saga. From there I shot a video thanking everyone while still in a daze from the funding.

During this time, other pieces of memorabilia were offered—including uncut 4.0 play test sheets from 2011, the original double-sided 3.0 version from 2011 (donated to the cause by Sakroka, who had kept it since his initial play test), and the original 2013 prototype music box. Along with everything else, it was announced that the PnP of Deck Two was going to be released the following week to everyone who had pledged at a higher level.

A week after funding, I lost almost all contact with Joshua. We had spent nearly every day together for two years planning for this event, but the stress of it had created a rift of silence.

The following words are from the second 2014 Kickstarter update

Josh and I were drinking last night to celebrate (…) and we talked about how we don't know how to win. He said he knew how to swim towards the light of the coast, or something tips-poetic of that effect, and I told him if you needed someone to tread water instead of drown, I'm your man. We are not equipped to enjoy the excitement. Not yet. but it is wonderful.

I walk around with flashes of memories at all times--like reverse photographers are constantly assailing me. I can remember making this game for me at a table. I can remember the moment I realized it worked, and I can share it with the world, that it already is shared with the world. And I realize those things over, and over again every day. Stubborn reverse photographers. Stubborn subject with amnesia.

And then my online Spell Saga design journal, January 2015

It was at this point I lost any and all connection with Joshua, outside of social settings where we rank without speaking much a word to each other besides “congratulations”. We were both so terrified we ran away from everyone, including each other. It is an insular and lonely feeling to have a dream come true. I don’t know why, but we both felt the same about it.

On October 25th the game’s stretch goals were announced. These were bonus cards created through a combination of things I had scribbled down over the years, and anything I could think of in time. The only information given about the bonus cards was secretive names and scant details. At this point the public now knew as much about the cards as FTGco, as not even Lauren or I knew what the cards might look like, let alone what they could do. These Stretch goals ran from $12,000 to (eventually) $20,000, while strongly hinting at the release of the first Realmwalker game.

On November 21, Spell Saga’s 2014 Fundraiser ended at 180% overfunded. And they still weren’t done. Using a website called Backerkit, extra funds were raised to bring the total up over $20,000—twice the amount FTGco. had originally asked for. The group got together at Paxson of Ashgarden’s house for a group pic (Sakroka & Lauren missing) while I celebrated five years of design work on Spell Saga.

In December of 2014, I flew to visit Lauren. Together we finished the Deck Two PnP (version 1), and worked on Spell Saga together in the same room for the first time ever. During the visit both fell violently ill, and Lauren redid every single Deck 2 ENEMY illustration while her friends and I kept her company playing video games on the floor.

Deck 2 (version 1) was made available to Kickstarter backers through a private link on December 19th of 2014. At this time, I also lost his part-time job. Panicked and broke, I quickly started a Patreon page to showcase his art projects. Also offered were a 15 card PnP only set of Spell Saga cards called Places +. This was joined by advertisements for a now cancelled “legendary edition” of The Highlands—a new form of Deck One culled from the world of the original 2009 index cards.

  HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Fall of French Toast Era (2015 - 2016)

The beginning of 2015 was rife with problem solving. Both the amount of cards being printed and the price to do so were changing repeatedly, due to miscommunication between publish and printer.

Other issues arose while designing the card mechanics and artwork for the various stretch goals. Lauren and I fell back to art-skyping one another daily over the course of several weeks. Only this time, Lauren would start drawing a card, and I designed the mechanics while watching her. In this manner, all Deck One bonus cards were finished on January 11, 2015.

On January 14, the contract for the printing was signed and dated. In the end, FTGco was left with 18 extra cards which would need to be created in a hurry. With Lauren back at school and out of commission, these cards would need to be finished without her. The 15 card “Places +” pack (originally PnP only) took up most of those empty slots, while 3 rare cards were designed to finish it out. These included two cards of palette swapped or modified artwork.

After getting in touch with the manufacturer, it became apparent the cards would need to be redesigned once more before they could be printed. That meant I would have to Photoshop Deck One from the ground up for the tenth time, micro-adjusting everything down to the correct colors for CMYK printing.

By February, FTGco was stuck. The manufacturing process was now in the hands of two separate entities: the US pre-production side, and a pre-press team in Hong Kong. Communication with either was spotty at best. During this time I began to design the 25 card Prelude Deck on a giant sheet of paper. I also opened up the first online Spell Saga shop for pre-orders.

The plans to have everything printed and ready slipped from March to June.

On February 28th I finished all of the files for the packaging of the game, based on the templates provided to me. But on March 1, the Pre-Press team in Hong Kong sent over the bad news: both the packaging and the cards would need to be redone completely. This was due to miscommunicated size specifications. Todd resigned himself to fixing the graphics of Deck One for an 11th time.

More problems arose: The manufacturer’s original shipping quotes for the game were wrong. This would affect the budget. The bonus cards were planned poorly, and this would also affect the budget. Continual miscommunication and language barriers meant weeks of work would be undone with an email. Unable to leave the house due to Photoshopping, Todd began to pay himself in order to get the cards done on time.

Joshua and I began a second season of the podcast, where they discussed their worries about money and constantly shifting plans.

It was decided to launch the foreign language editions as soon as possible. I made plans for another fundraiser, this time on the indiegogo platform. The hope was to get as many eyes on the game as possible, while giving anyone who missed the previous fundraiser a chance to grab the game, all while making up the money already lost to production.

