This took me about a full year to plan, record, dub, and edit. It was interesting but painful try to learn a bunch of skills and programs I've never used before. Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but if I did it again I think I could improve it slightly and have it done in about 1 month.
I'd definitely appreciate any feedback. My goal was to keep it under 10 minutes, but honestly, I don't think I could have possibly crammed it into a shorter video.
If you want to try Mana Spirits, you can try the print and play beta. The next step is to have a couple friends over and record a playtesting session, and then turn it into a video. Then I guess it's over to Kickstarter to see if it actually goes. The rules and cards are essentially set in stone at this point, with very, very minor tweaking left.
Unfortunately, it looks like Psyonic's twitch channel is gone, so the video of him and his friends playing seems lost
As someone who appreciates magic the gathering, I really respect you for actually following through and developing a working game complete with most/all of the bells and whistles. I'm much less of a drinker though so I'm glad it's not required.
The video looks pretty well made and informative. If you are looking for constructive criticism I can give one comment that sometimes as you cut from once sentence to the next, your volume and/or inflection changes somewhat dramatically (for example, when you talk about legendary cards for the first time), but it's still fine.
What is the most drinking you could be expected to do (if you drunk during all prompts to do so) in a worst case? If players could conceivably be prompted to drink an extremely large number of drinks (assuming bad luck?) and previously decided they would drink at all prompts, it could be harmful to their health and could create legal liability if you don't properly shield yourself from litigation. I see in the video you mention people should stop drinking if they don't feel they continue but frankly I don't know what that means.
Hey Chill. I'm kinda sad about my channel too. I was messing around with it at a friend's house and left it open on his PC and one of his kids got on and thought it would be funny to close my channnel, not knowing that it's permanent and unrecoverable. It was a sad day.
Missed the bit about whether you pay both mana cost and drink cost to play a card or can pay one or the other the first time through. It's technically in there at ~3:40 but since you don't go over it verbally, I missed it and had to revisit that part later in the video. I see a lot of youtubers who drink on their programs rip the labels off their beers, dunno if it's really a serious issue, but you can see the corona(or w.e.) logo near the end of the video. Last thing I thought was a little unclear was the thing with putting a fog token on a minion when first played. You explain that the token comes from the stock pile but your helper takes 2 from HER pile and then returns 1 to the stock and 1 on the card. This is a common sense shortcut for players who understand the mechanics but I felt was visually confusing when first learning the rules. I assume I'm correct in that her minion cost 2 mana to play and she just took the shortcut of putting 1 of them directly on the card?
On December 11 2016 04:53 micronesia wrote: The video looks pretty well made and informative. If you are looking for constructive criticism I can give one comment that sometimes as you cut from once sentence to the next, your volume and/or inflection changes somewhat dramatically (for example, when you talk about legendary cards for the first time), but it's still fine.
Turns out doing rerecording and matching volume and inflection is pretty difficult haha. I was so tired of making the video I just decided to accept it.
On December 11 2016 04:53 micronesia wrote: What is the most drinking you could be expected to do (if you drunk during all prompts to do so) in a worst case? If players could conceivably be prompted to drink an extremely large number of drinks (assuming bad luck?) and previously decided they would drink at all prompts, it could be harmful to their health and could create legal liability if you don't properly shield yourself from litigation. I see in the video you mention people should stop drinking if they don't feel they continue but frankly I don't know what that means.
That's true and definitely a concern. The most I'd expect to see people drink would be 3 beers in an hour. I have this more detailed section in the Rule Book:
On December 11 2016 12:04 Psyonic_Reaver wrote: Hey Chill. I'm kinda sad about my channel too. I was messing around with it at a friend's house and left it open on his PC and one of his kids got on and thought it would be funny to close my channel, not knowing that it's permanent and unrecoverable. It was a sad day.
Brutal
On December 11 2016 16:46 Vidarr_ wrote: Missed the bit about whether you pay both mana cost and drink cost to play a card or can pay one or the other the first time through. It's technically in there at ~3:40 but since you don't go over it verbally, I missed it and had to revisit that part later in the video. I see a lot of youtubers who drink on their programs rip the labels off their beers, dunno if it's really a serious issue, but you can see the corona(or w.e.) logo near the end of the video. Last thing I thought was a little unclear was the thing with putting a fog token on a minion when first played. You explain that the token comes from the stock pile but your helper takes 2 from HER pile and then returns 1 to the stock and 1 on the card. This is a common sense shortcut for players who understand the mechanics but I felt was visually confusing when first learning the rules. I assume I'm correct in that her minion cost 2 mana to play and she just took the shortcut of putting 1 of them directly on the card?
Very good feedback - thank you. I didn't realize the Mana Cost AND Drink Cost part wasn't clear, I'll look at cleaning that up. You also caught the part I was worried would be confusing about Fog Tokens - my wife paid 2 and then used the 1 as a Fog Token. I didn't realize we didn't have any footage of showing the sequence properly until I started editing. I'll see if I can fix these two issues with some text on screen to make it more clear.
On December 11 2016 21:22 CardinalAllin wrote: Looking good. You didnt get back to me about my 'Ice Queen' instead of 'Frozen Pawn' idea.
I got your PM but I didn't respond since I already started my Frozen Pawn company a few years ago
Ah you did see it, cool. Yeah, it was a while ago but after you'd already setup by another while. I thought Id say it still because in a way you hadnt launched on kickstarter or whatever but ofcourse theres many other problems (business related) (and you might not even like it anyway ha). But I thought it might be of passing interest. By the way, you set up the company quite early on in development of the game. In retrospect, would you do so again? I have a feeling you set up when you did specifically for something, but I cant remember.
