In November of 2021, designers Osama Dorias (@osamadorias), Liz England (@lizardengland), and Samuel Boucher created How many designers does it take...to create a card game, a game jam where a hundred designers each create a tiny part of one game, in this case, a card game. I was one of 100 lucky designers that entered the jam in time, so here I will show you my creation and the design process that got me to it.
The rules of the game were pretty basic and understandable. 2 to 4 players start the game with 5 cards each, then play up to 2 per turn in a play zone in front of them. Your victory or defeat depends on the playable cards designed by the other jam participants, so I knew I wanted to create a card easy to understand and play, instead of creating a card that felt like it has another whole game inside of it.
My addition to the HMDDTMCG Jam was "Are you going to finish that?". Originally, I wanted to create a card that represented the known saying of One man's trash is another man's treasure, so with that in mind, my idea was a card that could be played whenever another player discarded something.
I then felt that the card was missing something, some sort of strange effect or requirement that could make my entry for the jam feel more special. Because this card interacts with another one that was from another player, I envisioned that asking them for their permission could create situations where both players might end up winning or losing something. The requirement of you needing their consent could create positive or negative interactions between those users, so it felt like a mechanic that would enrich the overall experience.
Regarding the card art, I wanted to draw something that showed someone asking politely, in a way that saying them no could be even impossible. The "are you going to finish that cwusont?" meme from Carl Wheezer in Jimmy Neutron came to my mind as just that, so instead of drawing a cat with teary eyes, I went with the redheaded boy and his insatiable hunger.
And that's it! Thanks for reading this article.