Between April and May of that year, it was decided FTGco would pay the manufacturer an additional sum of money to print the 25 card prelude deck I had started designing. The idea was to gift this to all fundraiser patrons for their patience. It was a good idea, except that it pushed the price and timing of the deliverables even further out, I had yet to finish creating the deck, and had yet to secure permission from the game’s illustrator. And after two straight years of nothing but Spell Saga, Lauren was far both too busy with school, and as burned out as everyone else.

That Spring, due to more bad templates, the packaging was redone yet another two times. After this, a mock-up version of the Deck 1 holofoil sleeve was overnighted for me to inspect. It turned out to be the wrong size, and I had to remake it a fourth time.

Still, progress continued. The first digital proof arrived from the US pre-production team, showing the finished cards together on one sheet as they would appear on the printing press. Todd began commuting weekly to work on an (eventually scrapped) Italian translation with the mother of a family friend. And with the prelude design nearly finished, Lauren found the time to illustrate three folk cards for the Prelude Deck, each based on a different backer from the 2014 Fundraiser. For the other art that was needed, Todd would again swap palettes from existing illustrations.

Another fundraiser was planned and executed poorly.

2015 Fundraiser

On June 29th 2015 The New Language Launch appeared on IndieGoGo and was immediately cancelled.

On June 30th 2015 I made the course-correcting and embarrassing decision to move the 2015 fundraiser from IndieGoGo to Spell Saga’s original home on the Kickstarter platform. This would mark the launch of The Prelude Deck (English) PnP. It was also the launch of the Deck One (German PnP), translated by Raimund Ruppel over the previous two years. The Portuguese edition, originally scheduled for the fundraiser, would not be available for another three months.

In the first few days of August, I watched Joshua and Sakroka play test The Prelude Deck, which was greeted with interest and enthusiasm. This was a relief, as there was no time for any design flaws before sending the files to the printer.

During this fundraiser several projects were announced: these included a multi-player version of the game entitled Super Spell Saga, several smaller decks customized to the wishes of certain players, and two more expansion decks titled 1.5 The Under Sky, & 2.5 The Heart of The Roots, all of which would eventually be cancelled or shelved indefinitely. The only 2015 announcements that would come to fruition were the Paladin level unique holofoil cards, as well as special MYTH cards which were originally announced as PnP exclusives.

In early August, the packaging for the Prelude deck was finished for the first time and uploaded to the printer, only to be rejected by the Hong Kong pre-press team. Some of the cards would have to be redone once more, while every finished packaging file would need to be remade yet another time. Due to the delays this would cause, Todd asked that the newly announced MYTH cards be included on the backs of the rules cards.

On August 13th, 2015 the first ever pre-production copy of Spell Saga arrived overnight from the manufacturer in Shenzhen. This copy was meant to be a physical and final check-point before the start of mass production. Some differences from the final edition included slight color variations, laser-printed test holofoil cards (and sleeve), as well as a noticeable difference in card texture.

I played through the game several times, and then brought it to Joshua and Sakroka, who each had a chance to try the cards. Paxson of Ashgarden looked through the decks at a later date, before they were sent to their final home with Lauren.

This would prove to be the not unforeseen but (to this day) last involvement of both Sakroka & Paxson of Ashgarden in the Spell Saga project, both who would remain sorely missed.

By the end of August, Emanuele Pierangelo started translating the game into Italian, with the agreement that the PnP would be released exclusively through Emanuele’s Fever Games company.

In September, a second digital pre-press arrived from Shenzhen, this one filled with errors. These were corrected by the end of the month, and on October 5, 2015 mass production began on Spell Saga in the Shenzhen factory.

In October I started the first pre-production notes for Spell Saga Deck 1.5 ~ The Under Sky. The challenges of this project were worrying, as without Lauren, there would be no new card art, and the deck (as it was advertised) had to bridge an unnecessary gap of design and story between decks 1 and 2. I also worried the design was coming from strictly an emotional point of view, and might provide little to no narrative experience for the player.

Having passed the one year anniversary of the 2014 Fundraiser, and with no finished product to show for it, a sense of pressure began to mount. I began to spread himself across multiple projects, unsure of which to move forward with. Feeling lost and alone, I began to slip into a depression. The game had become a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

~ realmwalker ~ Prelude: Science//Armor//Romance

In late October, I began design work on Spell Saga ~ realmwalker ~ Prelude: Science//Armor//Romance (rwPSAR).

Two massive design issues were apparent from the beginning: the first was creating a compelling standalone story in the Spell Saga universe, while using highly advanced Spell Saga mechanics—the second issue was more practical: in 2013 Lauren had finished illustrations for the game’s protagonists. But now that she had stepped away to focus on school, the rest of the cards would have to rely on prose.

With a handful of notes and blank index cards from 2013, I set about trying to thematically marry mechanics and narrative, and did my best to continue adding to the lore and story of a half-finished universe. I also decided to use the game as a way to explore my thoughts on alcohol and gender. Even still, I wouldn’t understand the true scope of the game (both in the Spell Saga timeline and in the identities of the protagonists) until 2019.

An incomplete prototype of index cards was assembled. But the game design proved so tricky, that work on it moved into a Photoshopped version, just so I could play test it correctly.

I printed sheets of half-blank uncut cards at a local printer, and brought them everywhere, from the library to the laundromat, so I could transcribe the notes and new ideas needed to generate all 75 cards.

