Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Indie, Card & Board Game
Takara Cards
Seasoning with a taste of 90's anime
Hi, my name is Keiko and I am artist and concept artist in Takara Cards!In this post, I will share a little bit behind the visual direction of the game!
Like many, I have fond memories of growing up in the 90's and getting in touch with anime for the first time through broadcast TV, They became HUGE here in Brazil where I am from, and everyday at school we would discuss the last episodes: whether Sailor Moon developed a new evolution of her powers, which Zodiac Knight was the strongest, the highlights of the tournament in Yu Yu Hakusho... looking back at that time, it felt like I was in an anime watch club of massive proportions! Watching those series and being able to talk to friends about it and also making new friends because we shared an interest for those animations made everything even more fun!
When Filipe Dilly - main game designer of Takara- told me that the visual direction of the game would make reference to the anime of those years, I was thrilled! There is a shared love in the team for tokusatsu and anime of the 80's and 90's, and we keep in mind that it should show in the final result.
Maybe these references will pop out to an attentive eye ;) The idea of creating for this universe in Takara making allusion to the anime of those years keeps me excited throughout the process!
Among other visual influences beyond those, one to remember is the video for "Bad Apple!!", part of the soundtrack of the Touhou Project series, which greatly impacted me!
If any there are any questions, feel free to leave it in the comments and we'll answer them!
Hi! My name is Filipe Dilly and I'm the main designer and programmer of Takara Cards. Me and three other people work on the game: Daniel Pinheiro (Animation, Art), Kawakeiko (Art, Concepts) and Rafael Assunção (Music).
Takara started with the idea of re-making our first game, NEXT JUMP, on another Engine (Godot) with HD graphics and some design improvements (plus a decent tutorial). The motivation for re-making a game rather than creating a new one was simple: Use this experience to learn and migrate to Godot (from Stencyl), as well as develop a production process between the three of us before making a more complex game.
But one Saturday afternoon, inspired by posts from designers making card games using a "regular deck of cards", I decided to make a simplified version of NEXT JUMP:
To my surprise, the game turned out great! Much better than the original, in my opinion. It's also easier to understand (the tutorial was one of the biggest problems with the original game)! I started experimenting with the idea of making a new "incarnation" of NEXT JUMP using cards as an interface, and Takara Cards was born!
The current game is more complex and deeper than the prototype above, but some things have remained, like the 3x4 grid:
One of the advantages of cards is the flexibility they give to the game: It is possible to make Equipment much more variable and interesting than before, which was one of the points I wanted to revisit in the original. And speaking of cards, the player have two types of "Decks": Equipment and Maneuvers. Up to six Weapons or Accessories cards can be "equipped" on the Ship and when your Hull drops to zero, the damage starts to hit the Equipment itself! "Breaking" the cards!
Maneuvers cards are the pilot's "skills" and the player can have as many as they want in the Deck. Maneuver cards can also "evolve" as you level up.
These are just a few examples of how different the game is from the original inspiration, but this post is long enough, so I'll end it here.
For our next post, we'll talk about the main influences on the game's visuals: Anime from the 80's-90's! :D
If you have any questions about the design, particularly how it compares to NEXT JUMP, feel free to ask in the comments below and we'll answer.
