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.