By the end of November, the first version of Spell Saga rwPSAR was finished and ready for a first edition PnP release. Work on a rulebook continued until the release date: December 6, 2015, the six-year anniversary of Spell Saga.

When the cards were nearly finished,I brought a set to Joshua’s house for a play test. We recorded this for the podcast.

On November 30th, Todd received the first manufactured copy of Spell Saga, including test prints of the holofoil cards and deck sleeve.

Two manufacturing issues were apparent: the first was that the sleeve had been printed on gold card stock. I made the painful decision to eat the cost and have it printed correctly on silver. It was Joshua who found the second problem: the holofoil cards had been cut too large.

This moment would sadly become the last of Joshua’s involvement with the Spell Saga. And 2015 would end with nothing manufactured, no shipping date in site, and a quickly dwindling amount of funds. Though Lauren had not officially quit, it seemed I was now left alone to finish what my friends and I had started.

In January of 2016, I received a second manufactured copy of the game, including newly recut holofoil cards, which were still the wrong size. Making matters worse: this was no longer a production copy. All 1500 units of the game had been finished.

It was around this time I realized the packaging lacked any commercial appeal—something necessary to market the game properly to both consumers and potential reviewers.

This was a dark period of the game’s development, and I was slipping further into a circumstantially-based depression. Unable to see a way out from the horror, I shut himself down and kept working on the project.

It was around this time that Emanuele Pierangelo’s Italian translation was ready to be Photoshopped.

Throughout January and February, several more packages arrived. The first was a set of twice-recut holofoil cards. As these appear damaged, another edition was overnighted from the factory in Shenzhen.

I also decided at this time to test out Print-on-Demand capabilities for future games. I chose RWpsar and the Italian version of Deck 1 for these test prints, using a new website called The Game Crafter. And since printed cards would need packaging, I spent February designing the boxes for both games.

The Italian language PnP Edition of Spell Saga launched on a leap day: February 29th, and was available exclusively on the Fever Games website.

By March, it had been seventeen months since the fundraiser had ended, and patrons were starting to vocalize their concerns. These worries were greeted by a series of startling announcements:

I had negotiated a deal with the manufacturer to pay for 300 finished units of the game to be air-shipped over from the Shenzhen factory—enough for every back to receive the game they had paid for. The cost of this endeavor rose 400% after the announcement, but I felt it was worth it. Printing and giving away The Prelude Deck had been a good step for consumer relations, but more was needed to make good on a growing social debt.

More news followed: with dwindling resources and a reworked contract, I himself would pay to have Deck Two printed overseas—and not only that, I would pay to scrap every finished piece of packaging, and spend the time and money to redesign it for another round of printing. This was a costly idea—since the game was already printed and waiting in a warehouse in Hong Kong, this meant the cards would have to be removed from the boxes, set aside, and placed back into their newly printed packaging.

In April Spell Saga was previewed in Italy at the PLAY faire.

In Spring I was given the bad news—the 300 units to be air-shipped were no longer coming—as they were being held by the manufacturer until the remaining balance of the print job was paid. With limited funds and the re-done packaging still months away, the manufacturer and I agree on a new contract, which allowed the 300 units to be shipped to him.

With little capitol left, I spent his time searching for extra jobs. I would find the capital he needed by working multiple late night jobs involving the sale and advertisement of cigarettes and alcohol. Both the drinking and the hours soon spiraled into a lifestyle. This would have negative consequences on both my productivity and headspace.

In June of 2016, rwPSAR was pulled from its home on The Game Crafter after a typo was found which rendered the game impossible to win. Due to this, and the growing length of manufacturing, the original online shop for spellsaga.com was closed at this time.

July brought with it Spell Saga’s first attempts of the new packaging. This was based on the branding of the Italian edition/ But without new art, I was uncertain how to maintain a matching look for decks prelude and two.

Work began on the next Realmwalker installment, entitled The Discordant Shore (rwTDS). The concept of this game’s design began with the original plans for the unique holofoil cards promised during the 2015 Fundraiser.

Those cards had been promised without any plans of execution, but I had made another unannounced deal with the manufacturer: the gold holofoil which had been purchased for the special edition sleeves had been scrapped in favor of a silver printing. When this happened, I paid to have the gold cut into card shapes, and packed up with the 300 air-shipped units. My plan was to have these gold cards sent out to backers with unique handwritten rules on them.

But Concerned these unique handwritten cards would go to waste, I set about designing a deck that would include the same cards (thus ruining the intended effect of a unique holofoil).

Work continued on rwTDS from July until November. The original intent of the game to harness duplicate versions of unique cards had now shifted away into an emotionally engaging story with connections to Spell Saga’s protagonist. By October, the narration and general game design were finished before the project was put away.

In July, the 300 air-shipped units arrived. The excitement of this delivery was undercut by two problems: the first was the holofoil sleeves would need to be autographed. This meant the sleeves would have to be sent to Florida, signed by Lauren, and sent back to me to be signed again. This would have to happen before anyone could receive their copies.

The second problem was the rulebook would need to be completely rewritten. I had spent the previous three years playing Spell Saga and was now sure the overly-long rulebook and it’s quick-start guide could be paired down into one simplified book.

In October of that year, things got worse for Spell Saga. Due to a misquote from a USPS employee, the 300 air-shipped units sitting in my living room would now cost double the amount to mail out to patrons.