On December 12 2016 07:24 CardinalAllin wrote: Ah you did see it, cool. Yeah, it was a while ago but after you'd already setup by another while. I thought Id say it still because in a way you hadnt launched on kickstarter or whatever but ofcourse theres many other problems (business related) (and you might not even like it anyway ha). But I thought it might be of passing interest. By the way, you set up the company quite early on in development of the game. In retrospect, would you do so again? I have a feeling you set up when you did specifically for something, but I cant remember.
As soon as I started paying for things (cards, artist, government fees), I set up the company to start taking losses in anticipation of one day actually making money and offsetting taxes. I also set it up early because the cards ended up early on Google searches somehow, without branding, so we wanted them to be associated with a game name and company name.
Hey Chill. I think right now the video looks OK but personally I think that because there's so much to it the hero level part is where the video made me yawn. I think that it's just a tad too complicated, personally. However, I understand the gist of it from this video which is a good sign!
Also, I think you should record how much you drink during a few games for your own analysis if nothing else. Just to make sure the costs aren't too high.
Finally, did you ever address what indicates your turn as being over and what to do at the start and end of every turn? I didn't see it anywhere. The full turn cycle was covered well by Donald X.'s game, Dominion (as an example of turn cycle being explained well), but not so well by your video. Having watched the whole thing and even clicked through the main sections of the video to see if it was bulleted on the side(I saw no bullet of this), I have nothing telling me the answer to this question.
edit: Also, I fully agree with Cardinal's post below.
Ah yep thats what I thought (about paying for things). Those google spider bots are scary, you should make a 'spiderbot' card as a evil one for a future expansion pack. Are you thinking of making a short 1 to 3 minute trailer video that simply introduces the game? 'Choose a hero, battle with minions, get drunk with friends. A sociable drinking game that combines classic trading card gameplay with getting tipsy. Perfect for playing before a night out or just a fun night in with your mates.' You know what I mean. For kickstarter that first impression is important. I wouldnt focus on the rules or the little tracker that stands infront of each player, just on the cards and the magic of the world, and then the drinking is the hook usp that is the talking point for elevator pitch/word of mouth spreading. Yeah you know all this already. Those are my tips, goodluck!
On December 12 2016 13:40 3FFA wrote: Also, I think you should record how much you drink during a few games for your own analysis if nothing else. Just to make sure the costs aren't too high.
For sure. That was a major concern during the first tests. I'll pay attention during the next one.
On December 12 2016 13:40 3FFA wrote: Finally, did you ever address what indicates your turn as being over and what to do at the start and end of every turn? I didn't see it anywhere. The full turn cycle was covered well by Donald X.'s game, Dominion (as an example of turn cycle being explained well), but not so well by your video. Having watched the whole thing and even clicked through the main sections of the video to see if it was bulleted on the side(I saw no bullet of this), I have nothing telling me the answer to this question.
I think it's clearer in the Rule Book than this video. There was a section about "gaining mana" and then "getting your cards ready for action" which is the start of your turn. Then the 5 actions you can do on your turn was essentially explaining the turn order. Your turn is just over when you say it's over, which was just mentioned in passing.
Dominion turns follow a much more structured order, which I don't think would really apply for this game.
On December 12 2016 22:29 CardinalAllin wrote: Are you thinking of making a short 1 to 3 minute trailer video that simply introduces the game? 'Choose a hero, battle with minions, get drunk with friends. A sociable drinking game that combines classic trading card gameplay with getting tipsy. Perfect for playing before a night out or just a fun night in with your mates.' You know what I mean. For kickstarter that first impression is important. I wouldnt focus on the rules or the little tracker that stands infront of each player, just on the cards and the magic of the world, and then the drinking is the hook usp that is the talking point for elevator pitch/word of mouth spreading. Yeah you know all this already. Those are my tips, goodluck!
I wasn't, but this is a really good idea. I'll start working on it. Thanks
Also, how long does a game take when everyone knows how to play? (Record for multiple player #'s, I think it should be listed on the box assuming it isn't very long.)
As for the manual... yeah... almost no one is going to read that =P
On December 14 2016 02:29 3FFA wrote: Also, how long does a game take when everyone knows how to play? (Record for multiple player #'s, I think it should be listed on the box assuming it isn't very long.)
As for the manual... yeah... almost no one is going to read that =P
I disagree. This is clearly being positioned as a serious strategic game, albeit one that involves drinking (and I agree with the posts above that a ballpark estimate is needed; for multiple player numbers, because I presume it takes more turns and thus requires more drinking with more players?). Anyway, tabletop games always come with complex rule books that you (at least 1 person in the game) are pretty much required to read if you want to play the game. This video pretty much replaces that, so for people who don't want to read, there's that, but the manual is still a useful reference.
I caught the fog tokens and was confused until I realized that the player must have paid the cost by placing the cap as a fog token, rather than putting it into the pile and then taking it back as a fog token. But that really isn't clear in the video. It also needs to be a bit clearer how you end your turn (it's clear from the context, but to somebody with less game experience it might be confusing).
Finally, I vehemently agree with the "teaser" video idea. This video is a replacement for the rulebook (great), but doesn't do a good job of marketing the game, and showing why I should "invest" in the kickstarter.
Hope all is well. Just wanted to reach out to see how much progress has been made on this game as I was looking forward to playing it with my friends.
Seemed like you were really passionate about it but I couldn't find any updates online anywhere. Anyways, I believe in you man! I think it looks amazing!
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BgSsfKI.png)