If that wasn’t bad enough, concerned with a lack of progress, the manufacturer decided they would not be printing any new packaging, or Deck Two until the rest of the original deposit was paid. The product would be warehoused in Shenzhen until such a time as payment could be made, and Todd would have to pay for this as well. This meant that all funds for the game would need to be diverted away from the air-shipped units and back toward the manufacturer, just so the second round of printing could begin.

With everything falling apart around him, I decided to lean into all promises made, switching design work from rwTDS to Deck 1.5 The Undersky. And with the arrival of the first set of autographed holofoil sleeves from Lauren, I also made a proclamation: all 300 units will be sent out to Fundraiser patrons in the following month: December of 2016.

Everything around Spell Saga was teetering on hard work and good luck. But it fell apart in December of 2016, when I lost both of my jobs.

HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Lost in The Forest Era (2017 - 2018)

It was January of 2017 and once again, I was working two jobs. The first was a restaurant a half hour away, in my childhood hometown (this would have its effect) and the other was back at my old gig doing cigarette promotions.

But there were problems beyond my finances: the pressures of public scrutiny, a marriage living in a self-imposed poverty, and losing two jobs at once had caused my body to physically break down. On Christmas Day I was unable to move, and wondering if I could continue living. It had now become apparent that learning to navigate the stress of the project would become as important as overcoming financial burdens.

The 300 air-shipped units had been promised to be sent out in December, but due to my loss of income, it took until January to start sending out packages. But even this was halted, as the invisible deadline of paying off the manufacturer now grew in the distance.

By January second, work on Deck 1.5 ~ The Under Sky continued. Notes and sketches were transferred into Photoshop so that cards could be play tested. This was a necessity, as many of the cards were double-faced: spinning the card 180 degrees during gameplay would change the Card Rules and even Card Type.

The colors of the backgrounds, as well as the opening lines on the first STORY card reflect how I was feeling at this time: numb, lost and abandoned. The packaging for a future Print-on-Demand release was also designed.

I continued working on 1.5 ~ The Under Sky throughout February and March.

On March 3, 2017 I visited The Under Sky for the first time. I was relieved to find it still “felt” like Spell Saga—but design flaws were gratuitous. I played once more on March 14, writing out copious notes for the next round of Photoshop design. Then I put it away.

March that felt like the first real breath of fresh air in the project—as the final payment toward the original print run was manufactured. I could now begin printing the newer packaging and the cards for Deck 2 (just as soon as I found the money to do so).

The relief of this, coupled with driving to his childhood hometown every week, had an effect. The long hair and black outfits I was wearing to cope with depression were gone. I bleached my hair and colored it another hue every week. I began dressing in bright colors, with tie-dye shirts and flashy basketball sneakers. All of this would prove to be an omen for the next phase of both graphics and game design.

In May, time was split between a simplified redesign of Deck 1.5 The Under Sky, and a brand new redesign of Deck 2 ~ The Forest.

That month it was also announced that the original December 2016 ship-date for the 300 air-shipped units had been moved to July 2017. But perhaps most importantly, in May I reached out to Lauren, and we agreed to finish the rest of the game together.

We started with the most necessary piece of all: a new image for the packaging of Deck Two. I would spend May & June compiling a brand new art list for Deck 3 , as well as the next Realmwalker deck: The Discordant Shore (rwTDS).

Much of this was announced in a May 22, 2017 Kickstarter update entitled “198 Days Later”.

In June, our beloved pet, “Ellie The Dog” died, and was immortalized in Deck 2’s unexpected MYTH card: The Ellethay, based on one of Lauren’s unused ENEMY sketches from 2013.

But the biggest change to Deck 2 ~ The Forest was in the redesign of the overall gameplay. ITEM cards gained new abilities, PLACE cards gained Attack abilities, and play-testing resulted in a much more cohesive experience. but something was still wrong: Having to solve the basic puzzle to escape the Deck felt too simple.

It was remembering one of my old tweets that solved the problem: “Kill Yourself in One of Nashville’s 7 Golden Circles!” I began to imagine a Forest filled with magical circles, each needing to be unlocked before moving forward. I even pulled in Lauren’s illustrations of the Golden Goblin & The Copy-Cat to help him guide the player. And for dialogue, I chose a specific manner of speaking, an overly-friendly rough-and-tumble approach to conversation I had learned from his job as a cigarette sales rep. Talking in this manner had allowed me to get people’s attention, which helped me keep the job (which in turn financed the game). Now that same specialized drawl would help guide The Last Minstrel toward the end of The Forest.

By the end of June 2017, Deck 2 ~ The Forest had never felt so correct. But there was a mounting pressure: the game would have to go to print, and soon. This meant the narrow window for any last-minute redesigns was coming to a close.

The 300 air-shipped units had now slipped their schedule once more, moving from July to TBD (the plan was now to send them out when the rest of the cards arrived).

More play-testing and note-making occurred throughout July, and Deck 2 was finished on August 6th, 2017.

There was no rest for the weary, however, as the finished versions of the new packaging would be redone—twice, after the manufacturer send the wrong templates.

In July I had switched jobs to a different restaurant, where I started teaching the game to co-workers. Due to the boredom of late night bar life, I was able to teach people without the use of a 50+ page rulebook. It became apparent the game was easier to learn than expected. This was important. I had pushed past the depression of making the game, but had yet to find the joy in it again. Having people like the game reminded me why I had made it in the first place.

With Fall would come a triumph: In November 16, I received the mock-ups of the brand new packaging.

The joy was short lived, as communication breakdowns between Todd, his American contacts, and the factory in Shenzhen caused all the plans to go on hiatus until the end of the year.

2018 would start with a Skype call between me and my long-suffering American contact. The plan to repackage the decks was cleared up, but quickly followed by bad news: the cost had been misquoted, and even more funds would be needed.

In February, a new contract was signed, and in March the first production copies of Deck 2, it’s holo-sleeve, and the new packaging, arrived. It had been 1,218 days since the 2014 Fundraiser had ended, and everything was finally correct. With this, I gave the go-ahead for mass production to begin.

The next few months would see a mad scramble for funds—but some good news too: the shipping costs to freight the product from Shenzhen to TN was cheaper than expected. This was followed by even more good news—my parents decided to help with a generous donation. This was followed by the best news: in June, due to another miscommunication, it was discovered the shipping costs had already been factored into the final contract. My final payment to the factory was made on June 5th, 2018, and by the end of the month, Spell Saga was finally crossing the ocean by freighter.

In June of 2018 a second attempt at printing Realmwalker through POD resources resulted in its rarest form yet: two prototype decks that were created before the idea was scrapped altogether.

I spent the month-long wait for the cards carefully, re-reading every single update and comment from the 2014 & 2015 Fundraisers, and making lists of all the plans and promises I had made over the years. Then I began making plans for a bankrupting amount of gifts for those who had spent the most, or waited the longest.

One of these gifts was a box with 25 different designs, to be given at random to anyone who spent over $100 on the 2014 fundraiser. I uploaded a video of a test printing, and invited backers to pick which looked better, the gloss or matte edition.

On July 27th, 2018: Spell Saga arrived on my doorstep.

My friend and co-worker named “Josie” Ray had become a secret weapon of play testing, and it was only fitting she was there when the packages arrived. The excitement of the moment was struck down by one critical fact: after opening every box, it was obvious the holofoil sleeves for Deck One were missing.

 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

PMPK Era (2018 - 2019)

Before the cards arrived, I read through every comment and update (there were over 2000), and made a list of everything I had promised to players since the 2013 Failed Fundraiser. I named the file PMPK🎃, or “Promises Made & Promises Kept.”

Every promise I had made since 2014 was like a problem to solve. If something seemed no longer valid, or out of reach, my fix was to give the players something greater. To facilitate this, I made plans to nearly bankrupt myself by printing unique and limited gifts for the everyone who had waited on the game.

In August of 2018 it was discovered the manufacturer had lost the original holofoil sleeves and that all 1200 would need to be reprinted. This was free of charge and quoted at three weeks of work. I saw this as an opportunity to update the sleeve with brighter colors and a logo for my new company: SUBHEATHEN. Printing began in Shenzhen on August thirteenth.

That same week the “Quick-Start” guide went live on the brand new SpellSaga.com (now tucked into SUBHEATHEN.com). This guide took me the better part of a month, and was based on the nights spent teaching co-workers in the restaurant.

Through August and into September, I began work on the Paladin level unique holofoil cards. These had began life in 2015 as a promise of handmade cards, but three years of technological advancement made it possible to print holofoil cards at a low cost. I designed the cards based on my notes from 2015. Each would only be printed once, and given out randomly to backers who had spent a certain amount of money. The hardest part was matching the tone of Deck One (written in 2011) while attempting to reveal startling information to whoever received a card.

These cards were finished on September 6th, but needed to be redone twice due to wrong templates from a new manufacturer. They arrived a week later on September 12th.

That same day, a free play mat for high-dollar backers was announced with a picture on social media. The next day, a pre-production copy of the new deck one holo-sleeve arrived overnight from Shenzhen. Due to another miscommunication with the factory, this sleeve had a high-gloss finish instead of a matte, making it shinier and brighter than the originals. A welcome mistake.

Later in the week, the new versions of the 2014 Fundraiser tees were announced on social media, including a special one-of-a-kind realmwalker oversized shirt for to a fan. That same day the holofoil “Survivor Prize” PLACE card was announced.

The following week the “Weatherguard” background was created for a limited run of custom boxes and binders. These would be used to ship prototype decks and original art by Lauren. This Background would go on to become integral to the branding of the game.

On September 20th, the package containing 1200 new deck one holofoil sleeves arrived at the Fedex center in Nashville. And with it, the long challenge of printing Spell Saga was now over. 100 of these sleeves were sent immediately to Florida for Lauren to autograph.

In the last week of September, the “I Survived The Highlands” stickers arrived. These were sent out with every non-review copy of Spell Saga until I finally ran out of them in 2020.

The next week would see the arrivals of a prototype binder, several boxes, and the finished all-over print tee shirts.

In October, $500 dollars worth of 300-count custom card boxes arrived. There were 25 different boxes in all, to be given at random to anyone who spent over $100 during the 2014 Fundraiser.

Later that month a surprise printing of Deck 2’s first bonus card is announced. This was a card originally promised during the 2013 Failed Fundraiser. The new and much smaller Spell Saga Rulebook was also finished and made available online.

October also saw the arrival of Lauren’s autographed deck one holofoil sleeves, as well as several sketch cards. These sketches were drawn on the backs of our recycled gold foil card stock from the factory in Shenzhen, and they were made especially for high dollar backers, based on a promise Lauren had made during the 2014 Fundraiser.

Lauren also sent over a one-of-a-kind ENEMY sketch, drawn across the original music box prototype from 2013. The original sound chip had long burned out, so I took this opportunity to use new technology and create a longer and louder version (the song it played was “Grain” by “Cricket Engine”, the official theme song of Spell Saga).

On November 20th worldwide shipping finally began for Spell Saga. I included a letter printed on purple paper, as well as a copy of my debut album by his band EFFORTS, which was released on Halloween of that year.

By the start of December, special gifts were now ready for the game’s highest backer: Derek Davis. These gifts included a custom dice bag, custom “gaming crate” shoulder bag, and a 12”x14” shadow box filled with many of the game’s original design documents, as well as a special holofoil print of The Last Minstrel by artist Weshoyot Alvitre.

In December I also began to send away all the Spell Sags prototypes. These would include a personalized letter about the construction of each deck. And, as promised during the 2015 Fundraiser: the game’s original Design Journal was sent to a fan in Brazil, while the first ever index card prototype was sent to another in New Zealand. Among these unique items was a special item, purchased in 2015 by a special fan: The Black Magic Box was a product containing three items from the game’s inception.

At the end of the year, I inexplicably found myself driving through St. Charles, Missouri over the Holidays—the exact same place (and time of year) that I had developed Spell Saga nearly a decade before.

As I wrote on social media:

“Highlands weather. It is odd to be in Missouri again. Back when I used to come here for Christmas the only way I could handle the wind and the cold was to pretend I was The Minstrel in The Highlands. It was research for a story/game that wasn’t even a feasible object. Now it’s real, and somehow by sheer coincidence. I find myself in Missouri once more. I think I see The Undersky in the distance...”

On December 27th I met with Derek Davis for the first time in Kansas City. On the drive back, I stopped by a general store in the middle of nowhere, and purchased three sets of index cards. This was a promise to myself to start work on Deck 3.

In January of 2019 I became ill with a virus and spent several weeks medicated on the couch. During recovery I created a 30 square foot artwork to-do list and attached it on the wall above my desk. At least half the work on the spreadsheets were Spell Saga related.

I called Lauren and we spoke about what was left to do. During this conversation we agreed to finish Deck 3, along with art for several Realmwalker games. We also decided to start a new company together: The After The World Ended Committee, (ATWE//COMM) for all Spell Saga related business.

By the middle of February, design work for The Caves had began in earnest.

On February 14th, a screenshot for a card in progress was released as a teaser for Deck 3. A few weeks after this, a proper announcement promised the deck would be released in October of 2019.

But unknown to the general public, Todd and his wife were now expecting a baby.

Work on The Caves continued throughout February. By the end of the month, a doctor’s visit confirmed the baby would be born in October, in the same month of the upcoming release. This gave Lauren and I roughly 7 months to finish our work. Cards and gameplay were designed on paper without ever seeing index cards. Graphic design was started as soon as the concepts of the deck were thought up. I borrowed heavily from the look of the unreleased Deck 1.5.

As I wrote on social media:

“I want spell saga deck 3 to feel like Maren’s Pass—which is a fictional arcade game I dreamed about last night. It was so real that I Googled it when I woke up.”

Throughout March worldwide shipping continued as I poured my paychecks into fulfilling rewards from both the 2014 & 2015 Fundraisers. Though most packages seem to go through International customs just fine, more than enough were lost or rejected, only to appear back at my home. Each of these had to be repackaged, and the same amount of expensive postage spent to send them a second time.

The time and money was balanced out by the messages and responses of the players, who had waited patiently for nearly half a decade for their chance to own Spell Saga. On March 25th, the game’s first ever unboxing video is shared by Portuguese translator Dual Pistoleiro.

During this time, there was an additional worry: mice had began to infiltrate our home. I could hear them scratching at the boxes in the middle of the night.

Most of March was spent with my time split between Deck 3 and finishing SpellSaga.com. And on March 27th, the last package was sent to the Fundraiser backers, after 1,616 days of waiting.

 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

ATWE Era (2019 - 2020)

This era overlaps with the PMPK era by two months.

In February of 2019, Lauren and I agreed to spend the next few months finishing everything Spell Saga would need for the next few years. We also decided to form a new company: The After The World Ended Committee (ATWE//COMM). A logo and announcement for this was posted on social media on March 4.

Through March and April, I met with dudes who hoped to turn Spell Saga into an online game. Our second meeting they showed me a working opening menu they had created in Unity, along with some rough demo gameplay. The entire project capsized when they tried to give us a bad deal.

On April 8th I announced on social media that Meagen and I were having a baby. I did this with a picture taken from the ultrasound, where our first sight of the baby had an uncanny resemblance to a certain Last Minstrel.

Also that month, work resumed on finishing the Quick-Start Guide, and a new graphic was added showing how to stack the cards to play along.

By the end of the month, Deck one The Highlands PnP is redone (for the 12th time) to make it look nicer than ever. Cards now feature both the ATWE//COMM & SUBHEATHEN logo. And SpellSaga.com starts collecting email addresses in lieu of Print-at-Home payment (both Deck 2 and Prelude were originally $5 to download the file).

Lauren had also started teasing Deck 3 enemies by this time.

April also saw work begin on redoing the previously released but pulled Realmwalker 1 (RWpsar). Updates at this time included a complete graphic design overhaul, and various typographical errors based on a list from Ian Johnston (a fan who had previously created a cardboard “save game” system for RWpsar 1.0.

On April 18th, RWpsar 2.0 was finished, and a gallery of cards made available to peruse. I also made the decision to make the box and back of cards branding significantly different from Spell Saga. On April 27th the first and only physical edition of this version arrived. This featured a box with shiny gloss.

In May of 2019 it was time to start getting the new online shop ready. I teased a new play mat on social media, as well as some test footage for a new video advertisement. I also made Spell Saga’s first post-Kickstarter press release (I would send this to various reviewers and media outlets throughout 2019, but it was retired when no one seemed to care for it).

On May 8th, my wife and I spent an afternoon creating slow motion footage to use in selling the game. May 15th, the second Spell Saga online shop opened using the Squarespace platform. This version of the shop launched with gifs in place of product photos (another thing I dropped when people didn’t seem to care for it).

Also that day I was featured on a podcast called CardCasters, ran by Spell Saga fans Zach Phoenix and Jeremy Bartlett

On May 23, I sat down to finish the caves, and discovered most of the front-end “thought crunching” had been done in February. A week later, the first ENEMY card prototypes were previewed across social media.

In June Meagen and I found out we were having a girl, and that there might be complications. This would have its effect, both on my ability to focus, and how lost I would get escaping into ideas.

In 2011, I had finished the first draft of a manuscript, only to throw myself into Spell Saga with a 3 month deadline. Now my time would be spent trying to finish a second draft of that same manuscript, while also desperately trying to get (at least) the game design for Deck 3 finished before the baby arrived (another 3 month or so deadline). When I wasn’t working on these things, I was renting electric scooters and flying round town just to sate the strange level of panic I felt everyday.

By June 19th, the new plan was to have a playable demo of Deck 3 available by the original October release date. And by the end of the month, I was designing The Underground City, an integral piece of Deck 3.

As I wrote on social media:

“I really enjoy the ideas behind The Underground City. Which only happened because I imagined The Last Minstrel & (spoiler) sitting around in a skyless open-air city, ordering drinks and being bummed out together in the torch light.”

The first Spell Saga video advertisement went live on June 27th.

July 3 saw the release of the first ever Spell Saga play through video, courtesy of Michael D. Kelley and his YouTube channel, ”One Stop Co-Op Shop”. That same day Lauren finished the art for Deck 3’s DEEP-DARK ENEMY cards. These were a tricky concept from 2011 that involved attaching cards to one another to create interchangeable art and rules.

The rest of July and most of August was spent designing the last battle. I had originally envisioned (and pitched) the third deck to finish just before the end o the story, and have a final 25 card “endlude” deck be a giant battle (this was even designed and printed for the 2011 Gen Con Box). But during the Summer of 2019 I realized it made sense to split Deck 3 into multiple decks, and have the final battle be part of the experience.

I was able to finish the second draft of my manuscript in early August, and focused the rest of my time trying to get Deck 3 into a good place before the baby arrived. But during the Summer I was so worried about the baby that I started to crack. During my spare time I began writing Spell Saga as a manuscript, often on no sleep, just to escape from everything I was supposed to be doing.

At the end of August I finally made good on an old threat to visit my brothers in New York City. While I was there we met up with Jeremy Bartlett (the first stranger to ever ask about Spell Saga online) and Avri Klemer (a vocal supporter of the game since 2013). Both were so integral to the growth of the game that Lauren and I made them both into FOLK cards back in 2015.

Later that night I ran around Coney Island in the dark, pretending I was in The Last Battle, and made sure to soak up as much of the beach at night as I could for research purposes.

On September 11, 2019 Spell Saga’s Online Shop was rebuilt from version 2.0 to 2.5 (still on Squarespace through the SUBHEATHEN.com site). By the end of the month, this entire shop will be scrapped and work commences on a brand new shop based on the Shopify platform.

The idea of a playable demo in time for October has long been scrapped. I spent most of September putting the final touches on Deck 3’s design. Though most of the cards are still missing card rules, art, and graphic design, the actual document for “how everything works” is finalized to a good stopping point. The last thing I work on before the baby arrives is ideas for Underground Monks (another hold-over form the 2011 Gen Con Box).

Our daughter Valentine Starlight Rogers was born happy and healthy at the end of October. On December 6th 2019, I posted a picture of her on the game’s ten year anniversary.

In the middle of December I pulled my psoas muscle so badly I couldn’t walk for two weeks. I spent that time healing on the couch and reading books about web design, online branding, and marketing.

Ever since Spell Saga had funded in 2014, it had been trying to catch up with itself. When the cards finally arrived in 2018, I formed a loose four-part plan to get back on track. The first part was to make good on the promises I had made (this was the PMPK Era). The second part involved getting each backer their reward (a feat that was finally accomplished in March of 2019). The rest of that year was spent on the third part of the plan: getting Spell Saga’s web presence and marketing on track, something I was still struggling with as I headed into the final part of the plan, which was to present ourselves once again to the fanbase (to see if we even had one). 2020 would be treated as a relaunch of the brand. It had been six years since the Kickstarter had funded, and Lauren and I would have to face the possibility that no one cared about our game anymore.

In January my Father introduced me to a venture capitalist named Mr. Redacted. I wasn’t looking for investors, but I wasn’t against the idea either. Talking to Mr. Redacted could change my life and push Spell Saga into the big leagues. I sat down and wrote a sales pitch and called Mr. Redacted from my driveway. It was a courtesy call on his part, but he was intrigued and we made plans to keep speaking. Because of this, I wrote out a ten year timeline for Spell Saga. Then I separated the website from SUBHEATHEN.com, and built a new website from scratch.

This new site was made using the knowledge from the books and articles I had read on the couch, and by pilfering a lot of the content I had written for the “Last Minstrel” manuscript I had abandoned the previous Fall. On January 23, SpellSaga.com version 8.0 was launched 7 years to the day after Sakroka had created a Facebook page for the game.

I sent Mr. Redacted a package of cards, but we fell out of touch shortly thereafter.

In March of 2020 the Corona Virus shut down the entire world. I was now jobless and being paid to work on art from home. And because everyone else around the globe was stuck inside, I started talking about Spell Saga in places like Reddit and Facebook. From this I received enough information to redo the website yet again (version 8.5).

Part of the plan to check in with our fanbase meant that I needed to contact our former translators, and let them know their editions would be going back up soon (most foreign language editions had been unavailable since 2015). I was relieved to find each translator wanted to continue working together, and a server was set up to share card rules for Deck 2 and the 2018 rulebook.

On March 21, I created a new album cover for the Cricket Engine song we use as our OST.

Later that week I began working on the Social Shifting Cards, which had been neglected since 2015. Since the cards were digital only, I made the gallery a series of animated .GIFS. I also gave myself the challenge of creating the cards as if it were2015. I accomplished this by reading old blogs and listening through an archive of old voice memos. It was my hope the cards would reflect the times in which they should have been created, had I not lost track of finishing them. The new Social Shifting cards were launched on March 24th.

These were soon joined later by a page for the brand new Translated Editions of Deck 1. Each language featured a transforming .GIF to showcase the hard work each translator had put into the game.

By the end of March, the entire world is now forced to a standstill, with mass casualties, global job loss, international supply shortages, and conflicting information being posted about the virus daily.

I called Lauren on March 24 and read her my 10 year plan for Spell Saga. We had not worked together in months and it was important to find out if she would be okay with the direction I was heading. Luckily, she agreed on the plans and we decided April would be the official “social relaunch” of the game. We would release the 2019 version of RWpsar, and a newsletter would be sent to what I hoped was still our fanbase.

Lauren and I also agreed to finish Deck 3 and release it by October of 2020. The plan was for us to artSkype once again, and to start with the art for “The Last Weatherguard”, which will also be used as box art/ and an announcement.

In April I put the finishing touches on SpellSaga.com (8.5). This completed 18 months of continuous web design. I also purchase a premium template for Shopify and redo that store from the ground up. This, coupled with postings across Reddit and Facebook, leads to our first online sales in the new shop (which had been up and running for the last 6 months).

Lauren and I began using Instagram video calling to artSkype. At this point, we had not worked together on a screen for half a year. But instead of working on Deck 3, we decided to ease in more slowly. We planned a free “Stay at Home” Pandemic PnP expansion for Deck 1. This would consist of the 2018 Unique Paladin Level Holofoil cards. It was my idea to release them with hand drawn sketches instead of finished digital art. This way Lauren and I would be able to warm up working together, while getting things finished quickly for players stuck inside.

We spent two separate nights working through the ENEMY cards before it became impossible to finish in time for the upcoming newsletter. Worse yet, it was apparent that Lauren was not enjoying herself. I put together a video montage of us working together, but it was abandoned to focus on other content.

With a rough date set for the end of April, I sat down to play through RWpsar and make sure it worked. The game had already been pulled for a game-ruining typo in 2016, and we couldn’t afford a mistake during our “relaunch”. But after playing the game for twenty minutes, I made the drastic decision to redo the entire deck. Using the single test printing from 2019, I scratched out half the rules to simplify the game, even going so far as to change pertinent story details on the cards. This meant that roughly half the deck would have to be redesigned, from card rules to graphics. And I had two weeks to get it done (along with a new rulebook and its own page on the website).

As I wrote on social media:

“Here we go. Just over half the deck has now been trashed, changed and scribbled upon. And that’s just the ones with new rules or major changes. By the time I’m done fixing numbers and etc. nearly the whole deck will have been transformed. This makes sense. It’s a major theme of this particular story. Stay inside and stay safe everyone! Realmwalker will be ready soon.”

Spell Saga had its “Social Relaunch” on April 22. I made an email list of anyone had ever downloaded or purchased the game, and sent everyone on it the first Weather-Report in five years. This issue/blog post included a download link to the rwPSAR PnP, a form to sign up for physical copies, and the plans for Lauren and I had for the next few years. We promised Deck 3 would be available in October of 2020, and the next Realmwalker: The Discordant Shore would follow in April of 2021.

The feedback we received was very positive. Spell Saga was still had an excited fanbase, and it seemed all the terrible moments and money it cost to get people the game had been worth it.

As the Corona Virus raged on, email downloads began to steadily increase.

On May 4, 2020 Lauren and I talk for two hours. We hadn’t ArtSkyped for weeks, and I came to the epiphany that she needs to know that she can leave. 

On May 11, 2020 Lauren quits Spell Saga. I am now The Last Game Designer left on the project.